Dinosaur Crayons

We made these for The Midglet's birthday and put them in the favor boxes. It was such a simple, easy craft and I can't wait to make other shapes, too! 

Crafting tends to be a family affair with us, and I spent an afternoon at my sister's house getting all the make-ahead party stuff done with her and her family. I just LOVE how we all get into it, and this activity was no different!

I found this post on making dinosaur crayons when I was searching for, surprise!, dinosaur crayons to buy. This was much less expensive than anything I found. 

All you need is a silicone mold, crayons, an oven and voila! Fun crayon shapes.

I bought the silicone mold on ebay for around $7, but I also found it on amazon.com.

We started by peeling the paper off the crayons

Then we broke them apart and put them in the mold. It took a about 1.5-2 crayons to fill each space. These were Rose Art and on the thinner side; I think if you used Crayola you may only need one crayon per dinosaur. Also, you may 

In the oven, on a cookie sheet lined with foil, for 25-30 minutes at 200 degrees. Let cool or put in the freezer - since it was January we just stuck the cookie sheet outside on the front step - and then pop them out of the silicone when they are cooled and firm.

Ta da! AWESOMESAUCE! We had such fun with the first batch we got creative and started making all different color combinations. We used 5 24-packs of crayons and made 7 dozen little critters. I'm saving the extras to include in a dino-themed birthday gift.

Autumn baking with the Midglet! Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins

I love these muffins - they are very easy to make, easy to substitute organic and alternative ingredients, and delicious to eat!! 

I got the recipe from allrecipes.com several years ago and it's been a fall staple in our house since. I especially enjoy it now that I can bake with The Midglet! He loves cooking and baking activities and we are definitely a cook-together family.

Recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pumpkin-chocolate-chip-muffins/

You can substitute white flour for whole wheat flour, white sugar for raw sugar, and vegetable oil for olive oil. I prefer baking with white refined sugar, so I use non-organic if it's what's available. I also doubled the recipe for our baking day. For the chocolate, I use dark and semi-sweet chips. I will sometimes make a cream cheese frosting as a topping, but the muffins don't NEED them so we didn't this time. 

We had so much fun making these during our play date with Moxie! It was a little hectic in the kitchen with these two, I didn't have the opportunity to adequately photograph the ingredients. There's always next time! Maybe we'll make them again for Thanksgiving :)

I was so excited to find some ghost shaped baking cups in my baking cupboard! I completely forgot I had them, and since we made these before Halloween, it was perfect! They made HUGE muffins, so the doubled recipe = 16 of these baking cups.

And of course the best part of baking is the EATING!