paint cut paste

we baked homemade soft pretzels on sunday morning!!! yeah, this is not a cooking or recipe web site, i realize, but this is an art, people! if you’ve not done this before, i really recommend doing this with your kids – novi loved it!

i was inspired by a lovely blog on the artful parent. after i read it, i knew i could not squelch my craving (not even with frozen superpretzels from the store) until we made our very own. one issue: i don’t own a stand mixer, and the recipes i saw online said not to attempt this without one. seeing as the uber-spendy stand mixer was the one item that we did not get off of our wedding registry all those sweet years ago, i borrowed one from my baker friend (big thanks!) and went to work.  we mixed.

we let the dough rise in a warm spot. (i may have taken this too literally. hee hee.)

we rolled out some strips.

uh, we smelled?

we twisted.

we boiled.

we basted and salted.

we baked and cooled.

we ATE!!! (warm from the oven… we’re freezing the rest to heat up later but i’m sure they won’t be as delicious as these fresh few were! really, get em while they’re hot!)

when we sat down to our feast, i couldn’t help but hear jerry seinfeld’s “these pretzels are making me thirsty” in my head (though honestly, they weren’t. i didn’t overload the salt.) so i popped open a bottle of cream soda (a rare soda occasion for me – what a perfect combo!!!) and had some leftover sweet potato coconut milk sage soup from a couple nights ago. novi enjoyed her pretzel with lemonade… and some raw fruits and veggies. a great lunch!

this is the recipe we used:

ingredients

and now i sooo want a stand mixer, in pistachio please.

we are feeling springy over here this week… the trees are already pink and white with blossoms and it’s been in the mid to upper 60s this week. yesterday novi and i went for a long afternoon walk around our neighborhood, looking for treasures and for signs of spring.

we meandered through streets, ducked through bushes, gazed up at trees… we collected all sorts of nature’s gifts, like leaves, sticks, berries, acorns, seeds, flowers… the sweet friends the earth has put in our new california neighborhood. we are still acclimating to our new digs, and feeling our way through the scenery out here. the specimens we gathered were like evidence of our move; like clues to our new surroundings. we studied them.

when the sun was setting and we made our way home, i remembered a cool project i’d just seen in a very cool book novi got for her birthday last month called nature’s art box. (i also recognized it from the artful parent blog as well.) the project was about making a clay fossil to preserve the textures and shapes of natural objects in sculpey.

when we got home, we looked over each treasure while putting it into a bowl on our table. we talked about what it was and where we found it.

then, i busted out our trusty box of sculpey, and we went to work making and squishing little balls of the polymer clay.

then we pressed some of the objects into the clay to make textured discs. like little thumbprints from mother nature.

granted, scupley is not my most favorite clay to use with kids, as it can be toxic while baking. so, i made sure to do that part after novi was asleep on the other end of the house with kitchen windows open and her door closed. (next time, i may try my trusty model magic and see if that works…)

after the discs were baked, i put them onto a pretty plate that we often keep on our nature table or altar.

i wrote with a brown sharpie on the backs of them what the object was, the city, and the date. novi is enjoying examining them and guessing what made the print. they’re a good size for her to carry around and be proud of, too. it’d be nice to poke a hole in the top of some (or all) of the discs with a straw before baking to make pendants or ornaments out of them, too. i enjoy the white of them, but they may also be nice if painted (a light watercolor wash, perhaps) or glazed.

i loved doing this activity – mostly the walking, talking, and paying attention to so many intimate details. seeing the world through novi’s big, new eyes always keeps things fresh for me. i’d love to repeat this activity in different places, like on a beach vacation, almost like a 3-d photo album from a trip, without the photos.

okay, it’s not revolutionary to play with play-doh… but it is a staple of childhood. opening a canister of play-doh set my olfactory memory off on a trip to the 70s, squeezing dough hair through plastic heads in my play-doh hair factory. as an adult and a mom, i usually opt to make my own play dough with novi, but sometimes the neon colors and unmatched squishiness of play-doh is irresistible.

so when novi got play-doh AND dough tools for her birthday last week, i was psyched to have an excuse to use the stuff again! she can sit for HOURS (literally, it’s magic) and sing, play, create, chatter, rhyme. (in fact, she is playing with it right now as i type this beside her.)

my sister (novi’s aunt kim) gave novi a a set of dough tools that melissa and doug makes, and novi is loving these… 3 rolling pins, stamps, and a dough cutter. mix this with some good ol’ cookie cutters, kid-safe scissors, and some of her tiny toy figurines, and she’s off and running for an entire morning.

so i had to give a little nod to the creators of this modeling compound in all of its fluorescently pliable unnaturalness for the guilt-free momma-time it provides while productively stimulating kids’ minds, hands, and senses for decades.