HOMEMADE GUMMY SNACKS...

I found this recipe a LOOOOONGGG time ago over at Six Sisters Stuff, and knew that someday I would try to make these for my boys, who LOOOOOOVE Gummy Snacks.

After getting lucky, a few months ago, at my son's pre-school's yard sale, and finding a Mold tray for just One Penny, I knew I was one step closer to getting these made.  Then this morning, during a routine trip to Walmart, I finally got the supplies - today would be the day!!

The supplies you need are some flavored gelatin and some unflavored gelatin.  

At Walmart, the Knox was $1.48 for (4)/.25oz packets, and the Jell-O was $.74 for a 3oz. box.  So all told, because I got two flavors - I spent just under $3.00.

Following the recipe from the above stated blog, this is how easy it is...

(1) 3oz. box of Flavored Gelatin

(2) .25oz packets of Unflavored Gelatin

1/3 C water.

Sprinkle all the gelatin over the water in a small saucepan.

Heat over medium heat and stir until all powder is completely dissolved.

Pour into molds

Let sit for at least 20 minutes. 

     When I checked them at twenty minutes, they were solid enough, but had a weird 

     texture when I tasted them.  I think I ended up letting them sit for a little over an 

     hour - by that time, they were the Perfect Gummy texture.

This is the Mold tray that I scored at the yard sale.  From the original blog, she said that they can be found at Walmart and craft stores.  I don't know if they're Jell-O brand, but anything with a small shaped mold would work.

For $3, I got (70), slightly larger than a jelly bean, Gummy snacks.  Not sure if that's
a savings or not, but they sure were easy to make.

 I'm sure we will be making a lot of these, in all different flavors, this summer.

POOL NOODLE RACE TRACK...

I'm pretty sure I saw this idea a while ago, but just never got around to buying the supplies.  But after reviewing projects to do this summer with my boys, I knew it was time to make the Pool Noodle Race Track...

So I went back and looked at this one over at Home Spun Threads, and this one at My Little Gems.  My initial intention, was to make it for cars, but the noodle I purchased at the Dollar Tree didn't have a big enough center hole, so I had to improvise.  Luckily, I had some 3/4" wooden beads in my craft supply stash - and they worked perfectly.

But of course, we couldn't just leave them plain wood... the boys went to town on them with washable markers, but after handling and playing with them for sometime, it seemed that their little hands were permanently dyed - thank Heavens for washable.

Normally, I would go over the top on a project like this... for instance, I would have had "Start" / "Finish" flags, and I probably would have covered the mailing box with something.  But instead, I actually took into account my boys track record of how quickly they can destroy something, so I didn't waste the time on things that would have looked great for photographs, but they could care less about.

It was a HUGE HIT!!  In this photo, I just know they are saying...

"Mommy, you're the BEST!!"

And of course, they totally proved me wrong and didn't destroy it... YET!