Clover Painting

I've been in a craft rut with the kids lately. I think I did too many elaborate projects with them and ended up burnt out. So when I saw this easy craft, I decided it was perfect for getting back in the game. Simple, yet fun.
Never fail, I can always find a wrinkly pepper in the vegetable drawer.
(I won't speak for another sister whose vegetable drawer is filled with beer. Don't worry, we all love you.)

Clover Painting
Cut the pepper in half. Cut out the seeds. Pour green paint in a pan. Stamp and paint!

I'm a nerd, so I did try to wash the paint off my pepper so we could still eat it. Common sense prevailed, and I threw it away. Next time I may cut thick slices of pepper to use instead of two halves. 

Both kids enjoyed it. The 5 year old made collages and clover people out of her stamps. The three year old made "clover trees".

Rainbow Cake

Birthday time always brings so much excitement to our house! Each year my daughter picks out her own birthday cake. She LOVES to choose every detail of the cake: the batter, icing, decorations, shape, and candles. Then she changes her mind a thousand times. :-) This led us to our beautiful, unexpected, rainbow cake!
My daughter and I went to the store to choose the type of cake she would have for her birthday. We saw everything from rainbow chip to marble to five different types of chocolate. After standing in the aisle for at least ten minutes, she chose a white cake. I was shocked! I asked if she was sure she wanted it. She said yes.
Well......the next day we got ready to make her cake. I got out the cake mix and she was devastated. She was convinced that she did NOT choose a white cake mix. This quickly turned to sheer joy when we decided to venture into the unknown to create a rainbow cake!

Supplies Needed:

White cake mix

Food coloring

Pan of your choosing

Lots of spoons and cups!

Optional: white frosting, jelly beans, and mini marshmallows

Directions:

Make the cake batter as directed on the back of the box. Divide the batter into cups according to the number of colors you are going to use. Add 3 drops of food coloring to each cup of batter. Add more to get desired colors. (I mixed red and yellow to get orange.)

Grease pan as directed on cake box. Pour batter into the pan. At this point your child is probably beginning to get very excited. My daughter loved pouring the different colors into the pan.

Use a knife to swirl the rainbow colors. The best techniques is to make sure the knife is not lifted up at all. Just keep swirling. Also, be sure the knife is touching the bottom of the pan. The excitement peaked here for my birthday girl as I let her mix the colors under very close supervision.

Bake cake as directed. You will want to check on the cake early, as it may bake quickly. A small amount of batter is lost when it is transferred from bowl to cup to pan. Therefore, your baking time will most likely be shorter than average.

My daughter chose to make her rainbow cake into a treasure chest. However, you could easily make your cake into the rainbow cake pictured below. Just add jellybeans (I used Starburst) and mini marshmallows. As you can see my daughter enjoyed decorating this cake herself!

Perfect for a rainbow birthday or St. Patrick's Day!

(The rainbow cake batter was my own idea. The jellybean and marshmallow cake decorations were inspired by Family Fun. http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/catch-a-rainbow-cake-687429/ )