An American craft

Americana Luminaries

We ended up with a lot of cooking project this week.  So while the kids are waiting for the fireworks to start here is a little easy project for them to do.  I will admit it started out as a different project that I saw on Pinterest- let's just say don't believe everything you see on Pinterest.  They were supposed to be painted jars with little peekaboo stars......FAIL! 

 

The paint looked all streaky and the stars didn't look like stars at all when we peeled the stickers off the jars.  So I removed the painting step and just kept the stickers.  What's that saying? K.I.S.S.- Keep It Simple Stupid.  I hate that word "stupid", let's pretend it's Keep It Simple Silly.  Here's the project!

Light up the Night Luminaries
For the project you will need:

• clean glass jars
• stickers (pref. red, white, blue)
• small candles (with adult supervision)

1.  Put stickers all over the candle.  We spelled out USA to make it extra American-y.  We used up ALL the red, silver and blue stars out of the pack of stickers!

 

2. Put a small candle in the jar, light it and enjoy your very special 4th of July candleholder!! 

Enjoy your evening!! 
 
 

As American As...

Apple Pie!!

Happy birthday America!! 
It's the 4th of July and the whole country is celebrating today!  On July 4, 1776, our forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence and proclaimed that we would henceforth be pursuing our own life, liberty and happiness and no longer be under the rule of the British or anybody else for that matter.

We will have picnics, parades and festivals to celebrate our love of America and then tonight, all over the country, there will be amazing fireworks displays lighting up the sky.  Just as the forefathers planned.  :)

So for today's post I made the most American of desserts - the humble Apple Pie.  This was a recipe that I have eaten many times but never made myself.  But making pie is easy, right?  I mean we have that idiom- "easy as pie".  Well, I soon was up to my elbows in flour, cursing whoever came up with that dumb phrase.  It turns out that making pie is NOT that easy!  Or maybe I was just doing something wrong - that happens.  Anyway, it turned out pretty delicious so maybe it was worth the mess after all.  Here is the recipe - try it for yourself :)

All American Apple Pie
For the recipe you will need:

Crust ingredients-

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 6 Tbsp room temp butter
• 6 Tbsp shortening
• 6 Tbsp ice cold water
• pastry blender

Filling Ingredients-

• 5 tart apples, peeled and  sliced and soaking in water mixed with 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

1. In a large bowl mix together the flour, salt and sugar.
2.  Using the pastry blender (or a fork?) cut in the butter, shortening and water until the dough looks incorporated but still crumbly.
3.  Put the dough onto some plastic wrap and form it into a ball. Wrap it in the plastic and put in fridge for about 30 mins.
4.  After it's chilled, divide the dough in half.  Roll the first half out into an 1/8" thick circle about an inch larger than your pie pan.  This was where I had trouble- flour everywhere and it was still sticking to the roller and parchment paper.  Maybe because it was like 95° today?  Or because I don't know how to make pie crust?  We made it work though- perseverance is the American way, right?

5.  Transfer the rolled out crust to your pie tin and smooth it out and patch any hole with extra dough.  Then poke a few deliberate holes with a fork on the bottom.

6. Now make the filling.  Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.  Add the drained apples and sprinkle the dry ingredients and vinegar on top.  Toss it all around so it's all combined and then dump it in the pie shell.
7.  Roll out the other half of the dough and put it on top of the filled pie shell.  Make the edges look pretty- another "easier said than done" moment.  We ended up with a good old pressed fork design and threw on a couple of stars to hide some rough spots :)

8. Cover the edges of the pie with strips of aluminum foil so they don't get too brown.
9.  Bake in a preheated 400° oven for 50-60 minutes.  After 45 minutes take the aluminum foil off the edge of the crust and brush with some egg white if you want a shiny crust.  Oh! Be sure to put a baking sheet down under the pie as it's baking because it might leak out a little. 

Voila!!  That was "easy as pie"!!  Yeah right, whatever.  I'm taking a nap now before the fireworks start!  

Happy Birthday America!

The New and the Old

Project 3: Warhol inspired portraits

When talking about art in America, Andy Warhol immediately springs to my mind.  The American artist (born to immigrants) was a leading figure in the Visual Arts (or Pop Art) Movement that flourished in the 60s.  He often painted iconic images or people using brights colors and made several reprints in different color combinations that made his works both fun and unique.  We tried to accomplish a similar look in our project.

My daughter broke her arm at school this week and while she's not in any pain, her mobility is somewhat limited.  So we came up with this project that she could color and put on the fridge. She really got into it at first but then got a little tired of coloring, so it would probably be best done over the course of a few days or have a few kids each do one.  My son isn't a big fan of coloring so I did them with my daughter.  I think they turned out pretty cool and I was able to give her a look at a different kind of art from a man who was a different kind of artist. 

Top ones done by me.  Bottom one done by my 5 yr old.



Project 4: The tippy tipi

I'm very proud that this week I've given my kids a lot of information about the country they were born in, about the immigrants who came here to flee oppression or simply to have a better life, but what about the people who were already here from the very beginning? In my (humble) opinion the Native Americans are not very well represented in the History of America.  They have a culture that is rich with wonderful stories and their philosophy and attitudes towards the world around them is something we should all study.  They lived off the land and they took CARE of the land. 

 The native americans lived in many different types of dwellings but perhaps the most iconic is the tipi.  Now, I know a lot of you are thinking that I made a typo and it should be spelled teepee but, well, you're wrong.  The word comes from combining two root words - the Sioux word "ti" meaning to dwell or live and "pi" meaning to live in.  Used by many tribes, the tipis were portable conical shelters made from canvas (or hides) and long poles.  They would be placed in a circle and each family slept inside with a small fire burning in the middle to keep them warm.  Our project is not made with buffalo hides or pine poles.  We live in 2012 and we used materials of the day.  I'll bet if the Sioux had access to PVC pipes at the local hardware store they would've used them too.

Anyway, we started with five 9' pieces of PVC pipe ($2 a piece), 2 9x12 brown paper dropcloths or some sheets, rope, and tape - lots and lots of tape!!

Make a conical shape out of your pipes, and twist a length of rope around and under and through to hold it all together. If your kids are short you will need another grown up and maybe even a stepstool :)

Now wrap the paper or sheets around the structure as well as you can.  In the picture you can't see all the packaging tape I used to achieve this but it was an impressive amount.

Next have your children (and a cousin) decorate with symbols from nature.  We have suns and trees, orcas and buffalo, some birds and a terrible storm.  They loved being able to see the decorations from both sides since the paper was on the thin side.

Now pile in and enjoy!  They furnished theirs with pillows and blankets and played for quite awhile. Maybe tonite we'll have a campout!

Let's Eat!

 Project 2: The Great American Melting Pot

Well, Lady Liberty turned out well and is now shining her beacon for all the immigrants to be welcomed into our backyard! Not surprisingly, all the recent immigrants are gnomes but we will work on backyard diversity.  Our next project is a cooking one - YUM!  As I was perusing recipes that were "American" in nature I came upon a problem, with America being such a culturally diverse country most of our food has been influenced by other cultures and I wan't able to think of any that were distinctly American from inception (and my kids are kinda picky too).  I suppose I could've made a wild rice and corn dish but that didn't sound very yummy so I had an idea.  I went to the store and bought cheeses and breads from around the world and we made what I called The Great American Melting Pot!

We used our slow cooker as "the new land" and added some

• Mexican Oaxaca cheese
• Greek Feta
• Dutch Gouda
• Spanish Iberico, Manchego and Cabra al Vino (Trader Joes sampler)
• Irish Cheddar
• French Brie (rind removed)
• English Cheddar
• American slices
• about 1/2 bottle of beer and a few shakes of Cajun seasoning

While that was getting all melty and delicious we cut up some

• French baguettes
• Hawaiian sweet bread
• Middle Eastern Flat Bread
• Italian breadsticks
• French croissants
• Polish Polska Kielbasa sausage

Then our feast was ready. All the "cultures" blended very well together (maybe the beer helped) and it was a delicious, albeit not very healthy, meal and then something happened that I had not expected.  A division in the "country"!!  Apparently, I cooked it too long and my pot of cheesy goodness separated into two distinct (but still delicious sides).  I immediately saw the symbolism in this - when the people in a country are happy (and just the right temperature) they are cohesive and one, but when a problem (too much heat) occurs they can very quickly take sides and no longer act as one nation.  A lesson has been learned.

Week 1: GO USA!

Week 1: GO USA!!!

Are you ready for the Olympics?  I'm not a huge fan of sports (as my waistband shows) but I love cheering on my country.  When I originally was thinking about starting this blog I was going to start in January, thinking that a logical beginning to the 52 weeks....BUT the Olympics starting on Friday July 27th got me excited and ready to start a little early!!  So here we go.  Our first week of the great adventure is what you'd call a "staycation", the good ol' US of A.

Get out that world map and/or globe and find it. We are located at 38' N latitude and 97' W longitude. Our neighbors are Canada to the north and Mexico to the south.  The population is (give or take) 311,591,917 people.  This population is made up of people from all areas of the world which is one of the reasons why America is called the Great Melting Pot!

I think most of you know the story of Christopher Columbus sailing the ocean blue, blah blah blah, I don't want this to be a history blog so I won't fill pages with the colorful and.actually, very interesting story of how our founding fathers started this country to escape the control of the British Empire. Instead, I will share some of the projects that I did with the kids and some of the fun facts we learned while we were doing the projects.  

Art Project: Lady Liberty

When I think of the ultimate symbol of America one image comes to mind first - the Statue of Liberty.  Designed by Auguste Bartholdi as a gift to the US from France to celebrate our 100th year of indepedence, the statue took 9 years of almost nonstop work to complete!  Ours is of considerably smaller scale and took us about a day, including drying time :)

Start with a soda bottle (half full of water for weight), aluminum foil, tape, bendable sticks (we used large cakepop sticks but popsicle sticks or a tree branch would even work), newspaper, flour and water to make paper-mache paste and green paint to give Lady Liberty her patina.

Make a head out of a wad of foil and cut 7 spikes off of the stick and poke them into the head.  They will probably keep falling out and you'll think you're doing it wrong but keep at it :)  BTW, did you know that her seven spikes represent the seven continents of the world?

Give the lady her torch by taping another stick with a wad of foil onto the bottle.  Add another arm to the side because ,well, she should have two arms.

Recruit two adorable kids to rip newspaper into small pieces or strips.  I happen to own these two but you may borrow them if you need to.  They are really good paper rippers.

Mix flour and water together to make a paste the consistency of cake batter.  Dip paper in paste and apply to form.  Cover completely and layer where you need thickness. Try to use strips coming from different directions to make it stronger and hold together during drying.  Let dry - ours took from about 2pm to noon the next day.

             Paint and Enjoy your very own Statue of Liberty!!

      
                                                        Give me your tired,your poor,
                                                        Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
                                                        The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
                                                        Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
                                                        I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
                                                                             -Emma Lazarus


The above is a portion of the poem by Emma Lazarus that is engraved on a plaque at the base of the Statue.  The statue is a symbol of welcome for all the immigrants coming to the US and has become a universal symbol of freedom. 
 Here are a few fun facts: 

• There are 354 steps to climb to the top of her crown.
• Her green color comes from the chemical reaction between her copper coating and water.
• She is a very large lady weighing in at 450,000 pounds. Her 25 foot long feet would wear a size 879 sandal!