Pintura corporal casera

A menudo pasa que una amiga me dice que le gustaría leer mis posts pero que no lo hace porque no entiende el inglés. Por este motivo, sumado a la habitual falta de tiempo, mi motivación por el blog parece haber disminuído en los últimos tiempos. Me pregunto ¿por qué escribo? ¿para quién? Gran parte de lo que escribo es para dejar constancia del desarrollo de mis hijos y para que en el futuro, si les apetece, puedan leer cómo fue su paso por la primera infancia. ¿Por qué público, entonces? La idea de compartir este tipo de escritos fue impulsada básicamente por el deseo de establecer relación con otras personas (madres??) que están en el mismo estadio y que con probabilidad crían de un modo parecido. En cuanto al tipo de artículos sobre la creación de materiales, la idea es simplemente divulgar lo que hacemos y tal vez dar ideas a otros para crear. ¿Por qué en inglés? Porque es la lengua en que me siento más cómoda escribiendo, por un lado, y porque creía que sería la lengua que podría llegar a más personas, por otro lado. A deducir de los comentarios y de las visitas a mi blog, exceptuando a los lectores anónimos de los que no puedo saber nada personal, la única persona que me sigue cuya lengua primera es el inglés, pero que entiende el castellano, es mi amiga y blogger en Vibrant Wanderings Melissa.
Por este motivo he decidido escribir algunos posts en castellano. A partir de ahora, intercalaré el uso de una lengua y otra.
Tras estos preámbulos, ¿qué hemos estado haciendo por aquí últimamente? Algunas de las cosas que hemos hecho y que me gustaría compartir son maquillaje (o pinturas de cuerpo) casero, bombas de baño para regalar a madres/abuelas y toallitas de bebé. Por hoy empezaré por compartir la receta de la pintura corporal. Es realmente fácil!!
Tres ingredientes y listo:

INGREDIENTES:
2 cucharadas soperas de maicena
1 cucharada sopera de loción suave
colorante natural (nosotras usamos colorante alimenticio en polvo disuelto en agua)
Se mezclan los ingredientes y se disponen en recipientes o paleta de pintura
C'est tout!!

Yo recomiendo probar las proporciones antes para poder disponer las cantidades y que l@s peques puedan hacerla con casi total autonomía.

En casa estamos en plan elaborador total. Tenemos pensado hacer nuestro propio desodorante y pasta de dientes. ¿Por qué? Pues básicamente para conocer todos los ingredientes de lo que nos ponemos en el cuerpo...

Ala, hasta la próxima!


VARIACIONES (MEJORAS) DE LA RECETA

Este fin de semana hicimos tres recetas diferentes y mis descubrimientos fueron que:

Añadir un poco de goma xantana (ingrediente que usamos para la pasta de dientes) mejora la receta considerablemente
Como es un ingrediente poco común, si no lo tenéis, no os preocupéis

Se puede usar también una mezcla de harina de trigo, agua, azúcar y una pizca de sal, calentada lentamente y dejada reposar una noche, y añadir el colorante antes de usar
Esta segunda receta es ideal si se usa con niñ@s que aún experimentan con el sentido del gusto, es totalmente "comestible"

La tercera variación consiste de añadir crema hidratante de bebé a la segunda receta, hace la mezcla más homogénea y suave.

Play dough or cómo hacer pastelina casera

Para quienes me han pedido cómo se hace la pastelina que usamos en casa: aquí va la receta:

2 tazas de harina (idealmente, para una pasta fina y maleable, harina de arroz)
1/2 taza de sal
2 cucharadas de aceite
2 cucharadas de cremor tártaro
1 taza de agua hirviendo
colorante alimenticio (opcional)
esencias, especies o aceite esencial (opcional)

También podéis añadir purpurina pero entonces esta masa comestible 100 % deja de serlo. Con comestible me refiero a que los peques que siempre lo prueban pueden probarla sin problema no a que se puede comer como si de un pastel se tratase...

M concentrated on decorating the play dough with marbles, pipe cleaners and string

Many people ask me how to make play dough so I have decided to share our recipe once again. Since the people who ask me are Spanish and might not read English, I am going to re-share this old post of mine and translate the recipe.


It's been some time now since we first started making our own play dough. At the beginning, about half a year ago, M was not interested at all and the dough would remain in a basket on the shelves until it dried out. However, I decided to give it a go before Halloween and this time it has certainly been a success. We made it for a weekly play date and the other girl enjoyed it very much as well.
Something that has surprised me this time around is that the dough gets better and better the more used it is. M asks to play with it everyday and it has become soft and resilient at the same time that it's kept the cinnamon flavor. We are very happy about the recipe we are using, so I've thought I would share it.

That's the 2 of us making the dough

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups of all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of salt
2 tablespoons of oil
2 tablespoons of cream of tartar
1 cup of boiling water
food coloring for color
essence, spices, or essential oils for flavor

We mix all the ingredients in this order and then knead until the dough looks all right.

We could make some balls to give as play-date favors out of this batch

This recipe contained a little bit of orange food coloring for color and cinnamon to give it a scent that would evoke the season. Another batch we've made had a little red coloring to make it pink and strawberry scent.

Robins, sparrows, wagtails...

Did I ever mention Spring is my very favorite season? Well, it is. I was born in Spring. I can't help contradicting T.S Eliot, for I DO NOT think "April is the cruellest month".
Jokes aside, something that fills my heart with happiness is the sight of birds coming everyday to eat from the bird feeders we made last winter.

As a tribute to the birds, we have done a collage and I am happy to share it. I like the result and the process was a non directed activity, age appropriate for a 2 year-old-toddler, as well as interesting.
I I don't have any pictures of the invitation to paint, but as you can guess from the finished collage, there were some paper clippings -deliberately cut in the shape of a tree, ovals for the birds' bodies, triangles for the beaks, little rectangles for the legs, and so on. There were sponges and some little plates with finger paint.
M was free to paint as she wanted, as you can also see. After the pieces were dry, we glued the birds and the trees and voilà!!  

Spring activities

I guess this activity is so simple that I could just let the images speak by themselves. I wanted to start creating some Spring-related invitations to work and this idea just came to my mind. 

To set it up you only need some bottle caps (I always keep some just in case), thick cardboard (I used a cereal box turned inside out), and a little basket or box to place the bottle caps. Any design can be done, which is great. My toddler completed two patterns very quickly but I think I will prepare more 'cause she showed great interest.

Our week in images

Invitation to play: flower patterns and bottle tops

Invitation to play: contact paper flowers, colored paper clippings, bottle caps and buttons.

While the older siblings had a play date...

I got it!!

Digging up knobbed puzzle pieces

I am always on the lookout for ways to re-use materials and trying to make further use of a knobbed puzzle the other day I set up a really simple activity that kept M busy for a while. These puzzles are the kind of material that after a few uses become old hat. I fear that is one of the disadvantage of most non open-ended materials. But well, with a bit of imagination we can reuse them!
For this activity you only need the wooden already mastered puzzle, a tray, and flour, salt or corn-starch. I covered the pieces with starch and presented it next to the base of the puzzle. I added a thick paintbrush as an invitation to uncover the "treasure".
M eagerly took the brush and dug up the pieces. She was quite excited to see what was buried there!

Printing with toilet paper rolls

Once a week, generally on Mondays, I try to set out an invitation to paint and such provocations very seldom remain untouched around here. This way, we have explored for example shaving cream painting, watercolor making, finger paint, glue and glitter, stamping with different objects such as old shoes soles, bubble wrap paper, toilet paper rolls, acorns, leaves... things that cost really nothing or very little and provide a wonderful experience and a while of focused work.
Last week I placed on a table in the terrace some toilet paper rolls and fluorescent paint and M had fun stamping with them. Such an easy to set up and simple activity!