Photo by Eileen Renger Kundin from etsy.

You might find your blood pressure elevated with this homemade edible glitter concoction, but it’s sure to be nontoxic for parents who worry about their children’s safety.  I wonder where you find gold and silver food coloring, though.

From PlanetPals.com,

Tools needed for this project

Baking Pan
Tin Foil
1/4 cup of salt
1/2 teaspoon of food coloring
Preheat an oven to 350 degrees.

Directions:

Mix 1/4 cup of salt with a 1/2 teaspoon of food coloring in a small bowl until the salt is uniformly colored.
Spread the mixture out in an even layer on a foil-lined baking sheet.
Bake in the oven for ten minutes. Allow your homemade glitter to cool before using it.

NOTE:

You may also store it in an air tight container for several months.
This glitter can be used for almost any type of project and may even be mixed with glue for special crafts.

Photo by adore more.

When the holidays roll around, I go nuts making homemade candy.  Last year I added Martha Washington candy to my list and this year I made peanut brittle for the first time.  Next year I may try the old fashioned hard tack candy,

This year we decided to make it a family affair. My mom, my girls and I got together for a hard tack candy making extravaganza. I am now armed with pounds of colorful, brilliantly flavored candy that I have divided into sweet little Ball glass jelly jars to give as Christmas treats and hostess gifts. Thought you might like to do the same.

It looks pretty straightforward! Click through and read how you can do it yourself!

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, Mud Pie Studio kindly compiled a list of 100 ideas for someone you love.  Some of the ideas include:

Crayons = Valentine, you “color” my word with happiness.

Flower Seed Packet = Valentine, let’s watch our friendship “grow”.

Tootsie Rolls = “Happy Valentines, Toots!”  Or, “You are sweet and fun, all ‘rolled’ into one, Valentine!”

S’mores package = I need “S’more” valentines like you! Or, I couldn’t ask for anything “S’more” than to have you for a Valentine.

Go visit this great site for tons more ideas!

Photo and how-to-make guide by Glorious Treats.

When my kids were little, we used the nets hanging from the ceiling to pile in the stuffed animals.  However THIS idea is so much better. It’s creative, beautiful, and FUN for kids.  Way to go bloesem kids,

Love!

I don’t know what happened to my favorite rock, but it stayed in the bottom of my treasure box forever.  This is why I totally agree with this article from Wired – The 5 Best Toys of All Time,

What’s brown and sticky? A Stick.

This versatile toy is a real classic — chances are your great-great-grandparents played with one, and your kids have probably discovered it for themselves as well. It’s a required ingredient for Stickball, of course, but it’s so much more. Stick works really well as a poker, digger and reach-extender. It can also be combined with many other toys (both from this list and otherwise) to perform even more functions.

I also like the box and dirt an awful lot!

Photo by CB & GK.

In my little Kentucky hometown, students from the high school got to paint windows at Halloween.  Different age groups won prizes for scariest, best overall, most creative… rather like a costume contest!  I hadn’t thought about those windows for awhile since it’s been at least 25 years since I lived there.  But Mama Bird Diaries reminded me,

… instead of a coveted spot on our main street where you can chat with friends, grab coffee at Starbucks and listen to a local band – we were assigned this gem of a location. ….we commandeered another window where the girls could actually paint without being strangled by some kind of Kudzu plant.

I think the girls win for best window in worst location!

Who wants Kermit the Frog shoes?  I do!  I do!  Check out this awesome by Adidas.

LOVE!

Traditional flat-shaped solar panels may be a thing of the past thanks to an incredible leap of logic by a 13-year old New Yorker.  Walking through the woods, he noticed the shape of limbs growing from trees and made the connection to the spiral Fibonacci sequence. From Gizmodo,

That trees were using this pattern to gather more light. So he did an experiment. Using the same number of solar cells, he built two working models. One was a traditional, flat array will all of the panels on a single plane. The other used the Fibonacci Sequence to create the same spiraled pattern he observed in the trees.

Aidan Dwyer discovered the tree design solar panels made 20 percent more electricity and collected 2 1/2 more hours of sunlight during the day.  During the dark month of December, the tree design collected 50 percent more electricity.  Aidan’s report with the American Museum of Natural History can be found here.

Congratulations to the young man on his amazing discovery!