recipe: lemon mochi cake

I was introduced to sweet rice flour about ten years ago when my high school friend, Azusa of Humble Bean, shared a recipe for matcha mochi cupcakes. The rice flour that I’ve been using is the Koda Farms brand and I have found it at Asian markets as well as at the grocery store. I love the chewy texture that rice flour gives to baked goods so I went on a search for something I could make that would also involve lemons. Because – and I don’t know why – I’ve been craving lemony treats lately.  I came across a recipe for “sweet rice lemon pound cake” and had to modify it a little bit because I ran out of sugar when I tried to make it. It turned out pretty great according to a couple of friends (and my taste buds) so I thought I would share it here with all of you too.  Enjoy!

3-D paper town

With the current stay at home situation it can be difficult to find new, different, or interesting things to keep kids busy. I stumbled across a set of printable 3-D house templates and tried them out with our daughter. It was an immediate hit and before I knew it, we were on the way to creating our very own 3-D paper town.

An aerial view of our town with the city on the left and the neighborhood houses on the right.

We don’t actually have a name for our town yet, other than it being referred to as “our town” right now. We started by creating fun modern (dream) homes and slowly added things like a barn for a farm, a hair salon for her Nana, a music studio for her Dad, and most recently a school.

The neighborhood with both modern and traditional style of houses, the Niffler Academy, and the pond at the farm.

Photosensitive Paper Art

Have you tried working with photosensitive sunprint paper? We had one very sunny day this week and collected some pretty flowers during our walk. I showed our daughter how to use the special paper and now we’re trying to come up with more abstract items to use next time.

Here are three creations we made. The first photo in each one is how we assembled the flowers. The second photo is what the paper looked like when we removed the flowers. And the third photo is what it looked like after we washed the paper under cool water for a minute.

The set we have came with an acrylic sheet to place on top of the assembled objects. The line at the bottom was a shadow of the edge of the sheet.

I’m not sure what we will do with the sheets now but I kind of just want to frame them. We’ll probably cut them up and make cards with them. The next time we use the paper, we are going to see what happens if we leave it in the sunshine for more than five minutes. What would happen if we use washi tape on it? What would you try to use on the paper?

Stay safe and be crafty!

Watercolor Wednesday

During this time of social distancing and no school, we’ve developed a schedule for our 8-year-old daughter to have a little bit of structure. She misses school, her teachers, and especially the extracurricular classes – art most of all. So we’ve allotted an hour and a half each day specifically for creative time (but if you know me, that’s totally easy to fill). And today, we brought the watercolor paint and water brushes out. I turned on some Lindsey Stirling violin music in the background, and we dove right in.

9 Fun Places to Take Kids (Within an Hour of Boston)

There’s really no argument about it: Boston is a fun city for all ages.  But if you live around here you know that busy tourist seasons can mean that the usual institutions for family outings can get very crowded.  If you’re looking for somewhere fun to take the kids but don’t want to face the agony of trying to find a parking space near the aquarium (without paying a thousand bucks for a garage spot), look a little bit outside the city!  Here are nine of our favorite places for kids that are all less than an hour from Boston (even less if you already live in one of the surrounding suburbs!).

crafting :: pysanky eggs 2018

Around this time last year I learned about the art of Pysanky eggs. It’s a really fun craft of decorating eggs using melted wax and dyes.  I was so intrigued by it’s complexity that I bought a kit in hopes of making more at home.  Well, I think Easter came sooner than I had hoped so I didn’t get back to it last year.  Luckily, my friend motivated me to try it again this year and we got together to begin our designs.

the new discovery museum

If you haven’t already heard, the construction of the new building at the Discovery Museum in Acton, Massachusetts has been completed and will open its doors with a celebration weekend, March 3rd – 4th, 2018.  We got a sneak peek during a members preview day and were blown away by the sheer size of the new building; its spacious and modern feel; and how the museum managed to combine the elements of two buildings into one.

card making :: one stamp, many colors

I was struggling to come up with a card design after a friend texted and asked for some valentines, and it didn’t help that it’s just a couple of days from now! I have a lot of stamps in my creative stash and sometimes that becomes more of a hindrance than a solution.  I haven’t used this heart stamp in quite a while so I decided to play around with it and include a sentiment that wasn’t strictly “happy valentine’s day” so that the card can be given to someone on any day.  It’s a good example of how you can take one stamp and combine it with multiple ink pads to create a very simple card design.

crafting :: toilet paper roll crayons

The Concord Museum in Concord, Massachusetts has a special exhibit during November and December called “Family Trees: A Celebration of Children’s Literature“. During the holiday season, the museum is filled with about 30 or so trees that are decorated by original ornaments based on children’s storybooks. Volunteer decorators use their imagination to dress up the trees based on a story’s theme, illustrations, or characters.  Our daughter’s kindergarten class took a field trip there and she enjoyed it so much that she wanted to go back so that she could show me her favorite trees. It really was quite an amazing and inspiring exhibit!  So much creativity was poured into making each tree a work of art.

card making :: berry burst

With Valentine’s day around the corner, I’ve been pulling out all of our love and heart themed stamps and ink pads to create cards.  Here are a couple of examples of designs that were created using a particular Stampin’ Up! ink pad color: berry burst.