November Playdough of the Month: Pumpkin Spiced Marshmallow Dough

Candied yams (well, sweet potatoes probably) with an ooey, gooey glaze of toasted marshmallows. Delectable pumpkin pie spiced to perfection. Two Thanksgiving staples in many households. If we're being perfectly honest, I was never a huge fan of either, but they were hallmarks of the season through my formative years, and together, they were the inspiration for this months playdough: Pumpkin Spiced Marshmallow Dough.

We essentially made a very basic marshmallow fondant and added pumpkin spice seasoning. Ours was a simple recipe with only four ingredients: marshmallows, powdered sugar, pumpkin spice, and water (not pictures).

Marshmallow fondant can be somewhat tricky to work with, especially in large quantities, so we decided to make a very small batch. We started with 2 cups of mini marshmallows and 1 tablespoon of water. These were microwaved for 30 seconds, stirred, then microwaved another 30 seconds. Vance enjoyed watching them puff up in the microwave, and carefully stirred out the marshmallow lumps when we were finished heating them.

Vance then added a few good shakes of pumpkin spice, and stirred that in as well.

By then, the bowl had cooled enough for Edward to handle, so he got to help stir in the powdered sugar.

Having learned our lesson the last time, we added small amounts at a time until we reached kneading consistency. We ended up using about 1 and 1/2 cups of powdered sugar, plus a bit extra to work it on the tabletop.

Not that the sugar reserved for kneading lasted that long....

At any rate, our fondant was moved from the bowl to the table, and worked until we had a nice stretchy, if somewhat stiff, dough. It wasn't too stiff to play with, though, so play we did. Vance periodically added more pumpkin spice to his share, and it worked just fine, especially since he spent so much of his time pounding the dough.

Edward wound up seeing how many tiny pieces he could divide his portion into, and eventually started eating them. They must have been pretty good, as he kept sneaking taste after taste. Vance tried a nibble too, and seemed to like it, though he didn't seem to find it as irrresistible as Edward did.

We've stored our playdough in the fridge (in an airtight container, which should go without saying) to keep it longer, and like any marshmallow fondant, it needs worked for a bit before its really pliable again. We've really enjoyed it, though I'm not sure how much longer it will last, as Edward is determined to eat it all.

Going on a Lantern Walk

As the days grow shorter, darker, and colder, the gnomes in Super Sam's forest are hard at work preparing for winter. This week, though, they took a brief respite from their labors for some festivities, and celebrated the light that would carry them through the deep dark of winter with a lantern walk.

We spent several days making lanterns for our own lantern walk. Because I am brave, or possibly because I am crazy, we went with the very messy (but oh so fun) paper mâché method of lantern-making. Yes, it was messy. Yes, I did have my moments of regret, like when Edward upended deliberately his bowl of flour and water in the name of having a Ggood Time (he and I have slghtly different definitions of "Good Time" here), and he had to take a break for a bit. Yes, even the boys were a bit hesitant about getting their hands goopy, at least in the beginning.

Towels and paint shirts went a long way toward containing the mess (and my sanity), and their hesitancy didn't last long. It wasn't long before Vance and Edward were happily, messily constructing luminaries of their own.

Phew!

On the night of our Lantern Walk, we prepared a crock pot full of warm, creamy soup, then bundled up to brave the cold. Our lanterns were lit with LED candles, and the boys even held themselves back long enough for me to snap a couple of pictures.

Then we were off, wandering about neighborhood, singing songs and lighting our way with our homemade lamps. Before we got too cold (or too cranky) we returned home and warmed up with hot soup. Such a fun night!

Dyeing a Playsilk

At the beginning of the month, we tried our hand at dying silk with Kool-Aid. To make a nice, autumn-y colored silk, we decided to try the Peach Mango flavor.

Can I just say that this smelled fabulous?

Anyway, I had found several varying and often contradictory accounts on other blogs about the correct way to dye silk with Kool-Aid. So we just decided to wing it. This may not be the best way to do it, but it worked for us.

After mixing one part distilled white vinegar with three parts water, we brought our liquid to a boil and added the silk.

When it was thoroughly soaked, Vance added the Kool-Aid and stirred it in.

Edward took a turn stirring too. The water turned bright, yellowish-orange, and did I mention it smelled heavenly?

We simmered it for an hour, then washed it out. And washed it out again. And washed and washed and washed some more. At long last, it stopped bleeding, and we were left with a pale, shimmery silk that couldn't decide if it was orange tinted yellow, or yellow tinted orange. It's been gracing our nature table all month long, providing a beautiful backdrop for our bits of October loveliness.

I didn't have the best lighting for this shot, so the color isn't exact, but since I'm just about finished catching up with the October highlights, I'm not going to wait around for the opportunity to get a better photo. And since the month is drawing to a close, this particular playsilk will shortly retire from tablecloth duty and join the other playsilks on toy detail. I'm sure it eagerly awaits its freedom.

Autumn Leaf Cookies!

When I was a little girl, I loved making Christmas sugar cookies and painting them with colored egg wash. Well, it's the wrong season for Christmas cookies, so we made autumn leaf cookies instead. Even more fun, my mom was visiting and helped - grandmas make the best baking buddies!

It was a little difficult to take turns cutting out cookies, but we managed, mostly because Edward didn't get too upset that Vance kept "helping" him.

Both boys had a lot of fun painting autumn colors on the leaves.

One quick trip through the oven, and we had the tastiest leaves we'd ever seen.

Then there was nothing left to do but enjoy the sweet fruits of our labors! (Well, and also clean up, but why spoil a good story?)

Later, we hung some from a branch on our nature table.

Those cookies remain surprisingly uneaten, though the rest of the cookies were happily devoured over the following days.

Boats!

In our most ambitious project yet, we made boats!

Mostly, this project reaffirmed my desire to own a scroll saw. As it was, we used a coping saw to cut these out, and when I say, we, I mean Wazi. I tried, but arthritic hands are apparently not meant for this sort of work. Luckily, I have a very dedicated husband who sawed tirelessly, and a dremel, so I could help a bit with the shaping.

Anyway, eventually we had two lovely, if still somewhat rough, boats. I figured Edward and I would share a boat since he wasn't particularly likely to want to do much work on it himself, and we (Wazi) had had enough sawing for a while.

This is where the boys came in. They had watched the initial cutting out, but Edward had no desire to try sawing himself, and Vance's attempt (very closely supervised; no need to worry) was of shorter duration than even mine. Vance did, however, find that he could help sand the boats down.

Once the boats were sufficiently smooth, it was time to decorate them! Out came the beeswax crayons! Edward decided to color for just a minute,

but quickly lost interest. He returned to the table later, though, to build a floating wall out of the block crayons.

Vance had more staying power, and very carefully and particularly colored his entire boat.

Afterward, we melted the wax in the oven, and rubbed in a bit more polish, to make them good and watertight.

At long last, we had two lovely boats, ready for fun!

They float quite nicely, though I don't have a picture of the boys playing in the sink, and we're looking forward to sailing them in puddles next time it rains.

Pumpkin Patch

Field trip! We visited a local farm to collect pumpkins from their pumpkin patch and enjoy their autumn carnival and corn maze!

We played in the hay bale maze,

then rode out to the pumpkin patch on the hay wagon.

We searched the patch for the perfect pumpkins,

and pulled them back to the hay wagon in the pumpkin cart.

Once our pumpkins were loaded into our car, we played around some of the other carnival games and toys for a bit,

then finally headed into the corn maze.

Such a fun day!