Emoji Valentine Free Printable | MapleSeeds Home

I picked up a little bag of Emoji erasers a while back and decided to whip up some cute Valentines for the kids' school parties! They get so much candy as it is, so I thought this would be a great non-suagr treat!

Click below to download the PDF!

HERE

The boys had fun cutting them out and then we just used a little dot of white glue to stick the Emoji eraser to the back of the card! 

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Maple Cinnamon Granola | MapleSeeds Home Blog | Recipes

Today was rainy and cold and I was in the mood to bake, partially because it warms the house up and partially because I like to bake on rainy days!

I used up the last bit if my homemade granola so that was first on the list.

Ingredients:
4 C rolled oats (gluten free if you want)
1 c shredded unsweetened coconut
1 c chopped walnuts
1c flax seed
1 T cinnamon
1/2 c coconut oil
1/2 c maple syrup

Preheat oven to 300F. 

Melt the coconut oil, and combine all the other ingredients except the maple syrup in a large bowl. Once the coconut oil is melted, pour it and the maple syrup over the ingredients and combine well. Spread the mix out on a greased cookie sheet. 

Bake for about an hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Be sure to scrape the edges in and really mix the granola well so you don't end up with burnt pieces. It makes about 2 large quart mason jars full. I store the extra in the freezer and the small amount I use daily in the refrigerator. 

I love the flavor of this granola and it doesn't have any yucky preservatives or soy (which I try to avoid). 

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Paper Flower Bouquet - With Free Template | MapleSeeds Home Blog

I was feeling crafty today and blog-it-y too, hence this pretty post with the colorful flowers! Cleaning my craft room always leads to things like this! I found some old flower stems leftover from another project AND some old watercolor/salt paintings that my kids did years ago! I hate to throw things like that away, but really who has room to keep every scrap of art your kids make? SOOO I decided to make them into some paper flowers!

SUPPLIES:
Flower stems, or floral wire or pipe cleaners
Hot glue/ Glue gun
Colored paper, or old artwork (preferably on stiff paper)
Paper Fasteners
Template (Below)

TEMPLATES: Right click and save to computer!
Print at 100%

 Print off the templates (I printed them on some scrap card stock that had other stuff printed on the backside). Cut out, trace each flower (3 different sizes each) on your artwork and cut out.

I printed the yellow centers on some card stock that I wanted to use for  the center color.

Once all the pieces are but out, lunch a small hole in the center of each piece and push a paper fastener through all the pieces. 

Bend the pieces towards the center of the flower to give it some movement. Then hot glue the paper fastener to the end of the flower stem and voila!!

Leave me a comment link if you make something using my paper flower template! 

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Summer Reading List | Books that are Movies! | MapleSeeds Home Blog

I'm really trying hard to have some activities organized for my kids before summer starts. I'm not one of those people who believes they need structure all day every day, but with how much they squabbled last summer, I want to be prepared this summer! Last summer we read through The Chronicles of Narnia books, well at least the ones that had a movie that went a long with them. My oldest son is a reluctant reader, so attaching a movie to the book was something he thought was totally cool. So this summer I am creating a reading list of books that have been made into movies! I'm going to aim for 10 books, but there is a good chance we won't get through them all, but this can always carry over to next summer as well. My son will be heading into third grade this fall, so the books are for ages 7-12, some are classics, some are adventures some are fantasy themed. I will be reading the book aloud to all the kids. 

I browsed around on PINTEREST, and the WEB for some ideas of books that were movies and made a list of about 20 books, here is what I have narrowed it down to for this summer's list:

• OLD YELLER (Fred Gipson)    (book)    (movie)
• SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON (Johann D. Wyss)  (book)    (movie)
• WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (Maurice Sendak)    (book)  
• WHITE FANG (Jack London)   (book)   
• THE NEVER ENDING STORY (Michael Ende) (book) (movie) 
• THE WIZARD OF OZ  (Franks Baum) (book)  (movie)  I'd love to take the kids to see the new animated OZ movie as well. 
• TREASURE ISLAND (Robert Louis Stevenson) this version is abridged (book) (movie)
• THE SECRET GARDEN (Frances Hodgson Burnett) (book)   (movie) 
• MARY POPPINS (Dr. P.L. Travers)  (book)  (movie) 
• THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAYWER (Mark Twain)  (book)   (movie) 

Most of the books I plan on buying, but the movies I will rent or borrow from our local library. 

Here are some other books that we have already read and watched:

The Chronicles of Narnia

Where the Red Fern Grows

Charlotte's Web

I also have younger boys and I may do a few books for them that are cartoon movies:

• The Jungle Book
• The Iron Man (The Iron Giant)
• Dumbo the Flying Elephant
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 

I'd love to hear your suggestions for reading books that are movies! 

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Grilled Corn Guacamole | MapleSeeds Home Blog | Recipes

I'm the only one in my household that likes... LOVES guacamole! The other night my husband and I went out for dinner and I ordered some guacamole as my appetizer. My husband kept dipping into it,  so I said, "I thought you didn't like guacamole". To which he responded, "You never put corn in it." Hahaha, well I do now! Here is my copy cat version of Ch*lli's corn guac!

Ingredients:

1/4 large yellow onion diced

1 small tomato chopped 

1 jalapeño 

2 avocados

1 c frozen corn kernels

1 T cilantro

2-3 T lime juice

salt and pepper

olive oil (for cooking onion, corn)

1 T olive oil to drizzle over guacamole

In a HOT skillet, in olive oil sauté the onion, make sure you get a good char on it. Let cool. 

Repeat the same thing with the corn, get it nice and charred, YUM! 

 Chop tomato, jalapeño, and avocado.

Pour on olive oil, lime juice, salt, pepper and cilantro. Mix well and enjoy! If you like a less chunky guacamole use a fork to mash the avocado. 

Try not to eat it all at once!! 

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Printable Lunch Note Cards | MapleSeeds Home Blog

Anyone else get a little depressed this time of year?? How about a little pick me up, especially for the little people in your lives! I whipped up some printable lunch cards today. These would be great for your kids, but you could put them in your spouses's lunches also :)

Click HERE to get them!

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Preschool Bean counter | MapleSeeds Home Blog

Here's something we did last year for Pre-school (yup just getting around to blogging it now!)

I just took an egg carton, and numbered each section, then let little L count some dried beans into each one.

 Hard to believe he is in Kindergarten now! :(

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Perler Bead Star Wars Magnets | MapleSeeds Home

I know today is Tuesday, but I just couldn't wait to share these little guys with you! :)

The kids and I made these adorable little Star Wars characters for my sisters, for Christmas (we gave gifts early this year, when we visited them) So now I can share the pattern with your! My inspiration came from a pin on Pineterst. We also created a few more of our own characters (I think the original only had 5-6 characters). You can down load my printable chart HERE.

We hot glued some magnets to the back, aren't they the cutest little Jedis, princesses and aliens you have ever seen!!? :)

Action shot of how we made them.  The kids did most of the layout and I did the ironing. They thought it was great fun!

Don't forget to download the free printable chart from the link at the top! 

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Coconut Oil Chocolate Chocolate Cookies | MapleSeeds Home Blog | Recipes

It was a rainy day and in this house we bake on rainy days. Buuuut, sadly I was out of butter! What to do! I had a ginormous jar of coconut oil in the pantry and I figured I could try to substitute that in place of the butter! Let me tell you, it was DELICIOUS! Almost better than butter.... almost! 

Ingredients:

1/2 c coconut Oil
3/4 c brown sugar or sucanat
2 eggs
1 1/2 c flour
1/4 c cocoa
1 t salt
1 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1T vanilla
1 c chocolate chips or chunks ( we used chopped up chocolate easter eggs)

Cream coconut oil and sugar until well blended.  Mix in eggs and vanilla, blend well. In separate bowl mix dry ingredients, then add to wet ingredients. Blend and then stir in chocolate chunks by hand.
 Don't forget to lick the spoon! Bake at 375 F for 8-10 minutes and let cool on the pan for a few minutes before you remove them.

 MMMMM!

Enjoy! :)

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