Month: June 2017

Posted in Travel, usa

World’s Largest Ketchup (Catsup) bottle found in Collinsville, Illinois USA

Posted on by teacherscoutmom
World's Largest Ketchup Bottle, Collinsville, Illinois, USA
World’s Largest Ketchup Bottle

So…  Ever found yourself wondering where you could find the World’s Largest Ketchup Bottle??  Well, look no farther than Collinsville, Illinois USA.

This water tower was built in 1949 and stands 170 feet tall.  It’s an amazing example of the Roadside Americana era of the 20th Century.  History of this awesome structure can be found  on their website here.  In August of 2002, it was named to the Historic Places Register.

We decided to drive by and experience it on our recent road trip.  It was pretty neat, however I was disappointed that there wasn’t more to do.  I was hoping for a little museum or something that you could go in and buy souvenirs or even a nice picnic spot.  Unfortunately, we were able to just drive by it and take pictures.   It also may have been the time of the year that we went. If we had waited and went in July when they hold a birthday party for the bottle, that’s when the activities come out with ketchup tasting, eating contests and much more.   It was definitely worth the trip off the interstate ( about 5 miles) just to view it and it gave us some excellent conversation after the trip with our kids.

 

 

Brooks’ Ketchup is still around today.  To try some of it, Amazon has it for purchase here.  You can also buy it from the World’s Largest Ketchup Bottle site as well.

 

 

Posted in Perler Bead Patterns, Pokemon Patterns

Pokeballs, Great, Ultra and Original Perler Bead Patterns

Posted on by teacherscoutmom

Its Summertime which means more arts and crafts, more Perler Beads, more games and just more fun!  My kids had so much fun working on these patterns.  Once the designs were ironed and complete, my youngest son played an entire game pretending to catch Pokemon outside with all the different Pokeballs he created.

The patterns are below.  If you need additional Perler beads, Amazon has a massive 22,000 bead jar that you have to sort here.  OR if you would just rather have them presorted for you, then there is also a smaller set, which has only 4000. Not very many in that set, but they are presorted which will save you lots of time.

To make the designs…

Using either the circle or grid templates, design the patterns.  Then place a sheet of parchment paper over the design.  You can use special paper by Perler or honestly just grab a sheet of parchment paper from your kitchen and that will also do the trick. Then simply grab a household iron and melt the beads together.  This shouldn’t take longer than 10 -20 seconds on each side.

 Note: When melting them, feel free to melt them for however long works for your family. We used a full melt in this version, (where the colors blend completely together) but we also like to iron them lighter to give them a pixelated look.  Both versions will look great, no matter how you melt them!

The Original Pokeball using the circle template is found below.  The circle template, along with a few additional fun templates, can be found on Amazon or at your local Hobby Lobby or Joanns.   You can also make additional patterns and additional Pokeballs by just changing a few of the colors.  Maybe your child would like to create his/her very own special ball.

Original Pokeball Design- Perler Bead Pattern
Completed “Melty” Pokeball

Using the grid instead of the circle template….

Original Pokeball using the grid instead of a circle template
“Melty” Pokeball Perler bead

Great Ball using the circle template….

Great Ball Pattern using the circle template.
“Melted” Great Pokeball Pattern

Ultra Ball using the circle template…

Ultra Ball Perler Bead Pattern
Ultra Ball “Melted”

If you would like to check out additional Perler Bead Patterns, click on the Menu at the top of the page or click some of the links below.

Posted in Bridging Ceremonies, Girl Scouts

Girl Scouts Bridging Cupcake Rainbow

Posted on by teacherscoutmom
Girl Scouts, bridging, rainbow
Cupcake Rainbow made with 60 cupcakes

 

We decided for our Girl Scout bridging ceremony to try cupcakes again this year. Instead of spending hours decorating and making the super cute double colors and bridge cupcakes, we decided to create a rainbow out of the cupcakes.  Click here for my post with the super cute double color bridges. 

My co-leaders and I started the process by using empty cupcake  wrappers to create a visual of what a rainbow would look like if we had 60 cupcakes.  This helped us to figure out what colors  to use and how many of what color to order.  (You can do this with any number of cupcakes that would fit your troop.  We chose 60 because the bakery sold them in sets of 30.)  We then ordered the cupcakes from Sam’s Club (30 for $15 – which was a great deal and we didn’t have to spend hours baking and coloring them) and then arranged them on bridging night in our rainbow design.  Our girls wanted to try different icings and were sharing with each other to “taste the rainbow”, which sounds like a Skittle commercial.  The cupcakes were a huge success with the girls.

I would definitely do this again given the chance.  However, it was interesting to me that most of the adults and siblings wanted one also.  Next time,  I will definitely bump the order up to accommodate the adults.  If you  plan on doing this for your troop, you may want to order more than what you need as some of the girls wanted seconds in order to try a different color.

For other Girl Scout bridging ideas, please check out a few of my other posts…