New Ornaments I Love

I bought these delightful ornaments last year at Wal Mart's after Christmas clearance. They each came in a set of four. I don't remember exactly, but they were probably $2.50 or less per package. I just love silhouettes, monochromatic designs, and glitter so I really couldn't resist these!

Side 1

Side 2

I can't wait to see what deals I get on Holiday decorations after Christmas this year!

Martha's Tuile Leaves

Ever since I saw Martha Stewart's tuile leaves in her cookie book I wanted to make them for Thanksgiving. Last year, I did just that! Unfortunately, I did not have a leaf stencil so I used a cookie cutter which worked out fine though the process probably would've went quicker and more smoothly with a stencil!

I added them to a plate of chocolate spritz cookies that I made trying out my cookie press for the first time. Here's how it looked:

Check out the recipe: here.

Chocolate Covered Caramel Apples

Probably about 10 years ago, I was a big fan of the Rosie O'Donnell Show and would watch it everyday after school. For a time, Rosie was obsessed with these Williams Sonoma Apples which were caramel covered apples covered in chocolate and then sprinkled with chopped almonds. Yum! On one of the shows, she showed the views how to make them, and soon after my family and I tried out the recipe ourselves. For some reason, I was moved to try it again.

They are fairly simple to make since you only need a few ingredients: apples (large ones preferably),  caramels (like Milk Maid), chocolate chips or melts, and chopped almonds.

Notes: - I suggest opting to melt the caramels and chocolate in the microwave so you can have more control. - If the apples are cold, the caramel hardens up fast (which is both good and bad; you just have to work faster). -Wait until the caramel is hardened to cover it with chocolate. - When you're finished, I recommend not putting these in the refrigerator because the caramel gets too hard and it's difficult to cut and chew it.

Here's how they came out:

Apple Picking 2011

This year, like last year, we attended the Shaker Hill Apple Festival in Alfred, ME. It's a lovely little event with a craft fair, yard sale, bake sale, and other activities. We also went apple picking at the near by Notre Dame Orchards (Giles Family Farm). We've been going to this orchard for years!

Here are some scenic photos of the orchard:

And, here's what we came home with:

I'm not a big pie fan, but I had lots of fun plans for the apples. It's been a personal dream of mine to make my own apple sauce and I did it quite easily with my beloved Crock-Pot. It turned out delicious. Around here, our favorite breakfast (and sometimes dinner!) is a baked apple pancake, so we definitely made a few of those! I also made chocolate covered caramel apples which I'll be blogging about soon - stay tuned!

Happy Halloween!

This year's Halloween desserts were chocolate cupcakes and Heath bar fudge! I wanted to go a less traditional route in terms of colors for the cupcake icing. I absolutely love purple and black together as Halloween colors, but we ended up with purple and grey which I think looks pretty cool!

Last year, I bought a Wilton cupcake kit on clearance after Halloween and was very excited to use it this year, however I only used the cupcake wraps this time. I think the wraps go very nicely with the choice of icing colors.

I've been obsessed with these Wilton Silver Pealized Jimmies for a few years now and finally bought some. I think they look great on the grey. I can't wait to use them more in my future decorating.

And, as I mentioned, we also made fudge using our Heath bar recipe which I blogged about here. Using royal icing, we made little spider webs to go on top which was inspired by this gorgeous Halloween Dessert Table. We were very nervous because we thought they would break when we took them off the wax paper but we were careful and they turned out fine (phew!).

I hope everyone has a delicious Halloween! Don't eat too much candy!

Silhouette Halloween Decorations

I'm a big fan of silhouettes, in general, so I thought I'd share some of the silhouette Halloween decorations I've done in the past. Both of these I saw on the Martha Stewart website. You can get the templates for the rats here and bats here. This is a really simple project, but it looks really neat!

Decorating Pumpkins

Here's another easy Halloween craft. I just love the look of black dot designs on pumpkins for Halloween, so I thought I'd try it myself. Here I used fabric puff paint because it's just so easy to use. (We've also used fabric paint on Christmas ornaments, here.)

The other pumpkin was decorated using white fabric paint and black tempera paint. There is also glitter on it as well (but it's hard to see in the photo).