Guess Who?!

If you have young children, I'm sure you know all about Elf On The Shelf.  This is the fifth year "Joey" has been visiting our house and when I came across some cookies sporting his resemblance, I just had to give them a try.

Now, I'm not nearly as talented as Bridget from Bake at 350, but my kids were absolutely thrilled when they saw them!  I think I may make them again for Ava's class and hopefully they'll come out even better.

The complete tutorial can be found here.

I used my new favorite sugar cookie recipe and made the template from a Cool Whip lid.

I'm looking forward to trying them out again!

My New Favorite

I always thought the recipe I used for my sugar cookies was good, but I think I may have finally found the best recipe ever!  The dough is smooth, easy to work with and doesn't need to chill.  Best of all, the cookies taste fantastic on their own as well as iced.  I've used this one recipe two different ways to bake up some adorable Halloween treats.

Sugar Cookie Dough

1 cup (2 sticks) butter at room temperature

1 1/2 cups confectionery sugar

1 egg at room temperature

3 tsp flavoring (I used 1 1/2 tsp orange and 1 1/2tsp vanilla)

2 1/2 - 3 cups flour

Cream butter and sugar until smooth.  Mix in egg and flavoring.

Mix in flour until dough is formed.

Once I had the dough made, I was able to make these:

Candy Corn Cookies

adapted from Land o Lakes

Divide the above dough into 3 equal portions.  Color 1/3 yellow (I used Americolor gel paste lemon yellow), 1/3 orange (I used electric orange), and leave the last 1/3 uncolored.

Line a loaf pan with plastic wrap and let the excess hang over.

Press uncolored dough into bottom of pan.  Follow with orange and then yellow.  Wrap with plastic wrap and chill at least 2 hours.

When dough is thoroughly chilled, remove plastic wrap and trim around edges.  Cut crosswise into 1/4 inch strips.

Cut each strip into triangles and bake at 375 degrees for 7 - 10 minutes.
I think these may be my son Max's new favorite cookie!

I packaged some up in dollar store jars and added the cute tag from http://lilluna.com/no-tricks-just-treats-jar/

What a yummy treat!

I also made a batch of dough to decorate for Halloween.  These are for Ava to bring to school.

Copy Cat Halloween Crafts

I wish I could take credit for my Halloween decorations, but unfortunately, I'm what you might call a copy cat.  Everything you see here came from someone else's idea with my own spin on it.

I just loved the idea of a tulle wreath.  There are tutorials and pictures all over Pinterest.  For this wreath, I took a Dollar Tree wreath form and tied strips of tulle all the way around.  The tulle came in spools in these great Halloween colors at Joann Fabrics.  I finished it off by hot gluing some sparkly spiders.

My mantel got decorated with these spider topiaries.

As soon as I saw this, I knew I had to make one.  It's sitting right outside my front door!

http://madebymolliesmom.blogspot.com/2011/10/its-pumpkin-totem-pole.html

I downloaded some Halloween subway art and put them in dollar store frames

and followed this tutorial to make a few spooky ghosts.

http://www.everydayisacraftingday.com/2010/09/floating-ghost.html

Here they are displayed with my diy apothecary jars.

I may not be original, but I had fun making them all!

Spider Topiary

Once again, I came across a pin on Pinterest that I wanted to replicate but change up a little.

I got the cute buckets in the dollar bin at Target.  I inserted a foam block inside and then covered the block with orange paper shreds which were also found in the dollar bin.

I spray painted 2 dowels orange and inserted them into the foam block.

Next, I took 2 Styrofoam balls from Michaels ($4.99 each plus I used my 40% coupons!)

and painted them black with craft paint.  When they dried, I pressed them into the dowels.

I bought 2 bags of plastic spiders in the Halloween section of Target and hot glued them to the Styrofoam.  I glued a few spiders to the dowel too.

Here they are displayed on my mantel.

 *Original pin from Crafts by Starlight

Caramel Apple Tart

I know, this picture doesn't match the title of the post, but . . . .
















http://www.pauladeen.com/recipes/recipe_view/fresh_fruit_tart/

It all started with this recipe.  I had somewhere to go and needed a dessert so I thought I'd give this a try.  It seemed easy enough and turns out, it was!

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture, but I swear, mine looked identical to this!

Then, I made it again for a friend on a gluten-free diet.  I substituted white rice flour for the all-purpose flour and it came out equally delicious!

When the third time came around, I decided to give it a Fall flavor so I used apples and caramel.  The results did not disappoint.

Whichever route you decide to take, they are all equally delicious!

Caramel Apple Tart

Crust:

1 1/2 sticks butter at room temperature

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

Mix butter and sugar.  Add flour until dough forms.  Press dough into tart pan with removable bottom.  (I left the bottom of the bottom of the pan at my friend's house so I used a spring form pan instead)

Bake crust for 12 minutes at 350 degrees.  Allow crust to cool.

Cream:

8 oz  cream cheese

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients until smooth.  Spread over cool crust

Caramel:

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 sticks butter softened and cut into pieces

1 cup heavy cream, room temperature

In a heavy saucepan, heat sugar until melted, whisking often.  Once sugar is melted and turns golden, add the butter and continue to stir.  Once mixture comes to a boil, remove from heat and slowly add cream while continuing to stir.  caramel will thicken as it cools.  Once cool, spread over cream cheese mixture.

Top with sliced apples.  I used 1 1/2 Honey Crisp apples.  Then drizzle with more caramel and top with Heath bits.

DIY Apothecary Jars

I've been seeing these every where and just couldn't resist making my own.  They were super simple and super CHEAP!  I made these three for under $10!

I found the candle sticks at Goodwill.  They had a brass finish and I simply spray painted them black.

I found the jars at Dollar Tree and glued them to the sticks.

The tops are wooden circles with knobs glued to them.  They were also spray painted black.

I found some cute Halloween ribbon at Michaels and we're done!

I love that all I have to do is change the ribbon and they'll be ready for another holiday!

I also love that the lids just rest on the jars so the kids just simply lift them off to take a treat!

I can't wait to display them with some of my other Halloween creations!

Tulle Pumpkin Wreath

It all started with this picture I saw on Pinterest.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/103325491/handmade-front-door-deco-mesh-halloween?ref=sr_gallery_23&ga_search_query=pumpkin+wreaths&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_ship_to=US&ga_search_type=handmade

Yes, I took just one look and knew I had to have one.  However, I wasn't crazy about paying that much for it when I knew I could probably do it myself!

Sooooo, I kept analyzing it to try and figure out how it was made and then I stumbled upon this . . .

Pumpkin Wreath tutorial! :)http://erin--elizabeth.blogspot.com/2011/10/diy-pumpkin-wreath.html

After looking it over I went out to gather my supplies only to realize I didn't buy the right kind of mesh!    
My first attempt had failed, but I wasn't going to give up!

During one of my travels to Joann Fabrics, I noticed they sold 15 yard spools of tulle for only $2.99!!!
I knew some how, some way, I was going to make this work!

So I followed the basic directions and improvised.  I used

10" embroidery hoop

orange latch hook canvas
2 spools orange tulle
8 pieces green tulle
1 piece black tulle
floral wire

First, I stapled the latch hook canvas to the embroidery hoop

Then, I cut the tool into 10'' strips.  I rolled the strip into a tube and fastened it with the wire

I poked the wire through the holes (not every one!) and then twisted the wire on the back

When all the orange was filled in, I attached some green pieces for leaves and a black piece for the stem

Not the exactly the same, but pretty close!

What do you think?

Inspired by Pinterest

It's been quite a while!  I've still been baking but unfortunately I haven't been faithful about blogging about it.

I've also been spending a lot (A LOT) of time on Pinterest.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, you've got to check it out here.  Once you try it, I'm sure you'll be addicted like I am!

I must say I've been quite inspired by so many of the pins I've seen and thought I'd try to replicate some of them.

Here are a few:

The directions for this jellybean holder can be found here.

and the directions for this adorable Easter wreath can be found here.

I hope you'll be inspired to try them too!