Dear Caramel Apples: You are dead to me.

This story is to share my humiliation with the world over my big failure in the kitchen last weekend (lest it thinks I am all good ideas and smooth successes - 'cause that's just not true!).

Making Caramel Apples seems easy.

Seems.

Remember a few years ago I made GIANT sized ones for CC's baby shower as favors, carefully making the caramel from scratch in huge quantities, dipping the caramel apples in dark chocolate and rolling them in nuts too? They were heavenly. (Were we friends yet back then?) And though I documented every detail of that process, I've been trying to recreate that success ever since.  See how I even wrote the process out on graph paper? That's because it was a science to me and I sorta think I'm a scientist. Sometimes.



I've tried - Lord knows! - to make my own caramel probably three other times since then, and all attempts have resulted in caramel that's either too thin and slides right off the apples (not boiled long enough), or too thick, which won't cover properly at all, and yields like 3 total because it's so gummy (boiled too much). It's so frustrating, and makes me want to break the candy thermometer over my knee.

So I decided to cheat this year by doing the melty version. See how many store bought caramels I

opened? Three bags. ANNOYING. All the while, I'm totally romanticizing the making your own process. Was it really all that bad?? 'Cause taking off all those wrappers is no cup of tea either.

We even picked our own apples this year. I purposefully chose smallish ones, so the caramel would cover lots of them (and I could eat more than one a day). Look, aren't they so pretty already?

BEFORE.



AFTER.

They look like delicious treats, right?

Wrong. Disaster. Crappy sucky disaster that wasted my good hand-picked apples.

Problem #1. Wax paper stuck to all the bottoms. I had to rip them off. Why didn't I just put them directly on the dang tray?! So I took a knife and sawed off the bottoms of a few, which were then dipped in chocolate to hide the apple disfiguration. But I didn't have much chocolate.

Problem #2. Re-melting caramels makes the substance as edible as if I were to wrap an apple with a piece of leather. No kidding. Since I've made caramel before, I know how heat sensitive it is, and heating that sugary delight past it's point of caramely goodness leads to leathery disaster. Even if we just cut slices off the sides of the apples to avoid the paper bottoms, which we did, none of us could eat the caramel, it was so tough! It was the same consistency as Abba-Zabba. Like it wants to pull out my teeth if I'm not careful. So basically, what I had to show for my time was this:

Problem #3. Wiener dogs who get up in the middle of the night, sneak into the kitchen, and tug on the tablecloth with their teeth until all the apples come crashing down to the floor so he can eat one. Caramel stickiness everywhere.

In summary, Caramel Apples, you are dead to me.

$8 for a giant, beautiful one at the candy store suddenly doesn't sound so ridiculous.

Paper Candy Corn Bunting

I'm getting good at choosing crafts for my kids that are super speedy quick!

('Cause you know me. Detail oriented. Meticulous. Overly ambitious. Practically killed the MOPS moms with complicated craftiness...)

So I'm growing as a person, here.

We don't have a lot of afternoon free time now that we have homework, chores, and all that regular life stuff. But it's still really important to me to keep the creativity flowin' in my house. And I know, personally, that it is calming and therapeutic to work with one's hands. I know you know that too.

So our fingerprint placemats were perfect for a fast and easy weekday craft session. And so is this.

Paper Candy Corn Bunting

When I saw the idea for this, it was done on white paper plates and there was gluing and layering involved. But I don't have any plain white paper plates, and I'm a fan of doing crafts with stuff I already have around the house. Plus I found the layering and gluing unnecessary.

I did have a sheet of white poster board. And a compass. Mmmm. Love that maker of perfect circles (see above link for "overly ambitious").


OK. Bear with the geometry here, dude. It's not hard.

I drew concentric circles, at 6" (on the compass, meaning that's the radius), 4" and 2", in pencil. (So the diameters of the circles are 12", 8" and 4".)


If you want to change the size, just remember that the radius of the circle (halfway across) will be the length of each candy corn.

I don't think you, little lady, have a compass. And I know you'd much rather just find three circular thingys of different sizes in your house and trace them. I'd stress out about not getting the centers to line up, but you wouldn't, and that's why I like you.

My little Lover of Candy Corn filled in the circles with acrylic paint while she looked at ate real candy corn to make sure she got the order of colors correct.



She even painted the white. Yes, it's white on white paper, but the texture looks better than smooth paper when the rest is painted. Like I said. Details.

Also, she painted the outside, then center, then middle stripe with a few minutes inbetween, so there was no  blending of wet paints.



{Next, a wiener dog walked over the wet paint, but that step is optional.}

We let them dry. Cut out the big circles. Then cut the circles into 8 pie pieces, cutting first into halves, then quarters, then eighths. Three big circles yield 24 pie pieces.

We punched little holes and tied them together with black ribbons.

Done. Isn't it so cute??

It fits in perfectly with Classy Spooky.

Oh, and for another super cute and easy October idea, check out this post. You know my kids are suckers for tie-dye. Tie-dye plus pumpkin faces equals happy times, and, I'm thinking, some cute fall PJ tops.

Whadya think?

shopping in my own jewelry box...

of course you know about how when you clean stuff out of your closet and organize it, it almost seems like you have more options....
well, the same is true with your suuuuuper messy jewelry box apparently.
at least this is what's happened to me.
i conveniently forgot to take a "before picture" of all that nonsense.
but take a look at my freshly organized loot!
(yes, you can borrow whatever you want)

i just got two metal racks of hooks from lowes.
i liked them because they have a bit of a vintage feel.
and for the earrings, i got a giant embroidery hoop, filled it with burlap and then wrapped yarn around it a million messy times.
for me, i love it.
for you that last part about being messy might make you crazy...but i bet you could figure out some genius, mathematical way that would be even better.
this is what that little card looks like in real life.

just a nice little reminder not to get too sucked into worrying about my appearance as i put on my earrings.

Paper plates and Breakfast Sliders

....just a couple of my favorite things, perfect for a weekend morning with the family.

Isn't this just two plates full of happiness? Disposable plates, that is. Even in fall colors.

Wanna copy these fun guys?

1 dozen small Hawaiian rolls, cut open
1 chicken sausage, cut on the diagonal into slices and heated in a fry pan
5 eggs, beaten, (scrambled in same pan)
a handful of shredded sharp cheddar cheese tossed on top of hot scrambled eggs
salt & pepper
{serves 4-5}

Voila. Breakfast Sliders. We polished off all of them. Yep. I'm not ashamed. Oh. And everything tastes more delicious to kids if served with toothpicks. A little family swashbuckling took place afterwards. Naturally.

Happy Saturday, friends.

Enjoy the day!

Fall, 15 minutes, and $5

So, as you know, the fall season and I are friends, simply because we have the same coloring.

It's easy for me to move into the fall season because I've always gravitated to the autumn shades in all areas (primarily because those are the colors that match my hair). I've been grabbing my mustard corduroy skirt and my tartan plaid blazer with delight this past week. It's like greeting old, loved friends in my closet in the fall. (And I remember that I look better fully clothed than in a sundress or shorts. That's just the fact of the matter.)

Last week, I ventured to IKEA and I spied these placemats. I loved that they were cork, and that they were $5. They aren't super cute on their own, but I had plans for these trees....

They were to be adorned with fall fingerprint leaves.





I bet you already have fall-colored acrylic paint in your cabinet. Brown, red, orange and yellow were all we used. And we mixed them, because leaves aren't ever a solid color, are they?

(Note the pile of leaves for jumping in on my daughter's.)



I painted our names on each placemat, along the trunk of one tree. (FYI, my spellcheck is not recognizing the word placemat and wants to change it to playmate or placenta.)



My little guy does NOT like to get his fingers messy, so he was a hard sell on this project. (I don't know ANYONE like that...??) He lasted about 7 minutes before the torture of having paint on his fingers was more than he could stand. I did get a smile out of him though. A half-hearted one.





I was happy to have the remaining two placemats to decorate my big self.



They're sorta flimsy and will probably only last this season, but I still love how they turned out! A couple fall-colored candles in my centerpiece and a white tablecloth made for a very simple and lovely table arrangement.

Five bucks.

Fifteen minutes of fingerpainty fun.

New fall decor.

That's perhaps the best time and money we spent all week.

{linking up with Paisley Jade & Finding Joy}

leslie's pinterest

hey did you know you are on pinterest?
you are.
i saw this tonight.

and i know i've already told you this, but you do have your own little section of pinterest called, "shauna's 'leslie' board" that you really should look on there soon.
there are many new things....that you will love.

words like this...

and this...

oh oh! and ideas like this!!!

also, i was thinking that we should make this for ourselves (and the kids) one tuesday after school.

since they get out early.

doesn't that look so super good!

do you think nate will like it?

fruit salsa with cinnamon sugar chips!

on a different note, are you getting a bit concerned about wardrobe for blog sugar?
is meg really gonna wear sparkly platforms!?
i think i may be under dressed.
oh my, when i think about these kinda details i just really want to back out.
what happened to you convincing me to go and stand in the back with iced teas and dark glasses? do you remember that?

....and also one happy thing is that i got a super cute trench coat at H&M last night!
(and i scored it for 20 bux!)
which could still be a really good accessory to the teas and glasses...just thinkin out loud.
will it be fun?
will we be this happy?

talk me down, friend!
or i may panic and bury my head in the sand....

Back to School Lovely

Alright, I just can't wait for you to come over anymore.

I want to show you my Back to School decor. I don't usually get too excited about these kinds of things. The times are few and far between when I feel like I have AND know how to coordinate an ensemble of things to display for a given season. You are the supreme expert in this area, and so I learn a lot from you.

So this time, I tried really hard. I spent a long time. I thought and shifted and added and subtracted.



I just want to explain my process, since I'm not super confident in my display planning, in case others are reading this who feel the same. My starting point was a square vintage tablecloth I have that is red and navy plaid with a bit of yellow in it. I tried to stay focused on using only items that coordinated with this, or were white. For instance, for my crayon jar, I picked all the primary colored bits out of our broken crayons box, and allowed a few chalkboard green ones in too.



I also wanted to express our love for books. I stuck to the narrow color range in choosing the books for my stacks, trying to stick to classic looks and titles, and ones we love. I also had the idea to make a book page garland to hang across my large, old screen. I found one book in our collection with simple illustrations in colors that matched my backdrop, with childish text, and interesting images, and spent a bunch of time photocopying (2 book sheets per page of paper) and cutting them out. I could have ripped the pages out of the book. But I didn't want to ruin it. This book was one from the Nate the Great series. This garland is my favorite part of my display.

I really struggled to find things I already had to fill my three jars. I didn't want to go buy thirty erasers, although those kinds of jars I've seen all over the internet crammed with school supplies are so cute. I wanted it all to be free. So I had to stretch the category of "school supply" a bit. I filled one jar with red and yellow yarn. One with empty coin rolls (let's just pretend there are coins in them), and into the third, I put the pieces to one of our wooden puzzles (much to my son's dismay. angry voice: "Look what mom did to our puzzle!")

I got to thinking about 1st and 4th, the grades into which my kids are going. Ya know, there is a freeway exit nearby called "1st and 4th." Those are street names to me. So I made these. A little freehanded shape on green paper, white paint pen outline, and chipboard numbers made them look like street signs! (I did diverge and use some orange crayons here. It can't look too matchy matchers, right?)

So that's it. I'm so glad I took the time to display things that reflect our family and what we love. My kids were so happy to see it when they woke up on day one. They loved that I posted the 1st and 4th grade signs.

I love honoring and celebrating their milestones. Thanks for being a good little example to me, Shauna, on lots of creative ways to celebrate our kids.