Tutorial: My Mom's Caramel Apples

Before I get into this giant picture-heavy tutorial let's talk numbers from this Halloween:

76 = the number of caramel apples made.
3 = the number of caramel apples remaining at the end of the night.
40 = the number of sugar cookies made.
3 = the number of sugar cookies remaining at the end of the night.
60 = the number of candy bars purchased
10 = the number of candy bars remaining at the end of the night.

Can you believe it? 76 caramel apples? I have to admit that when I was helping mom with the Halloween prep I was skeptical. I thought we were making more than enough goodies and that we would have leftovers coming out of our ears. Clearly I was wrong and my mother knows just what she's doing. Her house is definitely the place to be on Halloween. That is, if you like a crowd. And if you don't mind parking your car at the end of the line of minivans in her driveway. And if you don't mind waiting in line for your caramel apple or sugar cookie. Which you don't.

Enough chatter then, let's get to the recipe!

Mom's Caramel Apples
Yields: About 12. Batch can be doubled, tripled, or quadrupled as necessary.

Apples should be washed and cold. Sometimes we put the sticks in them and keep them in the fridge overnight. My mom keeps hers in the cooler at the convenience store a few miles away because you know, she has connections. If you get your apples as the grocery store be sure to wash them well to remove any wax they may have on them.

Combine 1 C. light Karo syrup, 1 lb. light brown sugar, and 1/4 C. butter into a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and cook until all the sugar is dissolved.

Remove the pan from the heat and add 1 can of sweetened condensed milk. Put it back on the heat and cook—stirring constantly to prevent burning—until it reaches 230 degrees on your candy thermometer (be sure to calibrate for altitude!).

Remove from heat and allow to cool a bit. If the caramel is too hot it won't stick to the apples (and if it gets too cold you can warm it back up on the stove). At this point you can bask in the heavenly smell of caramel that has wafted into every part of your house. But not for long! You have a lot of apples to dip!

While we're waiting for the caramel to cool, we like to crush rice crispies in a Ziploc bag. We use these to dip the bottoms of the apples in to keep them from sticking to the pan and to make them more awesome.

From here it's pretty easy:

Take your apple,

dip it in the caramel,

turn it a bit to let the excess drip off as the caramel cools,

dip the bottom in the crushed rice crispies,

and place in the fridge on a WELL BUTTERED pan.

Please don't forget to squirrel away an apple for yourself or for a loved one. These suckers go fast and I would hate to have you miss out on all of your hard work!

Oh! And one more thing! There is always a little bit of caramel left in the pan when you run out of apples. We use that to dip marshmallows in. Marshmallow + Caramel + Rice Crispies = Bliss. I think my brother likes the marshmallows better than the apples.

Enjoy!

More Kitchen Love

Have you seen the new blog from Northridge Media? They are the company behind some of my favorite crafting magazines. Their new blog is a compilation of what was once three different blogs, now combined into one delightful blog bundle. Here's a bit from their "about" page.

"Our Scrapbook Trends, CARDS, and Simply Handmade blogs are now combined into a single, one-stop location for all things creative. Welcome to create:, a place where you can enjoy videos, tutorials, challenges, hot products, and tons of awesome ideas, all the time."

Create featured my DIY Play Kitchen yesterday! It's quite flattering that so many people love our little creation as much as we do!

Okay. I am officially in the mood to make another one of these play kitchens. Anybody need one for a birthday or Christmas present? I'm off to the thrift store right now to hunt for furniture.

Be sure to add Create to your reader and get ready for tons of inspiration!

Baby Shower Onesie

I am not a big fan of baby shower games. I am, however, a fan of coming up with things to occupy guests and provide them with a nice opportunity for mingling. These onesies are super easy so that any non-crafters at your party will not be intimidated. They also leave a lot of room for individuality and are dang cute to boot. Here's what you'll need:

Onesies, of course. (I might add that it is okay if you need to freak out a little about how wee these things are. I'm completely convinced Z-cakes was never that small.)

Scissors (fabric and non)

Pencils

Pictures (I got these animals from dafont.com. I also think it would be totally rad to do this with video game characters or hipster art.)

Wonder Under (or any comparable paper backed fusible webbing)

Fabric (I bought a bunch of different fat quarters so that the guests would have a variety of fabric to chose from.)

First, choose the picture that you want for the onesie and cut it out. I had grand plans to have a bunch of these cut out before the guests arrived but as it turns out, I was too busy skewering strawberries. Nobody seemed to mind that they had to cut the animals out themselves.

After you've cut out your picture, trace it onto the paper side of a piece of Wonder Under.

Next, place the web side of the Wonder Under onto the wrong side of your fabric. Fuse the Wonder Under to your fabric with a dry iron. All of these instructions should be included on the packaging so be sure to check the instructions if you're using something different.

After the fabric has cooled, cut out the silhouette exactly and peel off the paper. The fusible webbing will be left on the wrong side of your fabric.

Place your picture anywhere you would like on the onesie web side down. This time you're going to put a damp press cloth over the top of the onesie before you press it. Press firmly for 10 seconds and make sure that you press the entire piece of fabric to get everything fused.

If you are like me, "press cloth" refers to whatever dishcloth you can find that won't look atrocious in a picture. Hopefully you are not like me. If your onesie is a little wet after using the press cloth, you can press over it with your dry iron to dry it off.

Ta-Da! See, I told you. Easy-peasy mac 'n' cheesy. I posted a couple of signs with instructions around the crafting area and had samples for people to look at. Rachel ended up with a giant stack of onesies that were not only adorable, but reflected each person that made it.

Also, will someone please use my idea of hanging all of the finished onesies on a wire with clothespins? It is another one of those things that I just ran out of time for. But seriously, that is an idea that desperately needs to be used.

Let me know if you have any questions and definitely let me know if you make any of these yourself!

Happy crafting!

Tutorial :: Felted Soap

I'm pretty much in love with my felted soap. I would be making some right now if I had more soap on hand, and if I wasn't busy tweaking this little tutorial. I hope you enjoy it. This is a first in the tutorial world for me.

Many yarn shops have roving available to purchase by the ounce. If you don't have a yarn shop in your area there may also be a craft shop that carries pre-packaged roving. I also found that round soap works better than square soap, but it is surprisingly difficult to find quality soap that is nice and round. Dear aspiring soap maker, start making all of your luxurious goat's milk soap in round bars. We can be BFF. I will buy my soap exclusively from you.

Make sure that you wrap some roving around the soap in both directions. You will use a couple of layers to do this. You can play around with how much roving you use to cover your soap; I tend to like mine with a thicker coating.

Make sure all of the soap surface is covered and add more colors if you would like.

Individual wool fibers have tiny barbs on them that grab together when water, soap, and agitation are applied. Remember that wool sweater that you accidentally put into the washing machine and it came out small enough to fit your baby? This is the same concept. The fibers fuse together and get tighter and smaller until eventually they are tight around the soap.

As you're rubbing, you will notice that there are some loose spots. Rub these spots gently at first and then more vigorously as they start to tighten. Be sure to give special attention to the sides and corners if you are working with square soap.

You may choose to dip the soap back into the hot water a few times during this process. The act of dipping the roving in hot or cold water "shocks" the wool fibers and helps them to tighten up. Continue to agitate the roving until you are satisfied with how tight it is.

And that's it! The felt stays on the soap and acts as a washcloth or loofah in the shower and creates major lather. The wool will continue to felt itself as the soap is used and if you're lucky, by the time the soap is gone you're left with a cool little wool ball.

Now. Go felt yourself some soap.
You know you want to.
Let me know if you have questions.

::a few more pictures can be found here.