Pumpkin Pop Tarts ~ Free Tutorial

A big thanks to my good friend, Autumn Rae, who sent me a link to these adorably delicious Pumpkin Pop tarts over at The Family Kitchen!!

You see Autumn is one of my most talented pals who is most famous for her Maple Bacon Cupcakes. And let me tell you her fame is well deserved. Those cupcakes are sinfully delicious. If your in the Ann Arbor area you should give them a try;)

But in the meantime, you can make my awesome version of these cute little pumpkin pop tarts. Thanks for the inspiration Autumn!!

=======================================

So after recovering from laying on the couch all weekend sick, I was ready to make something seasonal and warm to make up for our missed cider mill trip. You've got to admit, having the flu stinks! And the first thing that came to mind was these pop tarts. I didn't have any pumpkin on hand so I decided to wing it.  And here's what I came up with:

I put them together while my two year old was taking her nap. They were super easy and best of all, I used what I had on hand and it worked!!

You will need:

one egg white

small amount of flour

refrigerated pie crusts (you could make your own too!)

assorted fillings (I used caramel ice cream topping, lemon curd,  and preserves)

Orange sugar

cookie sheet

pumpkin cookie cutters

rolling pin

pastry brush

Preheat you oven to 400 degrees.

Unroll pie crust onto a floured surface. Cut out your pumpkin shapes.

*These would be cute for a birthday breakfast too. Try cutting them into cupcake shapes.*

 Next cut out the face.

I used an exacto knife that I use for cutting fondant. A parring knife would do the trick. I also tried out some of my small gum paste cutters. I like the way the teardrop cutter gave the pumpkin personality!

Each pop tart will need an uncut bottom and a cut face top. I got 6 pop tarts out of one pie crust, the box made 12!

Then I filled each pumpkin with a small amount of filling spread from the center out.

Next, I topped the filled bottom layer with a face topper. With a fork I pressed along each edge of the pumpkin to seal the tart closed.

Finally, using my pastry brush, I brushed the top of each pumpkin with egg white and then sprinkled the top with orange sugar. You could skip this step if you like.

Don't have any orange sugar? Don't fear! Just place some granulated sugar in a zip lock baggy with a couple of drops of orange (or yellow and red:) food coloring and mix until colored!

Easy Peasy!

Bake for 8-10 minutes on an ungreased cookie sheet. Cool on a rack and enjoy!

Happy Baking!!

Mini Apple Muffins for a Healthy Preschool Snack

I am snack mom again.  It seems like it was just a week ago, probably because it was.  None the less, I came up with this great little recipe for mini apple muffins.  I "frosted" the minis with whipped cream cheese that I sweetened with a small touch of honey.  Mostly, I figured that "frosting" might get the picky eaters to try these little muffins. 

These muffins are low fat, lower in sugar and high fiber. 

Here is my recipe:

Preheat your oven to 375. 

Mix 1 egg, 2 tbs butter, 1/4 low fat sour cream, 1/2 brown sugar, and 1 tbsp milk.

Mix dry ingredients: 1 cup wheat or white flour, 1/2 cup flax seed meal, 1/2 wheat germ, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp baking powder

Add dry ingredients into wet ingredients. 

Mix in 2 medium apples diced

Bake about 8-10 minutes in the greased mini muffin tin.


"Frosting" - 1 package low fat cream cheese & 2 tbsp honey - whip with mixer for 5 minutes until it is really fluffy.  Then, pipe it on with a small star tip.  Keep these in the fridge. 

We used fresh apples picked from our local apple orchard, Spicer's on our Friday preschool field trip. 

Inspired by an Autumn Day

'Autumn Warmth' by c1h8r9is

Celebrate the warm colors of fall.

GATHER TOGETHER Aut... bekahjennings $28.00	Boutique Pumpkin Pa... LullabyLamb $28.50	Harvest Gold Leaves... sunflowerexpre... $25.50	Fall Time Charm Bra... juicejuice $30.00
Fall leaves hair bo... BeesBowtique $6.50	Fall Orange and Yel... ArtfullySew $8.00	Fall Chocolate Mix ... happydessertti... $6.00	woodland harvest co... cardinalhouse $29.00
Ginger Orange Gift ... SatinandBirch $10.00	September Special -... Raceytay $35.00	Autumn is magic - P... movezerb $8.90	24 Fall Sugar Leave... sweetpetalbake... $28.80
Pick 3 - Crochet Co... Sweetbriers $10.50	Colorblocked in Cha... CamilleStar $59.00	Fall Harvest Dress ... sarahandjane $50.00	Autumn Celebration ... PhoenixFinery $15.00

Generated using Treasury HTML code generator by Whale Shark Websites.

=============================================================================================

Turn on the oven and bake a batch of these awesome fall cookies. They also give directions for these adorable felted pumpkins.

Check out the free tutorial for fall leaf cookies on Country Living.

===============================================

That's it! I'm getting these kids bundled up and going out for a fall leaf hunt as soon as I'm done here!!!!

This free tutorial for how to make roses from maple leaves is amazing and totally free! Life doesn't get much richer than this!

Thanks haha.nu!

==================================================

Here's a really easy and fun fall pumpkin free tutorial from Make and Takes.

This is a great site full of tons of useful ideas! Head on over and check it out!!

=====================================================

Here's another way to honor the beautiful colors of fall.

Head on over to Build/Make/Craft/Bake to get this free tutorial on how to make leaf prints.

How fun!

===============================================================

Check out this fall paper bag scrapbook album.

What a fun way to house all of those new/old memories of autumn!

=====================================================

Happy Crafting!!

Free Kid's Craft Idea Everyday

When checking my email this morning I came across an email update from Free Kid's Crafts. I can't believe I haven't shared this site with you guys yet! Everyday in my email I recieve a new kid's craft that goes along with the season or holiday that is currently approaching. The projects are generally very inexpesive and use materials that I have on hand. It's the perfect way to keep little hands busy while you do a project of your own.

This morning's craft came as this tissue paper pumpkin:

Click for directions.

To subscribe to the newsletter and get a free craft idea emailed to you everday just fill in your name and email address under the Subscribe tab on the left hand side of the page.

They make it kind of fun because you can't see the crafts for the coming days but you can access the craft archives by clicking a previous date on the calendar an left hand side of the page (under the subscribe tab).

Check out Friday's Craft ~ an October Coloring Calendar

Click to print

 

Let your little one color this to uses as a chore chart or a count down to trick or treating on Halloween by placing stickers on each day until Halloween! It's a simple yet fun way to get them excited about the holiday.



Free Photos Angels Fairies Mermaids Gothic Photos Glitter Graphics
http://www.free-foto-animation-digital-images.blogspot.com/

Pumpkin Patch Popcorn Recipe

This is a little recipe I started making a few years ago for my niece's preschool.  All of the preschools are peanut free now so it's sort of hard to find things to make.

The recipe is

1 cup butter
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 tsp baking soda
8 cups of popped popcorn (2 microwave bags or air popped popcorn)
assorted candy

Directions
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.  Put popcorn in a greased 13"x9" pan and put it in the oven. 

In a heavy bottom sauce pan mix butter, sugar, salt, and corn syup. 

Over medium heat, bring to a boil.  Boil at a rolling boil for 5 minutes. 

 Boil for 5 minutes.  If you have a light pan, you are really going to need to stir so that it will not burn.  In a heavy pan, you can stir occassionally.  Turn off the heat and add the baking soda.  It foams up (photo on right).

Take your popcorn out of the over.  Pour your caramel onto the popcorn.  Stir until the popcorn is totally coated.  Keep it in the oven for 1 hour stirring even 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and add your sprinkles, candy corn, mini marshmallows, m&ms, etc. 

Kamille likes helping - she was counting the candy.  Big surprise!

Happy Crafting!

Free Tutorial Fridays - No Sew Pumpkin Halloween Costume

As promised, I am going to give you the tutorial to make this great Halloween costume.  A little background:

I made this entire costume for less than $5.00 (actually it was $1.00 plus some stuff I had in the craft room).  This costume would be totally cute for an adult, especially as a maternity costume or just to wear to your child's class part of for passing out candy.  You can get everything to make the pumpkin and hat at the dollar store.  My dollar store always has t-shirts and I lucked out this time they were actually from the Disney Store.  If you cannot get a shirt at the dollar store, check Michael's and Joann's.  They almost always have craft shirts on sale 2 for $5.  You could also make this long sleeve.  I was thinking of layering it over a green sweatsuit.  If you bought a man sized shirt you could even make this into a little pumpkin dress for an adult.  You can make this entire shirt and hat no-sew with hot glue, fabric glue, or fusible web.  One note, if you use craft fuse, felt will melt onto your iron.  Use a sheet of white paper as a "pressing cloth".    


See Pumpkin Halloween Costume No Sew Simple and 1000's of others - or share your own on Cut Out + Keep

I posted it on one of my new favorite sites www.cutoutandkeep.net.  Click the link above to get my step-by-step tutorial and you can make this costume in under 20 minutes. 

Happy Sewing!