This weekend is all about apples! I live in Michigan and apples are abundant this time of year. Fall is not complete until we make a couple trips to the Cider Mill for fresh apples, apple cider, hot cinnamon and sugar donuts and pumpkins.
Last week my son and I made an apple stamp craft. I wanted a runner for my buffet in my dining area. So I purchased some brown and green placemats at the dollar store to coordinate with the colors I already have in that room. We cut a Granny Smith apple in half, and a pear as well. We covered the cut side in red paint and stamped it on. My son is almost 4 and he enjoyed this craft. Anything that allows him to use and cover his hands in paint is a big hit. Although, he ended up only stamping one placemat himself and I completed the rest. After they were stamped I sewed them together to make one long runner. You could do this as just placemats to be used at each person’s place at the table, adding their names would be nice too.
Kitchen pot holders, towels, and even a cute little tote bag as seen below from the Family Fun website would be fun.
I also love the idea of using apples to hold tealight candles. This would be so pretty as a centerpiece for a dinner party. Lillian Vernon offers a Candle Carver tool at their website, but you could also use a paring knife and cut around the tealight and carve out a spot in the apple for it without the fancy tool.
If you have a toddler that enjoys finger painting, DLTK’s website has a cute Apple Tree Painting idea. This is so simple and fun!
For my fellow digital scrapbookers, Funky Playground offers this fun, crisp Fall digi kit, A Bushel And A Peck by Valorie Brown. This would be perfect for Cider Mill pictures!
One last thing, because I think baking is also crafty….This cake is an Autumn must eat! I made this earlier this week for my birthday, yes I baked my own cake (lol). My whole family loved it, grandma’s, grandpa’s and kids alike. The caramel must be drizzled on right before serving to avoid soggy cake, so plan to make this one for a dinner party. It is quite simple, but will WOW your guests.
Moist Caramel Apple Cake
The recipe can be found here, at Kraft Foods.
Happy Apple Season,
Andrea (come visit me for more ideas and crafting memes)
that cake looks SOOO good- i will try it soon!
i love the apple tealight hoders , i will do that when the inlaws come over for dinner
yum!! I need to make that caramel yummy cake!!
The runner is so cute! I can’t wait to try out the apple stamp idea. I think it looks like so much fun. Thanks for the great ideas!
Trisha, you can use acrylic paint, it is fairly permanent on fabric, that said, put her in painting clothes when working with acrylic. Michaels sells it in the paint aisle, usually a couple brands, for 99 cents a bottle. We used kids tempra paints because I was not worried about it getting wet or needing to be washed, but I did not want to fuss with chaning Aiden.
How creative. I never thought to use an apple as a stamp like that!
The caramel apple cake sounds so good but I have such bad luck with baking apple cakes.
I am so jealous of your readily-available apples. Somehow picking them out at the grocery store when they don’t grow anywhere in this part of the country doesn’t have the same zing.
how fun andrea, I bet charlotte would love doing that. What kind of paint did you use?