The Fall and Christmas season always makes me think of snack mixes. Maybe it's the return of football and hockey seasons and having a fun snack on hand to enjoy the games with. The only question was whether to make it a savory or a sweet mix. This time, I went with the sweet option with a hint of cinnamon. The blue tortilla chips were a colorful addition. You can sub in regular ones but with Halloween fast approaching, I liked the color.
Fall Snack Mix
Place in a roaster pan ~
1/4 cup popcorn, measurement is unpopped4 cups Crispix2 cups tortilla chips, blue or regular1 cup pretzels
2 cups apple chips
In a small pan, melt 1 stick of butter. When melted, add 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon. Stir and pour over the popcorn mixture. Bake for 1 hour at 250°, stirring every 15 minutes. Allow to cool and pour into a serving container.
Add to this mixture ~1/2 cup Peanut M & M's in fall colors1 cup Candy Corn
A little polymer clay and a little paint (ok a toothpick plays a minor role too) and you can create this fun stack of pumpkins.
Stacked Polymer Clay Pumpkins
1 stick orange polymer clay
1/4 stick black polymer clay
1 toothpick
white and black acrylic paint
black marker - thin
Divide the orange clay into 3 pieces - one larger for the bottom, one medium and one small. Roll into a pumpkin shape. Use the side of a flat toothpick to put lines into the back half of the pumpkins, leaving the front smooth for the faces. Stack and insert the toothpick leaving part out to hold the hat. Make a flat disc for the bottom of the hat and then a gradual cone for the top part. Bake per clay instructions. Allow to cool. Using a dotter or end of your paintbrush, dot in the white eyes. Allow to dry. Dot in a smaller black dot, looking upwards for the bottom two pumpkins and ahead for the top one. Draw in mouths and eyebrows.
It's been awhile since I posted a craft project and so here's a fairly easy one to make pumpkins for Fall decorating.
Papier Mache Pumpkins
1 ea 3.5" and 6" papier mache pumpkin
1 - 1" scalloped wooden heart
1 - 1 1/4" scalloped wooden heart
green floral wire cut into 6" pieces
Wedgewood Green paint
Bittersweet Orange paint
Black paint
Drill through the stems and at the center top of the hearts using a small drill bit. Paint stems and the leaves using green paint. Paint the pumpkins orange. Thread the wire through the holes in the stems. Attach the hearts on the wire close to the stem and curl the remainder of the wire by wrapping it around a pen. If you have a spatter brush, dip in black paint and hold about 6" away for a light speckling of black paint on the leaves and pumpkins. You can also use an old toothbrush to spatter.
Sometimes when you have all the ingredients...you just have to try putting them together to see if they work well together. My latest are these S'mores. I may come down from my sugar high around midnight but they were tasty.
Easy Halloween S'mores
chocolate graham crackers
marshmallow creme
vanilla almond bark
Halloween sprinkles
Carefully break chocolate graham crackers in half. I say carefully because these do not break as easily as regular graham crackers. Spread inside of one cracker with marshmallow creme and put two crackers together. Dip in melted almond bark and apply the sprinkles right away before it hardens. You'll notice that I did not give any quantities since it's up to you how many you make. I made 8 crackers and used 3 blocks of almond bark for them.
