Easy Baked Apples - A Guest Post

Hello, Trendy Treehouse readers!

My name is Rebekah, and I'm  from Potholes and Pantyhose.  I am so honored that Tara asked me to be a guest here today. She's pretty awesome, but I realize you guys know that already.

On my blog Potholes and Pantyhose, I share and photograph detailed tutorials of my DIY Projects, Recipes, Photography Tips and Remodeling Endeavors.

And today, I wanted to offer a yummy dessert-Easy Baked Apples-that can be made at the last minute and with ingredients you probably already have on hand.

These Easy Baked Apples are one of my favorite go-to's when last minute guests arrive. To really go over the top, add a little french vanilla ice cream and be crowned dessert queen of the year.

Here's what you'll need to make these Easy Baked Apples:

4-6 Jonathan Apples

6 TBS butter-room temperature

1/4 C Raisins

1/4 C finely chopped Walnuts or Pecans

1/4 tsp Nutmeg

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Lemon juice (only needed if you are making these ahead and cooking them later, as I did)

1 TBS sugar (if desired to make the dessert a little sweeter, but can be left out)

By using either an apple corer or a paring knife, remove the center of the apple, including all seeds.

Take a moment to make a face with your cored apples.

Place your apples in a sprayed/greased microwavable baking dish.

In a medium sized mixing bowl, add the 6 TBS room temperature butter to the 1/4 C of raisins.

Add the 1/4 Walnuts or Pecans.

Next, add the 1/4 tsp of Nutmeg.

And then add the 1/2 tsp of Cinnamon.

If you are making this dessert hours ahead of when you might want to actually consume it, add the 1 tsp of lemon juice. The lemon juice allows the apples to maintain their color and crispness, but gives you the option of cooking the apples several hours or even a day later.

If you enjoy sweeter desserts, add 1 TBS sugar to the bowl. I opted not to do this, allowing the ice cream to sweeten the deal.

Mix everything together using a fork.

Using a baby spoon or a knife, fill the apples completely full and a little overflowing with the mixture.

Tightly saran wrap the top of your baking dish. (If cooking the apples later, place them in the fridge until you are ready.)

Microwave for about 6 minutes, or until the apple skin is pliable and easily cut with a butter knife.

Let the apples cool slightly for 1-2 minutes, leaving the saran wrap on the baking dish.

Transfer to your serving plate and liberally spoon the excess juices over the apples (and over the ice cream, if desired). Serve the apples whole or sliced up for easy eating.

Enjoy!

Stop by Potholes and Pantyhose for other recipe, craft, and remodeling ideas. I am so looking forward to meeting you all. And, thanks again, Tara for letting me be a guest here today. It's been a real hoot!

Love-Rebekah

♥ Guest Blogger ♥

Well this week we have a visit back from a past guest blogger. Actually, Rebekah from Potholes and Pantyhose will be bringing us great posts once a month. YEAH! She has such great talent, we are so glad to have her here. So let's welcome Rebekah back!

~ She is posting a fantastic tutorial on how to make your photo POP. Sorry little pun there. There is a bubble in the photo. LOL On to Rebekah's great post~

I am more than happy to be a guest blogger at Trendy Treehouse! I just love Tara for allowing my weirdness on her site. I’m Rebekah from www.potholesandpantyhose.com and I blog about my life on the road with my musician hubby, my remodeling projects, my photography, and the arts and crap that I enjoy making from cast-offs. I try to maintain a somewhat normal life, however, normalcy keeps escaping me.

Let me give you a disclaimer on this tutorial-I am not a professional photographer. I just

enjoy sharing the knowledge that I do have with people that might appreciate a tip here or there.

Today, I would like to show you how to take and edit an unconventional photo.

Let’s get started! Making your subject at ease can be tough. I like to put the client in a familiar setting or position to help them relax. My subject was most at ease doing this-blowing a bubble.

Isn’t he just the cutest?

I liked the photo, but there were a few things that needed a fixin’. (That’s Okie talk...)

I didn’t like the chair sticking into the frame. I made a copy of the background and then cropped out the offender.

His skin looked a little flat, so I used the ‘diffuse glow’ function. It’s very flattering to skin tones-boys and girls alike.

He looks so darn purty now. But don’t tell him. He is very macho.

The overall color was too brown for me. I adjusted the levels using ‘color balance’ (found under the tab ‘Image’ and scrolling down to ‘adjustments’).

His eyes needed to pop a little more, so I lassoed both of those cute little suckers and clicked on the ‘Filter’ tab. Scroll down to ‘Sharpen’ and then choose ‘unsharp mask’ and adjust the amount, the radius and the threshold to your liking.

I learned this from Pioneer Woman. I like her. And her photo tricks.

Next, I wanted the bubble gum to stand out a bit more. I lassoed it and then clicked on the ‘Image’ tab and scrolled down to ‘Hue and Saturation’. I brought out the pink in the gum a little more.

Here is the cute finished product. I just love this little guy. However, he is my nephew after all, and I am a little biased.

Come on by www.potholesandpanythose.com to see other basic tutorials on photography, arts and crap, remodeling or many other weirdo things that I am into. I would love to hear from you!

Thanks again Tara for letting me guest blog today!

-Rebekah

♥ Guest Blogger ♥

I found another great project to share with you all today! Susan from "Living with Punks" is here to share a very cool Pin Cushion Project. I know you are all going to want to make. I already stashed my can and am going to make mine tonight!

Hi,  I’m Susan from Living with Punks.  I am the wife of the hubmeister for 18 years now, and we have three wonderful punks, 7 yr. old twin boys and 2 yr. old lil’ sister.  On top of loving to sew, craft and bake, I run our family’s garage door company here in Clovis, California. So yeah, I keep busy.   

I have always had a love for creating and making things pretty. I can remember even as a little girl, thinking about home design and creating with whatever I could get my hands on.  I still have so many children’s books (I need to do a post about) that are about crafting and making.  I’m thankful my mom was aware of my desires, and encouraged them early on. 

After our daughter was born a few years ago, I started sewing again and now I can’t stop!!!  I love being able to look at something and think “I can make that” and then actually doing it… and it working!  Makes a person feel very accomplished!  Stop by my blog and check it out.  I have alot of ah-ha! sewing tutorials that are super simple and ALWAYS fun!! Toodle-loo...~Susan

~ Tin Can Pin Cushion ~

When I saw Fireflies & Jellybeans announced a crafting challenge a few weeks back, I decided I would try it...even though the challenge included recycled cans.  Unless you didn't notice, I like to sew  :)  But, I want to expand my crafting abilities and I thought it would be a great opportunity. 

I saved some 6oz. flavored almond cans (we've got lots :)), not knowing how I was going to use it....

Well, as they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree (I know that is usually used for a mother/daughter reference, but you get the drift) because although my craft does not involve sewing, I can use it in the sewing room!

I started by cutting a piece of scrap fabric the circumference of the can, basically 11.5 x 2.5, and mod-podgedit to the side.  I stuffed the can with fiberfill and got another piece of fabric and stuffed it down as the pincushion top.  Make sure it's nice and puffy

I didn't want to just throw the plastic top away, so I cut it out in the shape of a funky flower

...and mod-podged some fabric to it.  I used a cute piece of felt for the flower center

And glued the funky flower to the pincushion

I love it and it looks soooo cute in my sewing room

~Susan

<center><a href="http://3punkmom.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="LivingwithPunks" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4047/4675914951_a0c6cee16d_o.jpg"/></a></center>

Make sure you grab Susan's Button too!


Go Vote for SUSAN!
Susan just got the news too, that she is in the TOP 10 for Fireflies & Jellybeans "Iron Crafter" competition. So please go by and see and vote for your favorite. Which of course would be Susan's Pin Cushion. Show some support and Vote Right Now!

Thank you so much Susan for sharing this fun project with Trendy Treehouse! I look forward to making one of my own. I hope I can find some adorable fabric like yours!

If you loved this tutorial and SUSAN, please go by and tell her so HERE! She would love to hear from your. And if you really love her, Follow her! She has some pretty amazing tutorials. This was just one of them! I am going to try a few that she offers!

♥ Guest Blogger ♥

Sorry that I have missed a couple guest bloggers. End of the school year busies!!! LOL My kids have 3 days left, then it's "School's Out for Summer" Did you start singing the song? I did! 

Anyway, I have a wonderful "Guest Blogger" today! When I saw this project, I knew you all would love it and just had to get Patrice from Lemon Tree Creations over here to share it!

I'm Patrice from Lexington, Kentucky. I am a wife, mother, and teacher and love to spend my free time dreaming big dreams. It wasn't too long ago that my husband and I bought our first home. One of the best decisions we made back then was to only fill our home with meaningful things. Ever since then, I have spent every decorating bone in my body moving, crafting, building, painting and hanging happy things all over our tiny house. I recently started a cooperative crafting blog with some good friends, called Lemon Tree Creations. I'm fairly new to the blogging community, but have been an artist my whole life. I am constantly being inspired by everything I see in the world around me, and have recently embraced the fact that inspiration can be found in even the most surprising of places. 


Book Art

I am a major fan of the book page crafts. I have several versions of "book page wreaths" that you can find hanging throughout my house. However, working with all of these pages from books got me thinking, "what about the book covers?" I quickly started to realize my book covers were laying useless, and I could just not let this be!

So, here was my solution to that problem...

(Now before you cringe, I also have a solution for all of you book lovers out there. Trust me, my husband wouldn't just let me murder good literature for the sake of artwork. We simply reattached the book jackets to the classics, sans hardcover, and they are still very much readable! Mostly only the dictionaries and thesauruses will be used for other crafts later.)

Here is how I did it. I started with about 20 books, most of which were judged by their cover, so that they would look good in my dining room and/ or living room. (Though I did choose about 4 favorite titles to throw in the mix to make it a little more meaningful for our family.) I then simply removed the covers with scissors as seen below.

I used an $8 piece of birch wood from Lowes as the base. I chose this wood because it was light weight and would be easier to hang.

I did NOT glue anything down yet. I went down the side and around the perimeter to make certain their were no edges or gaps of the wood being seen.

When the entire perimeter was complete, I still did NOT glue anything down, but then made a second and third layer to give the piece more visual interest. I was happy at this point that I had not begun gluing, because I had to rework the layout SEVERAL times to make it look the way I wanted it too. I was after an appearance of the books coming out towards you at the center, so the thickness of the hardcover, mixed with its texture had to be played around with a bit.

Once I came up with something that worked, I began gluing down each cover, starting the corner and working my way around the perimeter again in the original pattern I had followed.

To hang it, I simply used picture brackets I also got from Lowes for about $2. I just measured three inches in from the top corners and screwed them in. Then I connected a thin gauge wire between the two brackets.

It only took about 2 hours from start to finish (minus finding the perfect place to hang it!), and cost less than $30.00 for all of the materials. In the end, I was pleased with how it turned out. As soon as I hung it on the wall (without waiting for Matt to help measure it out...oops...) I was pleasantly surprised to see how the piece seemed to bow at in the middle just like I had hoped. It looks great on the wall. After moving from its original place in the living room to the dining room, I have no intentions of taking it down any time soon!

I have been struggling with what to call it. I guess it would be reclaimed art of some kind. I have found myself in the past few days trying to tell people about it and saying, "well, its, uh book sculpture for the, uh, wall?" Makes no sense to me either, don't worry. So if you come up with something better, comment and let me know!

~ Patrice

Thank you Patrice and Lemon Tree Creations for sharing this fun project with us. I was so excited to see this because I am a big fan of books and reading, so this will be a great project for me! I can't wait to make one. And since I am addicted to buying craft books, I think I may make one with a craft look for my work room. YEAH!