Apple Rose Tarts

After giving the Mini Apple Rose Pies recipe from the blog From My Impossibly Tiny Kitchen for the first time and finding much success, I retried the recipe again for Thanksgiving, and here are the results! I got a lot of compliments on them and thought they were the perfect dessert for the occasion.

The first time I made these I used green apples since they were on hand, but despite how good they taste, they don't look great appearance-wise once the apple skin browns, so I went with red apples (Fuji I believe) for the second attempt. I also modified the filling recipe by adding a generous sprinkle of cinnamon to melted butter mixture which I think gives more of an apple pie filling flavor. 

Attempt #1: I used thicker slicer here since they were cut by hand

Green --> brown

I believe I used more than two apples for the amount of dough that I had, and I also found it easier to roll the apple pieces in my hand instead of laying a row flat on the table. Since the slices were much thinner than they were the first time I made these, it definitely took me much longer to roll all of them up. 

Using Fuji apples instead

Out of the oven.

10/10 would make again

Paint Chip Wall Art and Calendar

I made these simple and colorful decorations for my room using a whole bunch of paint chips and a few cheap pictures frames, as inspired by various pictures scattered around Pinterest (such as these linked here, here, here, and here).

The in-progress mess

The materials I used were a large handful of paint chips (free, from Home Depot), double sided tape, some picture frames (found at the dollar store and Goodwill), scissors, and a rubber stamp and marker for the calendar. The 3 frames I bought in total cost about $5 and everything else I already owned or got for free!

For the calendar I cut out 35 squares (an additional row of 7 would probably make for a better calendar, but my frame isn't large enough-for reference it's about 12" by 15"). I used part of a rubber stamp and a black marker to stamp circles on to a corner of each square for the date. I used double sided tape to position all of the squares onto the cardboard backing that came with the frame, and used a dry erase marker to write the days and notes for a reusable monthly calendar.

The completed product! Since I didn't have enough room for another row, some months I will have to squish a couple of days in the same square (although for my purposes, this is fine by me).

I purchased the other two frames at the dollar store, and made each of them by first creating a template for the desired shape, and adjusting its size so that would fit well into the 8.5" x 11" frame. Then I simply cut as many pieces out as needed plus a few extra and then arranged them onto a piece of paper to play around with the design and color arrangement. I used double sided tape again and a ruler to keep the rows straight.

I use these two smaller frames to write notes and reminders to myself occasionally as well since writing on them with a whiteboard maker works equally as well as with the calendar. They were really fun and easy to make!