Our house is all about Halloween, the changing leaves, yummy apples from the farmers’ market, and comfort food. We love that Fall is in full swing here in the DC Metro Area! In honor of it * almost * being Friday, I thought I’d share some fall fun that we’re looking forward to this weekend. Even if you don’t have time these things this Saturday and Sunday, tuck these away in your arsenal of things-to-do for a later date!
#FrankenPet Your Pet
If your Halloween costume is done, your family can have some virtual fun with PicMonkey to FrankenPet up your pets! PicMonkey has teamed up with Rover for a fun contest to transform your cuddly animal into the ghoulish wonder they really aren’t in real life for a chance to win fun prizes.
How it works: Simply don your photogenic pet in a costume (or not, it’s optional) snap a photo, and jazz ‘em up with our Halloween features. Once your masterpiece is complete, share it. As long as you use #FrankenPet, PicMonkey will find it!
Winners: There will be three winners and 3 runner-ups for each category: Creepy Canines, Scaredy Cats, and Other Beasts (birds, lizards, monkeys, you name it). Grand prize winners will win one year of PicMonkey Royale and one of the following (depending on your category):
- Creepy Canines: GoPro Hero3 with a Fetch Harness
- Scaredy Cats: GoPro Hero3 with a 3-Way Mount
- Other Beasts: GoPro Hero3 with a 3-Way Mount
Runners-up will win a year of PicMonkey Royale and a $25 giftcard to Petco.
Deadline: 11:59pm on Halloween, and the winners will be announced on the 5th of November.
Tips: What is PicMonkey looking for? “We’re looking for creatures with the most creative photos. Scare us, delight us, or make us say d’aawwwww!” Check out some of the submissions for inspiration and take a look at what I did to Oliver!
For more information, visit the PicMonkey FrankenPet Halloween Contest page!
Go Glam with Glow in the Dark Polish
If you’re feeling a little left out from the Halloween costume fun or your kids are want an extra way to glow, Sinful Colors’ Wicked Color collection features a glow in the dark nail polish! 14 shades featuring fall themed glitters, brilliant solids, and sparkly deep dark shades in devilish hues add a bit of extra pizazz to daytime Halloween costume fun while glow in the dark can really pop at night! Visit Night Swatcher for a full look at the Sinful Color polish lineup.
I love that the bottles of polish from the Sinful Colors line are only $1.99 each. Look for them at Target or Walgreens when you’re picking up last minute costume accessories or extra candy for trick-or-treaters! For more information or Halloween-themed manicure inspiration, visit their Facebook page or follow them on Twitter.
Make a Delicious Caramel Apple Strudel
Mmmm…apples! We love them and can’t get enough of them this time of year. With our weekend farmers’ market being a treasure trove of apple deliciousness, we’re always looking for new recipes to make that highlight apples. This Caramel Apple Strudel recipe landed in my inbox from the chefs at Kontos Foods and immediately moved to the top of the must-make recipes for the weekend because I can’t ever resist the combination of apples, caramel, and flaky filo dough! If you’ve never worked with filo dough before, it requires lots of butter and a bit of patience but yields delicious results.
Ingredients:
- 4 tbsp of butter for simmering apples
- 4 cups of Fuji, Pink Lady or other favorite baking apple
- 2/3 cup of brown sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp allspice
- Pinch of ground cloves
- 1/3 cup chopped pecans (optional)
- 1 stick of melted butter for brushing fillo dough
- 8 sheets thawed Kontos fillo dough
- Jar of caramel topping, warmed
- French vanilla ice cream
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Peel apples and slice them about 1/8-inch thick.
- Gently melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a pan with lid. Add the apples and saute, covered, for about 10 minutes until the apples soften.
- Combine the softened apples with brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, cloves and optional nuts.
- Using a pastry brush, brush each of the 8 fillo sheets with the melted butter, placing one on top of the other.
- When you have all your buttered fillo neatly stacked, spoon apple mixture along the long edge of the stack, leaving a 2-3 inch border at each end.
- Fold the fillo over the ends first, then roll up long-ways like a jellyroll.
- Place the rolled strudel on a sprayed cookie sheet (with folded part underneath), brush with melted butter.
- With a sharp knife, cut diagonal slits in the fillo.
- Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until golden brown
- Before serving, drizzle – zig-zag fashion – the warmed caramel topping over the top. Serve warm with a scoop of French vanilla ice cream.
Tip: When working with fillo dough, keep a clean, damp dishtowel handy to place over unused sheets and prevent them from drying out.
I hope you have a great weekend!
No compensation was received for this post. I personally pay for my PicMonkey Royale account but did receive nail polish from Sinful Colors to try.
The Caramel Apple Strudel recipe looks quite amazing. My dad works at an Apple Orchard so we get a ton of apples, glad I can use them to make a new recipe.
I have started getting many bottles of different colors nail polish for my 2 oldest girls for Christmas. They would love all colors. I didn’t know about this collection at Walmart and that to me is a good price. I have seen some nail polish for over $8 a bottle. That seems expensive to me so I like hearing this
I should ask, do they carry this polish all the time? Really appreciate the post about this. Sometimes as a dad raising 5 alone and 4 being girls, I get lost with some of the girl things. I’m trying though
I so want to try the Apple Strudel recipe. It’s sounds delicious!