Pretty huh? From this picture I started getting the idea of how I wanted to decorate my window for the fall. Of course I couldn't put REAL caramel apples in there, especially since I may not crawl up there for several months to redecorate! (For those of you who have not been in my house, I have the window frame about 10'-11' up on my wall, so it's kind of a production to change it out.) I started thinking about how I could reproduce this look with materials that would last...and last, and last, and last. First I had to find the products that would work. I found a bag of 12 realistic faux apples at Michael's Craft Store for I think around $12, but I had a 50% off coupon, score! I needed to do a little pruning on one of my flowering crab apple trees anyhow, so I used the three best twigs from that. For the caramel, I purchased a bottle of craft acrylic paint that was a good caramely color. To add some shine and thickness to the caramel layer, I found a product called Triple Thick clear gloss glaze by Americana, also from Michael's.
I used the yellow paint and VERY light brush strokes to make some light yellow veins on one apple to make it look more realistic. I had planned to paint all the apples with this technique, but actually liked them as they came from the store just fine. The first thing I did was remove the stems that came with the apples. I had to use a small screwdriver to widen the opening a little, then I inserted one of the three twigs into the top of each.
Next, I poured about an inch and a half of the caramel colored paint into a small bowl not much bigger than the apples. With a piece of parchment ready and laid out, I carefully dipped each apple. I held the dipped piece over the bowl and let the majority of the paint drip off, but didn't worry about having a little that would pool at the bottom.
I will note, the first time I did this for each apple, I noticed that red from the apple dye started to run where the wet paint was. I ended up letting the first layer of brown paint dry completely and then I sprayed each apple with two coats of satin clear enamel to seal the red color, then I redipped the brown and all was well! They required drying at least a day on the parchment. Once dry, I repeated the dipping but this time in the triple thick gloss glaze to give the "caramel" a shiny, thick look. Then back to the drying rack!
I wanted there to be a little puddle of brown paint around the bottom of each apple to mimic the pooling of the caramel on a real caramel apple. Once the apples were dried, I poured out a little of the brown paint directly on the parchment, spread it out a little to thin it out and set one apple in the center of each blob of paint. This took a little longer to dry, I think a day or two. I was able to carefully peel one of the apples off the parchment once everything was dry, but quickly realized the layer of brown paint around the bottom was too fragile and thin and prone to breaking off. Before removing any of the others, I coated the brown puddle of paint with a thick layer of the gloss glaze to thicken and strengthen it and make it shiny as well.
Once they FINALLY dried (thanks to my husband for being patient as this sitting around the kitchen as the whole project took me a week or so), they were ready to go into the fall Extravaganza Window.
And here's a close-up of the one I brushed the faint yellow lines on:
And here's the final window display:
If you want to see the window designs that I've done to date, I post them here. Happy cocoa-apple-crisp-bonfire-soup FALL!
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