painted apples

My favorite Christmas decorations come from the grocery store. I love a bowl of bright orange clementines (clementines are a version of Mandarin orange, first introduced into southern California in 1909, in my parents' town of Riverside . . . some people call them "Christmas Oranges"), with maybe a few candy canes or some cinnamon sticks or walnuts nestled in.

I also think plain red apples and walnuts are really pretty lined up on a windowsill, maybe with some small white votive candles in between them.

You can also paint the apples. (I guess you could also paint the walnuts. I've certainly seen gilded walnuts.)  Painting apples is a fun Christmas craft with the kids. You don't need much:

Some pretty red apples (Red Delicious or bigger Rome Beauties work well)
Some white latex paint or paint pens
Some paintbrushes
A rubberband

If you're worried about things being straight, put a rubberband around the apple, slightly lower than the middle, to use as a guideline for the bottom of your band of painting.

Use any motif you might use in cross stitch that looks Christmas-y to you . . . hearts (my favorite), stars, little x's, little trees, dots and lines . . . and paint around in a band until you get back to where you started. (If you decide to do hearts, puff paint works well. Just put two dots next to each other, and then "pull" them into each other at the bottom for sweet puffy hearts. Puff paint isn't great for painting anything skinny.)

They kind of look like little apples wearing Nordic sweaters. :D

Painted apples are a short-lived craft, because the apples will eventually shrivel up. But they're great for Christmas. Before Claire came along, I used to make them perfectly, but now (as you can see) we just paint and they're wobbly and messy, and it's a lot more fun than when I sat squinting and making them perfect. :)