FIESTA TIME!

These next cookies were created to celebrate a sweet little boys 1st birthday! The mom was doing a fiesta themed party and fell in love with these beautiful cookies here. I figured I shouldn't mess with such great ideas so I duplicated these fun, colorful cookies. I really wish I had thought to take pictures of the whole party to go along with my cookie pictures because the mom did a great job putting it all together!

More Christmas Cookies!

I realize it's after Christmas. And I'm just now finishing up my Christmas cookies with you. Hopefully you can rejoin the Christmas spirit a little and appreciate them. If your one of those who can't stand anything Christmas outside of the traditional Christmas season, then feel free to leave this blog post to read until next December. :)

This is my first Christmas season as a cookie decorator! There are so many options and directions to go in when it comes to Christmas cookies. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do (since doing everything I liked and wanted would have impossible-there's always next year!).

When it comes to designing cookies, I have a couple different methods. I'm constantly reading other cookie decorator blogs and pinning their cookies, so some ideas come from them. Most of the time though, I try to google things or switch their things up to be original. however, with Christmas cookies, as I looked through past cookie decorators, not only had many ideas already been done, but I loved them! I couldn't help but imitate some of my favorites. I will put links up to show you where the idea came from when applicable.

These went out as Christmas gifts in several different directions-some were mailed and some were packaged in tins or boxes and given away. I didn't think to take any pictures though.

Beware, there are lots of pictures in this one.

I was actually given this snowflake cookie cutter as a gift from my awesome step sister-in-law just 2 days before I used it for these cookies!



Do these look familiar? yes, they are the same style as the last Christmas trees I did. I loved how they looked so much that I stuck with them. The idea for these came from Cookie Crazie.

The idea for these fun present cookies came from Ali Bee's Bake Shop.

These cookies were a take off of LilaLoa's snowflakes here.

The idea for these cute little snowglobes originated with Pemberly bake shop.

These pretty poinsettia cookies are knock-offs of Sweet Sugarbelle's cookies.

Christmas Cookies!

All summer and throughout the fall, my husband and I have been going to a weekly/biweekly dinner group. And, all summer and fall they've been seeing pictures of my cookies, but they hadn't actually seen or tasted one in person. shame, right? I signed up to bring dessert quite a few times, there was always just something else I wanted to make (This was a really great opportunity to actually get to try out those million desserts I have pinned on pinterest). Well, we had a Christmas Dinner group last week and even though I signed up for an appetizer, I figured it was about time they got some of these cookies themselves! So made some fun Christmas trees and ornaments and gave them each a little package of two.

You'll be able to tell I was having a little editing fun with some of these pictures.

Engagement Cookies!

Wow! I've been a bit MIA, haven't I? If you've been patiently (or not so patiently?) wondering if I was ever going to write some more posts, I apologize. I'm here now! I My last set of cookies drove me a bit crazy and put me in a bit of a cookie making funk, so I haven't really been making any recently. I still have a couple sets to show you though and will hopefully get back to my cookie making ways soon!

These next cookies were a set of engagement cookies! I've been married myself for almost 2 years and I've been blessed with fantastic in-laws.  Well, my husband's younger brother has been dating an awesome young lady for a while now and in October, he asked her to marry him! On the day he was going to ask her, he planned an engagement party that evening with all their family and friends. I thought it would be fun to make some cookies to give them in honor of the occasion.  Since they aren't actual wedding cookies and I had no colors or anything to go off of, I thought it would be fun to just do simple white, black, and gray colors. I loved how they turned out, simple, but elegant.

 I almost forgot to take pictures of all of these cookies! When I remembered, I had already packaged these ones up. Unfortunatly, I had a couple pieces break off. This was a new dress cookie cutter, that I love, though I've found it to be a bit fragile.

 

I found the idea for these cookies here. I loved the design since the first time I saw them. This was my first time trying any sort of face on a cookie, and even as simple as it is, it wasn't super easy. I laugh at the man in the top right cookie, I feel like his mouth says he is unsure of what his sweetheart's response will be!

Thank You Cookies

My husband is involved in pretty cool ministry called Young Life. I'm not actually involved myself, but I'm friends with a lot of the other leaders and hang out with them frequently. I tell you this, because it was these people (specifically those on my husband's team) that were the instigators for my next cookies. By instigators, I mean they asked me to make some thank you cookies for some people who had been really great to them. Really, any instigating that took place was self-inspired. Now, I've used the word instigating enough that I'm questioning its meaning and if I'm using it correctly (I just looked it up, I think I'm good on the first two, not so sure about that last one). What can I say, English was never my preferred subject. I mean, if we're playing cranium or catchphrase and I need to describe or act out words, I'm golden. Actual writing-not my strong suit.

Now that I've gotten way off topic, maybe its time to talk about cookies again. Writing on cookies never goes how I envision, so I thought it would be much safer to  use alphabet cutters and decorate each letter. Other than the fact that these needed to convey thanks, I had free reign. After a quick glance through my inspiration boards (aka, my pinterest cookie board), I chose paisleys, some brushed embroidery and a color scheme. Normally I really like bright colors, but I took these basic colors and softened them all a bit by adding ivory. I really liked how they turned out, though I wished I had softened the green a bit more.

More Cookies!

I promised you all the rest of the cookies I made alongside my contest cookies and I'm here to show them to you. These were to bring to my family while we were spending a week on the beach, so they are just a bunch of fun cookies.

Cookie Olympics!

In my last post, I mentioned I was entering a cookie contest. I have been waiting to find out the results before telling you more about it and showing you my cookie entries. The results showed up on facebook earlier today, so I'm ready to share the details and my cookies with you! I don't want to keep you in too much suspense, so I'll tell you I did win some awards! Keep reading and you'll find out what.
 bought some pretty cute cookie cutters from them myself a few months ago.

The Contest was called the cookie Olympics (and coincided with the Olympic games) and was put on by The Cookie Cutter Company (can you guess what they sell?). For the cookie Olympics, you could enter at the professional or amateur level, based on what you consider yourself. I consider myself an amateur, so that's what I entered as. Within each level there were awards best use of Olympic theme, best technique, and most creative. Each person could submit up to 3 cookie pictures (you just submitted pictures of your cookies, not the actual cookies).

I'm about to show you my cookies and tell you how they did, but if you want to see them on the facebook page where they announce the winners, here's the link.

My Olympic Stadium fireworkds cookies took home the Gold in Best use of the Olympic Theme, Silver in most creative, and Gold in best technique!



My Florida beach scene cookies took home Gold in most creative and Bronze in Best technique! (I know it's Florida because that's where I grew up and because of the cute little alligator)



These cookies didn't win any prizes, but that's alright. I knew they wouldn't win any awards, but I couldn't just not submit a 3rd entry and I didn't have any time or energy left to bust out another cool cookie collection! I still think they are pretty cute though :)

So there you have it, I may not be able to do crazy flips off a 4 inch wide beam like little Gabby Douglas (Don't you love her?) or swim faster than the speed of light like Phelps, but I can medal in cookie decorating!

Next Post I will show you the other cookies I brought to Florida with me when I visited family last week.

More Bridal Shower Cookies!

Not too long ago, I was asked to make some cookies for another bridal shower. I was really looking forward to making some more wedding type cookies. I also had a new cookie cutter and some new ideas to try out! The wedding colors were gray, yellow, and orange. I really wish my gray had come out lighter, but I did not realize just how dark it would end up being.
Working with royal icing is a bit tricky for few reasons. You can make the icing thinner or thicker depending on how you will be using it and it can be a little tricky to know if you have it at the right thickness until you actual start decorating a cookie. Getting the right color is also tricky. This icing deepens in color for about 24 hrs after you make it. I'm still learning just how much a color will deepen and how to leave it lighter than I actually want it so when it darkens I still like it. Alas, it makes it hard to get the exact color you want and sometimes I end up with something darker than I hoped for :( Of course, the obvious solution is to make my icing ahead of time, however that involved planning farther ahead.Then you run into the icing needing to be well covered so it doesn't dry.
Despite color issues, I really liked how these ones came out. The longer gown cookies might be my favorite. I think that cookie cutter is my current favorite, though I have an alligator cookie cutter I have yet to use that I'm looking forward to!

Mother's Day Cookies

These cookies were fun to do for a number of reasons, 1) Yhey were for my mom and Mother-in-law 2) They were the first cookies that I've mailed to my mom (and by extension my dad, brother, and Sister-in-law) in Florida, so they finally got to try some of my cookies and see them in person! [Ang-I have no idea when, but you're family is definitely getting cookies one of these days too!] 3) I got to try 3 different cookie ideas that I've been wanting to try 4) I got my first experience at making a cookie basket!

Whew! Basically, these were awesome cookies to do! And thank goodness all my ideas lived up to expectations and turned out relatively as anticipated. Trust me, that's rare. There are many ideas in my head for cookies, that once I actually start decorating, just don't happen! I try to make them happen, but my cookies yell back at me and say they aren't gonna do it. Then I yell them, walk away and we have a stand-off for about 20 minutes, until I concede and do what they want. (parts of that may or may not be true).

To start with, I've done some brush embroidery before, but not on a lot of cookies at once and the flowers looked a little different. You may notice that there is only 1 or 2 cookies with the 2 flowers on them instead of one. I had intentions to do more, but just got in such a groove with the single flower ones that completely forgot to stop and do more of the other kind!
I also was able to really try to paint them with pearl dust (aka, the stuff the makes them glittery). I've dry brushed pearl dust on, but had yet to (successfully) paint it on. You can see it best in the 3rd pic here-it photographs a but funky, buts it like tiny silver glittery specks all over the flower! (I like sparkly things...).

I saw this cookie idea on Cookie Crazie's blog here. I thought it was adorable and knew I wanted to recreate it for my own Mom and MIL.

Here's what the cookies for my mom looked like before they got  put in little boxes and then in a bigger box with lots of padding so they'd make it across the country safely. They are packaged 2 to a bag (back to back). I love these toppers-so pretty and elegant, perfect for my mom.

I made the cookies for my MIL into a cookie bouquet. I had some trouble getting them to stand up properly, but it was a good learning experience for cookie bouquets.