May 31, 2012

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.


May 15, 2012

More cookies!

Remember those spring cupcakes I posted earlier this week? Well, we made those for younglife leadership night. At this particular meeting, we met a new awesome young life leader. Well, she saw the cupcakes we made and asked if we'd like to bake something for a bake sale that was going to raise money for a young mom with breast cancer. Of COURSE we said YES! [I should stop for a moment and say how awesome and courageous it was to ask us when she had just met us!]. What a great reason to bake!

My friend, L, made salted caramel chocolate chip cookie bars. They were pretty darn good. The recipe is on my pinterest board, sweets, if you are interested.

I made cookies (like that was a surprise to anyone). I got cancer ribbon cookie cutter and did a bunch of ribbon cookies and then also did some fun summery sunglasses, sandals, and margarita glasses (all new cookie cutters given to me! so fun to put them to use!). I found myself thinking of a few women I had known of who have struggled with breast cancer as I was making them.







May 8, 2012

Spring Flower Cupcakes

I think I've mentioned before that I've got a friend who also enjoys baking a lot (and lives like 2 min. from me!). Well, a little bit ago, we were itching to make something AND a friend was having a birthday! (you can see where this is going..right?). Well, we decided to make her fun springy cupcakes in honor of her birthday :)


 
We weren't able to fit them all our original display, so here's ALL of them.


May 4, 2012

Mario Brothers Cake!

My Brother-in-law's birthday was a few weeks ago and I offered to make him a cake. After coming up with a few ideas, I decided to go with a Mario Brothers cake. I thought it would be a fun throwback to childhood.

The outside is buttercream frosting with fondant decorations. The castle walls are made out of fondant and "glued" together with candy melts. I also attached sticks to the inside of each wall so I could stick it into the cake and have it stand upright (worked great, except a bunch of the icing came off with the castle when I pulled it out to cut the cake.



You'll notice that Mario is just a little print-out :( This saddened me, but there was no other option (other than not having Mario at all on the cake and that just didn't seem right!). I tried to have an actual Mario. Really, I did. My first thought (though she had/has no idea) was to see if my friend who is good at fondant figures could do one for me. However, she and her family got sick that week and so I didn't get to spend the time with her I normally would. Then, I figured, well I can do this! So I got started....and about halfway through I could tell it wasn't going well. He just wasn't looking right and I hadn't gotten anywhere near doing his face (which I knew would be the hardest part). I had already checked a nearby cake store for a plastic Mario figurine and they didn't have any. So there you go-that's how I ended up with a Mario print-out.