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.

Descpicable Me!

Have you seen Despicable Me? If not, you really should. It's a fun movie no matter how old you are. It's about a super villain who adopts 3 little girls in order to one-up a fellow villain. His workers are his minions. One of my husbands co-workers had sent him a picture of some cupcakes that were the minions from despicable me wondering if I could make them. It took a while for me to actually have a chance to do them, but just last week I finally was able to take a day and make them. And yes, they are made with Twinkies and I bought those Twinkies before hostess went under.

Go Bo!

Truth time. These cookies are at least partially responsible for the blog (and cookie making) hiatus. I know, I know, I'm blaming cookies, but really-it's their fault. They drove me crazy.

I should tell you first though, that the reason I made them was awesome. A fellow cookie baker, Jill FCS, put out a call for cookies a few months ago in honor of a young man named Bo. Bo was 12 years old and passed away from Leukemia on Sept. 28, 2012. Jill called out to her fellow cookie bakers asking people to donate cookies that would be sold at a fall festival in Bo's town to raise money for cancer research. You can read more about Bo and his life's message here. I recommend heading on over there, because I know anything I write won't say it nearly as well as the facebook page does.

When I saw this call for cookies come across my facebook newsfeed, I knew I wanted to be a part of it, There was no question in my mind...until I started actually making the cookies. First, I had to decide what to make. The parameters were to be fall themed and to use orange. First, I had to figure out what was fall themed-leaves, pumpkins, fall colors...hmm what else? I couldn't really come up with anything else. I tried to get more creative, and I struggled. I mean, really, struggled. I finally just got some leaf cookie cutters and decided to go with leaves and pumpkins-that would be easy, right? Leaves? easy? thats what I thought till I actually tried to make them. Let's be honest, they turned out ok, but we all know I can do better.

Then....I got started and tried to make my icing colors. Oh. My. Goodness. I could NOT get  my colors to look right. I had fall colors in my mind, I had pictures to emulate on my computer. For the life of me though, I couldn't get it to actually work out in the icing. So, I went to work on my cookies and just did the best I could, frowning at them most the time cause they just weren't coming out how I wanted them too.

I spent forever trying to figure out why these were so hard for me. And then, it happened. I commented to my sister-in-law one day that her outfit looked very fallish and cute while also realizing I didn't really have or know what a fallish looking wardrobe consisted of-I just knew she had it figured out.

 

 

Then, she made a comment that I was probably more used to flip flops and summer then fall. LIGHTBULB! THAT was my problem! Despite the fact that I've lived in Colorado for 4 years-I spent my life in FLORIDA-the land of summer. Give me summer colors and a beach theme and I'm golden. This fall thing though? I'm still figuring that out. We didn't get fall in Florida. No wonder I didn't know what to do with fall. I know Spring, I know Summer, I think I've learned winter. Now I'm resolved to figure out fall. So maybe next year If I need to make fall cookies, I'll feel better about it.

Birthday Cupcakes!

I've mentioned before that I have a baking friend, L,  who I have collaborated with on a number of baking projects in the past. Well, her birthday was last month and her husband asked me to make cupcakes for her! How fun, right? I pretty much had free reign as long as I stayed away from anything super girly, like pink (which, I totally already knew to do cause, we're friends, ya know? ). Her favorite color is green, so I wanted to use that and I thought this would be a fun opportunity to try the whole 2 icing colors together thing. Its actually super easy and it was fun to see how the colors came out of the icing bag since I wasn't exactly sure how it would end up looking. I also made the letters of her name out of chocolate and put them in the tops of the cupcakes.

 

 

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!