Funny Little Snowmen

Last week I had an order for cookies to match an invitation.  Thank goodness I got to see the invitation because when I was told to make snowmen with holly hats I wasn't quite visuallizing it. 

And luckily Sugarbelle did a tutorial that week on how to make holly leaves, so I used her technique to make the hats.  And I painted the faces on thanks to Arty McGoo's great instruction at Cookie Con. I'm now realizing that I never actually did a post on Cookie Con...oops!  I'll try to at least put up some pictures eventually.

Christmas Minis

Last week, my husband's work had its annual Christmas boutique.  If you remember, I participated in it last year as well.  I made tons of stuff, including decorated sugar cubes, about 70 decorated cookies, and a bunch of minis.  In the end, only the minis sold, and the only way to sell off the 70 decorated cookies was to discount them to $1.50, which was kind of insulting that people thought that's all they were worth.  And I still have a few boxes of the sugar cubes, but at least those never go bad.  Anyway, after last year's disappointment, I thought I would try just making mini cookies, since those were all that really sold last year. 

 

 

In the end, I only sold about 2/3 of the cookies, so it wasn't too bad.  I intentionally didn't mark down the price on the last day (apparently there are a lot of people who wait until the last day, waiting until things go on clearance) because I'd rather give the cookies away to people that will appreciate them than sell them for nothing to people who devalue my work.  Do I sound bitter?  Don't worry, I'll get over it eventually. 

Oh, and in case you're curious, I used my airbrush on the peppermint candy cookies (I made the stencil!) and the snowflake cookies.  My airbrush and I may be friends now after all.  We'll see...

Pumpkins and Flowers

I have been such a bad blogger!  But to tell you the truth, I haven't been making a whole lot of cookies.  I haven't had any orders lately, although I have played around a little bit with recipes. 

A few weeks ago I made some pumpkins using my new toy, the dehydrator.  Can you see a difference?  It definitely adds a shine, but it's not always easy to see in the pictures.

We also recently started attending a new church that has a program for special needs kids.  Teenagers in the church volunteer to be their buddies in the Sunday school class.  I thought that was pretty cool and that they deserved some cookies for to working with my son. 

I also got to attend Cookie Con last week, but I think I'll have to make a separate post on that.  Needless to say, it was amazing!  More to come soon!

Swim Party Cookies

A couple of weeks ago I made some cookies for a little girl's swim-themed birthday party.  I didn't have a swim fin cookie cutter (not sure if there is one), so I trimmed a candy corn cutter and used a flower petal to trim the bottom part.

 

 

U.S. Navy Cookie Platter

I've been a terrible blogger lately.  I'm sorry.... :(  I've been really busy and I haven't had many orders over the summer (which is good because my son was out of school and I didn't have much time).  But he's back in school now so hopefully I'll be able to work on some more cookies.

A couple of weeks ago I had an order for U.S. Navy themed cookies for a goodbye party for a guy going off to the Navy.

 

 

Doctor Who Cookies

I have a confession to make.  I LOVE Doctor Who!  I only recently started watching it when I found it on Amazon Prime instant videos, and before long I was hooked.  It took awhile to convince him, but I've now converted my husband as well. 

Anyway, when I found the phone booth cookie cutter at Plastics in Print, I had to get it and make some Doctor Who cookies.  Then I brainstormed some designs and made a few cookie cutters:

 

And here's what I did with them!  I got to try out a couple of new techniques including painting and airbrushing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New episodes of Doctor Who start this Saturday and we just got BBC America!  Are any of you guys fans?

Cookies for a Funeral

A couple of weeks ago I made some cookies for a funeral.  I was specifically asked for the crosses I made back in March and doves.  So sorry for the repeat design, but you know...

I used the extras as an opportunity to try painting on cookies.  I definitely need some practice with that technique.  I'll get to learn from the master, Arty McGoo, at Cookie Con in November.  Can't wait!

Scrapbook Paper-Inspired Flower Cookies

I decided to use my last week of freedom (aka the last week of summer school) to make my son's teachers some cookies.  It's been awhile since I was able to make cookies just for fun, so I really enjoyed getting to use some creativity to come up with the designs and colors.  Like the title suggests, I based these off of this scrapbook paper:

Cute, right?  So here are the cookies:

These were a lot of fun to make.  And it was nice to get to do a variety of designs instead of making the same cookie over and over again. 

I also tried out Sugardeaux's recipe for royal icing that has butter and vanilla extracts, and it got rave reviews from everyone. I may have to switch over for good. 

Luau Cookies

I know I'm being a completely lazy blogger, but I've been staring at this post for too long trying to think of something interesting to say and I've got nothing.  So, here's the cookie info.  These cookies were for favors for a luau themed birthday party.  Both the hibiscus and the hawaiian shirt ideas were inspired by Sugarbelle.  The pink in the pictures didn't turn out quite right no matter how I tried to adjust things, but it was really a bright pink that was much prettier than it looks in the pictures.

Thanks for putting up with my boringness today and I promise I'll try to be more interesting next time. 

Pink Eiffel Tower Cookies

I had an order for Eiffel tower cookies, and since it took me about 5 minutes just to trace a realistic Eiffel tower image with a pen, I figured it was going to take a long time to pipe a couple of dozen of them.  So I opted for a more pretty, whimsical version:

I've been trying to improve my cookie photography, so I've included props!  I used the ribbons that I had cut for tying the cookie bags, and that there is an authentic Eiffel tower replica, meaning that we bought it in Paris on our honeymoon.  Here's my favorite shot:

What do you think?

I'm back!!!

I know I haven't posted anything for awhile, but I have a really good excuse!  Over the last month, the baby has been sick 3 times, I've been sick twice (relapsed on the same cold technically), and my husband did the same.  Between the three of us we've been through 4 rounds of antibiotics.  Needless to say, there hasn't been much cookie decorating going on.  I did have some soccer ball cookies I made inbetween colds, but I didn't get any pictures of them.  Well, technically I remembered after I delivered the cookies and so I took pictures of the extra rejects, but I decided those were too ugly to share. 

But now we're finally healthy and I got to work on some cookies again.  These were a pretty random assortment of cookies. 

And since my family now considers it a burden to eat my extra cookies, I made some extra ones to give away to a few people we know.  Hopefully it brightens their day a little bit.

AWANA Themed Cookies

Here is the order that made me officially decide to charge more for character cookies!  I always go back and forth.  I hate to nickel and dime people, but character and logo cookies take so much longer to make!  And they usually require a lot of colors. 

I have some soccer cookies I made recently that I'll share with you soon and then I have a cookie break, thank goodness!  My son was nice enough to share his cold with both me and my husband over the last couple of weeks.  I was feeling a little better when I made these cookies, but the effort of it (it was a pretty large order) made me relapse, giving me the gift of an eye and ear infection.  (I seriously haven't had an ear infection since I was a kid!  I didn't think adults ever got ear infections.)  So a cookie break is pretty necessary so that I can actually kick this bug's butt.

Oh, and I broke down and bought an airbrush a couple of weeks ago but I still haven't had a chance to play with it yet and it's killing me!  When I heard that the Duff airbrush at Michael's is the same one that a lot of cookie decorators use but only under a different name, I decided to cave in since it was a lot more reasonably priced with a 50% off coupon.  Hopefully soon I'm have the energy to play around with it.

Turquoise and Red Train Cookies - Updated

Last week I had someone request the same cookies I had made a long time ago (click here to see those).  When I went back to look at those cookies though, I decided that I wanted to update them a bit since I was still quite a beginner when I made them (not that I'm a pro now or anything).  She specifically asked for those cookies though, so I didn't want to change them too much.

I decided to use a new technique on the window that I learned from Montreal Confections where she paints thin icing on the bare cookie.  I think I need to practice the technique a bit more, but I thought it gave the windows some nice definition.  I also added the minis and the train track cookies to kind of round out the platter.  I don't usually do platters, but I really enjoyed Maryann's session on platters during Spring Fling.  So, this was my first real attempt at a platter.  What do you think?

Bandaid Cookies

My husband informed me after my last post that I was being too lazy with my blog.  I'm sorry, but there are times when I'm really tired at the end of the day and a cookie order just isn't that interesting.  They were a dozen duckies.  I just didn't know what else to say about them.   But I apologize to all 42 of you who were kind enough to follow my blog.  I'll try not to be so lazy in the future.

So I'll tell you a story that only other cookiers might find amusing.  I had a bunch of my cookie supplies soaking near the sink the other day and my husband was wiping down the kitchen counter after dinner and got stabbed by a rogue boo-boo stick (Karen's cookie scrapers).  I started laughing because it's called a boo-boo stick (as in cookie boo-boos, not boo-boo inflicter) and I found it ironic.  He wasn't as  amused...

Anyway, maybe these cookies will help. 

You can tell they're bandaids, right?  I hope so, but just in case, I thought I'd make sure.  I brought a few extras to my son's school for his teacher and aides and one of the girls asked what they were...which made me kind of sad.  Hopefully the people who received them could tell.

I made these cookies earlier this week for a nice lady at my husband's work who is kind enough to support my cookie habit.  It has something to do the project that I made those mayo jars for last year, hence the "OMAO".

Oh, and I have to thank Sugarbelle for her tutorial on mixing flesh tones, which worked out perfectly for these cookies.

Rubber Duckie Cookies

Last week I had an order for rubber duckies for a 2 year old's birthday.

Spring Fling Cookie Pictures

For Spring Fling we were asked to bring two Kentucky themed cookies.  I wasn't planning on doing them because we didn't find out about it until a couple of weeks beforehand and I had orders one week and the next week I was busy getting ready to abandon my family for 4 days.  But my husband talked me into it.  He asked me what the first thing was that I thought of when I think of Kentucky, and since I don't really know much about Kentucky, I said KFC.  It seemed a little lame, but he told me to go with it.  So I made one cookie of the colonel:

And for the second cookie I did some drumsticks by repurposing a carrot cookie cutter. I didn't have brown sanding sugar on hand so I colored it with food coloring gels and I used different sizes for added texture. 

At Spring Fling, Maryann aka the Cookie Artisan arranged everyone's cookies on platters.

At Spring Fling we only decorated a few cookies.  We were supposed to decorate a mini platter, but we kept going over on time and we prefered to skip decorating our own cookies so that we could hear from all of the instructors instead.  So we decorated a couple of glaze cookies, but mine weren't worth photographing because the icing was a bit too runny and it didn't work out so much.  I did take some pictures of the brush embroidery flowers that I made at camp.

And using Glory's photography tips, I barely had to edit this picture at all.  Due to poor natural lighting in my home, I usually have to edit my pictures quite a bit in order to get the colors to come out right, and even then they aren't always that close (especially purples).  Thanks, Glory!