Birch Beauties

My parents live in Iowa…well, they live in Iowa for a few more days, but after the new year they are packing up and moving east to be closer to my family and I. I am a very lucky daughter! Unfortunately, they are leaving an AMAZING network of friends. The group of 10+ women that my Mom has become incredibly close with call themselves the “Laughing Ladies”…and they really are! I’ve witnessed it myself! The Laughing Ladies are wonderful, loving, women and I couldn’t wish for better friends for her to have. Hands down both my parents and their friends will go through withdrawals over the next few months

As a parting gift, some of the Laughing Ladies bought my parents a beautiful beautiful painting that weeks before on a little shopping day trip my Mom had fallen in love with. They were sneaky! They bought the painting that same week as the shopping trip and even had the owner of the shop make stories up about the painting when my Mom went back a week later to show my Dad the painting and buy it for herself. When the Laughing Ladies gave my parents the painting, they made my Mom promise not to write them thank you notes. Well…my Mom can be sneaky too ladies Below is the beautiful painting and her non-thank you card cookies

Piped the birch trees on a solid black background

Sorry for the lack of rotation! Added a brown background to the bottom leaves

Piped butter colored and gold colored leaves on top of the birch trees

Last step was to add the red leaves on top of the brown background and using an edible pen add the black dots to the larger birch trees

Mom and Dad’s new painting

 

The Force Be With You

I am here to admit…I’m not a Star Wars fan. I might be if I watch the movie(s) all the way through. But as soon as the weird looking characters come on screen I feel myself stifling a giggle They’re just so funny looking I find it hard to take the movie serious. However, my husband would watch any of the Star Wars movies ANY chance he could get. If he’s zapping through the channels and comes across one, regardless if he watched one the day before, he stops and watches it. He loves them. True fan.

So when an amazing woman found me on Facebook (LaDonna you’re awesome!!) and asked for Star Wars cookies for her little cousin I was all over it! I WANTED to learn the characters. I WANTED to get them right for Curtis’ birthday. I called in the household storm trooper (hubby) and he gave me the run down. You know…Is it light saver or light saber?, What color are light sabers?, Is this green a good Yoda green?…you know the basics

Happy Birthday Curtis! May the force be with you! (Just added “Find out what the force is” to my list)

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Ga Ga Over Onesies!

Goo Goo Gaa Gaa…the past two weeks were full of adorable baby onesies! One order for little girl onesies to coordinate with a tutu themed 1st birthday and one order for little boy onesies matching a baby shower invitation. Now that my daughter is over 1 and technically no longer considered a baby (in my books they’ll always be my babies though!!) it was fun decorating these cookies and reminiscing about their baby months Awww Yep…I’m a softie for babies Hope both parties enjoy their sweet little baby onesies!

Kimberly-Clark Product Cookies

When I started my business I pictured myself making snowflake cookies, hearts for loved ones, and cartoon characters for birthday favors. While I never thought about the designs of cookies I wouldn’t ever make, this past week I had to laugh because I’m fairly certain if I had, these would have been on my list.  I received an order for Kimberly-Clark product cookies.  We’re talking Kotex, Depend, Kleenex, Poise, Huggies, and Pull-ups. Yep…don’t think I ever would have thought I’d be decorating tampons But the day has come and I’m super glad it did! They turned out awesome and I had soooo much fun coming up with the designs. Love feeling those creative juices flowing

Here’s how it all started…I wanted some funny designs and others the product logo:

Then came what colors I would need. When I realized how many colors I originally planned for, I cut back a few of the non-essentials:

And here they are folks! The K-C product cookies! Hope they enjoy

ABC’s

I have officially deemed Chris as my funniest customer thus far! OMG she is a riot! I enjoyed every email correspondence as it always made me laugh. I even read her responses to my husband and he laughed! Wish we lived closer…I have a feeling it would be fun to get to know her

Chris emailed me last week inquiring about alphabet letters. She signed up to bring cookies to her daughter’s school and self diagnosed herself as being in over her head.  I commend her for recognizing this early on…I would have been elbow deep in flour the day before cookies were due, crying to my husband that “I Can’t Do This!!” So pat on the back Chris!! Here’s how our cookie relationship started:

The tutorials I have just watched on youtube have immediately filled me with dread and made me confront my limitations. So, I am appealing to you. However, before I even begin to search for letter stencils, make dough, xacto cut out the letters, make a usable batch of royal icing for the very first time in my life, pipe out the outlines, fill them in, shake cookies, and poke out bubbles for 26 letters (!!!!) I thought I would solicit an estimate from you if you are interested and available to do this.

How can I say no to someone that funny! It also reminded me when I started getting into cookies and watched hundreds of YouTube videos. I was terrified as well! And those damn bubbles STILL give me nightmares! Grrr…

Had so much fun decorating these cookies…and fun spelling out mine and my daughter’s names. I would have spelled out my husband’s, but he has repeat letters so he had to sit this one out

The inspiration for the uber cool color scheme was taken directly from the book her daughter’s class was reading

Happy Halloween Traditions

I am a holiday lover. I get it from my Mom. I grew up with my Mom toting out boxes or bins of decorations for every conceivable holiday and strategically placing them around the house. I loved it. It always felt fun and festive at our house when a holiday was approaching Now that I have a family of my own, I have slowly been accumulating my own decorations for the kids. It’s just one of those traditions that I cherish and will continue.

A woman emailed me that she always buys her grandkids cookies for halloween and wanted to send her four grand-lovies some of my cookies this year. Double fun!  A holiday tradition AND sugar…love it!! I hope the kids love their cookies made especially for them sent with love from their Grandma M  What a cool Grandma!!

Last Flops

I can’t tell you how many women I know love this time of year, myself included. I love when fall hits. The air is crisp. The leaves begin turning beautiful shades of orange. It’s the season for apple picking and sweaters. Many of my friends swap their wardrobes when the season changes…bringing out their sweaters and putting away the sandals. Well…in my household there’s no rushing putting those flippy flops away. My flops stay accessible all year long So while this may realistically be the last order of flip flops this year, they will never be far from my heart!

My Mother In Law’s bestie LOVES flip flops (I’m guessing as much as I do!!) and when she asked me to create some flip flops for her friend I did flips hehe “OF COURSE!!”

Here’s the color palette I used for inspiration:

Design-Seeds

And the beautiful flops for our beautiful Nancy

Super Twins

Another set of twins is turning 5…such a fun age! I swear kids are excited about everything at this age. This particular adorable boy and girl are lucky enough to have Mom throwing them a Super Mario Bros themed party. How cool is that!! I remember going over to my next door neighbors house growing up and us sitting in her basement playing this (and many other) video games on her Nintendo. Totally get why it’s still a beloved game for tykes these days…however I bet the graphics are much much better

Super Cool Mom wanted a Mario cookie and a Princess Peach cookie for the little ones to take home with them as thank you’s. She sent these images along and below is my process for trying to replicate.

  

First night was spent outlining these little guys. Took less time thanI thought thanks to my trusty Kopykake Projector…

Second night I started filling…

Third night I finished filling and added the finishing details!

Voila!!

Let the Pigskins Fly!

I should begin this post by saying I had to ask my husband, the football fanatic in our house, if a pigskin was in fact a nickname for a football. This is your first clue how into football I am.

A friend and her husband are very, very into college football. Me…not so much. I went to a college where it was a big deal for our football team to play a school outside of the state. My friend and her husband both went to schools where football was so big it was aired on national channels! She emailed me and wanted an order of cookies for her husband to kick off the college football weekend. She used the words “Gators” and “VT”. Second clue how football I am…I had to google what these meant For those of you who don’t know let me save you the 30 second Google search

VT = Virginia Tech

Gators = mascot for the University of Florida

Now time to air one of my weaknesses…burgundy. No, not the wine…I’m pretty good at wine No, the color burgundy. I have the worst time mixing icing to get a burgundy color. It kills me! I don’t know what it is, but I continually struggle with it. I figured I’d show my progress and see if anyone has any tips they can share

Start with burgundy, add red, add brown, add purple, add more red…hmmmmmm

Well, after adding more red and purple to my last picture, I finally ended up with a color that I felt was acceptable Hope she enjoys them and both their teams do well this season!

Can You Tell Me How To Get…

…how to get to Sesame Street!! Love that show. Grew up watching that show. It brings me joy knowing the show is still around and is still wildly popular with the little ones Out of all the cookies I’ve made this year, the sesame street characters are my top sellers. Yeah! I love making cookies for people but more than that, I love bringing smiles to little kids faces So sweet!

Thought I’d share my Sesame Street journey..