One year ago today....

One year ago today, I attempted to make decorated cookies for the first time. I am a researcher by nature and I spent countless hours reading about how to make the best rolled out cookies and how to make and work with royal icing. 

I am so thankful to Bridget at Bake at 350, Karen at Karen's Cookies and Mirian at Sweetopia for sharing their wonderful step by step tutorials! and to Callye at The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle for her endless inspiration of beautiful cookies, she is just AMAZING!! thank you ladies for all your continued help along the way! :)

I made these Texas cookies for my friends Tricia and John for their visit to Texas. I was hoping it would persuade them to move here...and it worked!! :) I still remember the huge mess I made trying to figure out how to use this icing, but what fun! I have blue and red fingers for days! :)

 The rest is history as I continue to learn this craft... :)

I have come along way and have a long way to go, but I am having fun along the way! :)

Thank you to all my friends and family who have encouraged me! :)

Vera Bradley,Cookies and a Little Pink House

My friends at The Vintage House ordered this platter for the launch party they are having today for the Vera Bradley Fall 2010 collection. Vera Bradley has been keeping their new fall collection top secret and launched nationwide today. This platter was made to coordinate with the "Very Berry Paisley" color, which is now one of my favorite ones!
Thanks to my Sis-n-Law Crista (aka Aunt Tata) for coming over and helping me finish these! She is learning the fine art of flooding...the toothpick is our friend! ;)

Here are my cookies on the beautiful  treat table. :)

Happy 4th of July!!

This was a quick platter I made for the annual family/neighbor 4th of July pool party we go to. My boys were so surprised that these were actually for them!
random thought: The stars on the platter remind me of Evel Knievel. I dont know why. ;)

Happy Little Owls

These little owls make me smile. This platter was for my sister-n-law for a baby shower she was giving. In exchange she took care of my sweet (and Crazy) dog Landry when we went out of town for the weekend.

Landry LOVES to go to Aunt Sara's house because her best buddy, Crash, lives there. :) 

30th Surprise Party

This platter was for a friend who was having a surprise party for her husband. She wanted to include the #30, Baylor and his yellow Camaro. This time I didn't do a RI transfer on the BUs, I think they turned out better than the last set. Instead, I traced the BU stencil with a food color marker, then pipped over it. :)

Fathers Day Cookies

These are just some quick cookies I made for my Honey for Father's day. :)

Ladybugs, Bumble Bees and 3's

This platter was for a little girl named Johnie for her 3rd Birthday. Her aunt ordered them for her. Her aunt,Christy, is an old friend of mine from high school. Back in the day when I went by the nick name of "Paco". I still have no idea how I got this nickname, but she still calls me that. :) Hmm...Paco's Cookies...LOL!

Christy wanted ladybugs and bumble bees. I made a smaller version of my giant 3D flower cookie. The bee is attached to the flower with RI (Royal Icing). I also added the #3 for fun. 

Super Campers!

This order was quick, I had less that 24 hours to come up with an idea, bake and decorate. My friend that ordered them wanted something to say thank you to the older girls that helped out at Girl Scout camp. She wanted to personalize them with the girl's name and the event they helped organize.

My black icing was a bit runny so some of the lettering is hard to read.  I am not sure if you can see it, but I also added blue sparkle dust.

Each girl got her personalized blue ribbon and a "thank you" cookie.

She loved them! So I was very happy! :)

Summertime Birthdays

This was such a FUN order! I was given a picture of the flip flop invitation for the sweet 4 year old, Haleigh's, Bday party. The mom said I could totally have creative freedom. I LOVE that! She didn't need them to look exactly like the invitation, just stay with the theme.

Sometimes when I am given "creative freedom" with an order I go a bit over board....but that just make it more fun! This order was for 3 dozen flip flops. But I felt like adding her name and some flowers, so I gave her closer to 5 dz. ;)

My photos have not been turning out well, so here is just a little sample of the designs I did. It is hard to see, but the orange stripes have a thin pink stripe on them. 

It was also my niece, Carli's birthday. She was also having a swim party. I surprised her with a little platter just for her. FUN! :)

Butterflies, flowers and donuts...

Baby shower order.....Started with this napkin.

This order was for a baby shower given to a teacher from her Kindergarten class on the last day of school. Because the cookies were going to be eaten mainly by the students, I made all the butterflies the same size and only did 2 styles. Makes for less drama. ;) 

Not sure what is wrong with my camera, but my cookie pictures have not been turning out very good. The colors I used were a light purple, pink and mint green.

I finished this order late at night. the next day was the last day of school....and I was exhausted! So ready for summer! :)
As I finished the order, I thought to myself " I am very happy with how these donuts turned out". LOL!!  I have never even made donuts! ;)

Happy Summer! :)

More Teacher Appreciation

My oldest son, Kolbe, goes to Vista Academy ,an amazing charter school. He has been there for 2 years, 4th and 5th grade and next year will attend their Middle school, Quest, for 6th grade. this year in 5th grade Kolbe had 3 wonderful teachers....and 2 of them were men! I think there needs to be more male teachers in this world. :)

At the end of the year award/music program the principal recognizes each teacher. She gives the female teachers beautiful flowers, but needed something different for the guys,so she ordered these cookie baskets for them. :)

Teacher appreciation

The lady that won the gift certificate for 2 dozen cookies from the charity auction last fall ordered these cookies for teacher appreciation week. Her kids go to The Spanish Schoolhouse. She asked for one dozen favors with the logo and one dozen of the giant 3d flowers. I love making these flowers! I was a little nervous about the logo since I am not really a free hand artist. I used a yellow food color marker to draw the logo out then I pipped my icing over that. it worked out well. :)

Bling!

Last fall I donated some cookies for a local charity auction.  The theme of the auction was "bling". A friend of mine (Laura aka The Amazing Party planner!) asked me to make girly cookies full of bling. I made tiaras, diamond rings and some leopard print with hot pink sanding sugar.
I also donated a gift certificate for 2 dozen cookies. A sweet lady won that GC and placed her oder a couple of weeks ago......the post with her order is next. :)

Shipping Success!

I have a fear of broken cookies.
 For that reason I do not usually ship orders. But I don't mind practicing my shipping skills on family. During football season I shipped some Chicago Bear cookies to my little brother and his family who live in Illinois. Several of the cookies broke during shipping....sad day. And on top of broken cookies...the Bears lost the game. :(
My sis in law, Jennifer asked me to make some cookies for their upcoming camping trip with several of their friends. 
I was excited to make the cookies, but nervous about shipping. So I did some research. The cookie decorator community is amazing and full of helpful knowledge. I found some great information on the Cookies R Us forum from Susan of The Painted Cookie .


Here are the supplies I used...

AND Bubble Wrap! (forgot to take a pic)


I took 2 or 3 cookies and placed them in a cellophane bag. Between each cookie I put a small piece of parchment paper to protect the designs. I folded the bags over without twisting or taping closed. 
I lined each box with one sheet of bubble wrap and a thin layer of the paper shred. I placed the bags of cookies on top of the shred very close to each other. Susan said it is important that they can not move around in the box. 


Here they are all snug in their box. :)

I then placed a sheet of bubble wrap on tip and closed the box. I then repeated the process until all the cookies were packed.

almost ready to go.....

I wrapped each box in a sheet of bubble wrap (fear of broken cookies). 

I then placed these boxes in one larger box stacked just like this. I put packing peanuts all around the boxes so that there would be no movement. I closed it up and gave it a good shake.....no movement from inside! :)


So...did they make it from Dallas to Illinois unbroken?


Lets see.....


SURPRISE!  OK, I really didn't ship my kitty...

YES! They all made it in one piece!! no breakage!!   Thanks for the great advice Susan!!!  (by the way I love your name!) ;)

Happy Camping John and Jennifer!!! :)

Camp Out Cookies

Camping cookies for my little brother John and his family for thier big camping trip coming up. Last time I shipped cookies to him (Chicago) several of them broke. So this time I packed them differently. Tomorrow will post the step by step shipping process I used....You will find out if they all made it in one piece! :)
These designs were inspired from some scrapbook stickers I found at Hobby Lobby and from this Scrapbook paper.