Baby Shower at Christmas!

I made these cookies for a combo Baby Shower / Christmas party.  The colors were to be pastel.  The designs - Christmas and baby.  Oh, and a mini crab thrown in for good measure!

Super Simple Winter Sugar Cookies

In the theme of trying to keep things simple, I made some snowy, winter cookies.

Cutout and round snowflakes.

See that single, lonely dragee?  Mistake.  My thought was to cover the messy intersection of all of the lines.  It just looks small and out of place.

No frills snowmen.  I was tempted to add ear muffs, but refrained.

The whole wintery collection . . .

Christmas Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing 2012

It's my cookieversary! Yep, it was about one year ago that I started this cookie obsession.  Christmas cookies were my first shot at decorating in any real sense.  I think I've improved a little since then.  I know I've had a blast!

So here are my Christmas cookies for 2012 . . .

Christmas trees with a simple strand of red lights.  A big ol' candy cane and holly leaf.  (Craters attacked my holly berries!)

Very simple Rudolph faces, mini Christmas lights and mini hollies.

A stocking, Santa faces, and mini stockings.  Not sure which way I prefer the old man's eyes.

The whole collection . . .

Would you like to see last year's collection?  My first ever?  Here it is!

Engagement Stick Figure Sugar Cookies

Once again, I made stick figure engagement cookies, along with Save the Date calendar cookies and hearts.

After the party, Jessica sent me this photo . . .

How beautiful and elegant!

(The calendar cookies are Haniela's design.)

Painting on Sugar Cookies

One of the most inspiring presentations for me at Cookie Con was the one by Arty McGoo.  She is adorable and oh so talented.  She's an artist that uses cookies as her canvas.

I'm no artist, but I think that adding painted accents to my cookies is certainly doable and could add a lot of character and detail.

One of the activities at Cookie Con was the "Mystery Shape Challenge".  We were given this cookie . . .

Yikes.  I turned it this way and that.  I stared at it.  I traced it onto paper.  I doodled on it.  At first, all I could see was a boy with spiky hair or a ninja.  Finally, I saw a basket or pot of flowers with a long ribbon . That's definitely more my style . . .

It was the perfect chance to give painting on cookies a shot.  Liz (Arty McGoo) had showed us how to paint what she called "scribble roses".  Mine weren't looking very rosy, so I asked her for a private mini lesson at our table and she so sweetly agreed.

I painted the rose details, a bit on the bow, and shadows on the basket.  Not bad and very fun!

Later that evening, I asked Liz if she would pose for a photo with my cookie in that fabulous 50s cute way of hers . . .

That photo just totally cracks me up!  Isn't it fabulous?

I'll end this post with a video that Liz ended her presentation with.  This will give you an idea of the talent this woman possesses. She calls it her "love note" to the cookie community.  The video ended to a standing ovation and a group of 200 misty-eyed cookiers.  Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing Glaze

This is the first set of cookies that I've made after returning from Cookie Con, where I was able to use a few things that I learned.

Surprisingly, the presentation from Glory of  Glorious Treats about photography influenced these cookies the most.

The tidbit that hit me the hardest wasn't even about photography really.

At one point, she showed photos of some very simple tulip cookies.  The photos ranged from being not great (shot on a cookie sheet) to being amazing (shot in pots of wheat grass).  She pointed out that the tulips were very simple cookies, yet still totally adorable.  That reminded me that I'm often attracted to the simplest of cookie designs.

I see so many fabulous tutorials out there, have tons of cutters that I'd love to play with and have all of these big plans for highly detailed cookies.  There are so many techniques and designs that I'm itching to try.  Sometimes when I'm decorating, I just can't stop.  I keep adding stuff!  Glory's presentation reminded me to keep things simple.  Simple can still be cute, beautiful, fun, etc.

Simple can also make decorating lots of cookies much more doable and enjoyable!

With that in mind, I came up with Thanksgiving cookies that I'll be offering this year.  I didn't go crazy with the number of colors or cutters.  I kept the designs simple.  That was almost hard.  I was tempted to add more details here and there but I held myself back.  I'm glad I did.

I actually adore this whole set.  I love the colors.

Here's Mr. Turkey.  I used a large flower cutter for his body, cut across the bottom and inserted a mini flower for his feet . . .

No extra details on Tom.

Three different pumpkins and a mini.  I thought about making the stems green, then adding leaves and tendrils.  Nope.  That would require another color, consistency, and tip.  Simple . . .

Fall flowers.  I was REALLY tempted to add details to the petals.  I wanted to pipe or paint lines from the centers.  Self control . . .

Fall Leaves.  My plan originally was to make them with three colors on each leaf and do some marbling.  I refrained.  The veins were done wet-on-wet.

The mini acorns.  Originally I was going to make two different colors of brown.  To simplify, I just went with one.  The tops needed a little something so I painted those lines on a la Arty McGoo.  She was another presenter at Cookie Con and showed us how to paint on cookies.  I really, really wanted to add painted touches on all of these cookies.  Once again, I refrained.  Dang, I didn't know I possessed such self control (or that self control was something needed in cookie decorating!).

Did you happen to notice my photos?  Not bad, huh?  Glory gave us some tips on lighting that really helped.  I also put more thought into the background.  Usually for me, it's always a white plate on a white background.  I was trying to keep *that* simple, but realize now that it was booooring.  I love the pop of orange behind the white dish!

I came away from Cookie Con totally inspired by the amazing instructors and ladies that attended.  The talent and the generosity to share their knowledge is pretty unbelievable.

I'm glad to be part of the cookie world!  :)

Bulldogs and Argyle Baby Shower Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing Glaze

These cookies were made for a baby shower. The bulldog was taken from the invitations.  I made them into transfers.  Royal Icing transfers has got to be one of the best techniques ever.  Great results and no worries about messing up directly on the cookie.

Argyle.  Just the word sends shivers up my spine. These were an absolute nightmare.  First I piped on the grid pattern with a 1.5 tip.  I was totally pleased at that point.  The lines were perfect.  Once I started flooding them, those horrifying craters started appearing.  Bad.  Really bad.  They were absolutely unacceptable.  I tried a heat gun.  I tried a heat lamp.  Nothing was working.  I ended up adding the tiniest bit of royal icing glaze to each section.  Just a thin later.  Let that dry, then added more.  Sealing the cookie with a bit of icing did the trick.  No craters.  I was pleased with the result, but man, was it a long process to get them right!  Thankfully there were only 12 of them to do!

Mini bones and mini paw prints.  I worked on these as I stewed over how to fix the argyle.  I think they kept me sane.

The small cookies were for a platter.  The larger cookies were bagged up.

Will I ever do argyle again?  Dare I try it sometime using the wet-on-wet technique?  I don't know.  I won't get craters, but I'm not sure that the design will be as crisp.

Maybe as in childbirth, I'll forget the pain and give it another go.  Ha ha!

Jack-o-Lantern Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing Glaze

A birthday party at the pumpkin patch!  How fun is that? 

I made these jack-o-lantern cookies for the party.  Bagged up and ready to be handed out to the kiddos.

I made a stencil so that the faces would be all alike.  I traced the stencil onto ONE cookie then changed my mind on that idea.  I put the stencil into the Kopykake projector and it was so much faster and more accurate!

A white stencil against the black in the kopykake worked like a charm.  It was amazing how well it showed up.  If you have a KK, try a stencil in there sometime!

Engagment Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing Glaze

I've done three sets of engagement cookies in the recent weeks.

But first, here's one that I did many months ago, but never posted. The design for the cookie on the top right came from here.  Sweet stick figure engagement couples.  I made rolled royal icing roses for the girls' hair.

The ones below, I just made recently.  It was for a Maryland crab feast engagement party!  That's the "save the date" calendar that I've done a few times.  I love it.  The design is Haniela's.

My calendars came out much better this time.  I used the Kopykake for the lines instead of free-handing.  I also used dragees for the engagement ring instead of sugar as I did above.

And one more stick figure set. . .

These are a little different, huh?  It was for my cousin's engagement party.  The party and the wedding have a football theme.  I merged the dress cut outs with mini football cut outs.  I love that the footballs are pink.  Very girly.

Catching Up

I've got a backlog of cookie photos that I haven't had time to post.  These are cookies that I made a few weeks ago.

A retired teacher reunion.  Scrabble cookies with the school's initials . . .
Edit:  I should have mentioned that I used this video tutorial on University of Cookie for the wood grain.

Minis in the school's colors . . .

And the whole platter . . .

A gender reveal party for a Maryland baby.  Pink and blue crabs.  I just love that people are wanting crab cookies for baby celebrations!

The platter . . .

A couple at the party recently got engaged, so we needed a couple of hearts just for them . . .

Poker cookies.  These were for a friend that hasn't been feeling well.  I almost didn't give them to him.  The poker chips were riddled with craters and they bled!  I've never had bleeding before or cratering that bad.  I chose the best of them to photograph.  I really should have photographed the worst of them too.  It was an embarrassment but I figured that they would still cheer him up.

Maggie's Bake Shop

We have a new bakery opening up in my town!  I'm so excited!  Not just because we need a bakery, but also because I'll be baking there!  I'll be using the kitchen for my own orders AND my cookies will be available there for purchase!

Maggie's Bake Shop will be opening next weekend, October 20th in Middletown, MD.  There's going to be a grand opening celebration with a ribbon cutting, free samples and drawings for delicious prizes.

I'll be making 200 of these minis to give out!

Halloween Cookie Decorating Class

This was a class I taught in Frederick, MD - cookie decorating for beginners.

These are the samples that I made . . .

Here I am discussing "wet on wet" and "wet on dry" techniques . . .

Students making royal icing . . .

Students decorating their cookies . . .

Their cookies! . . .

It was a fun night!  Thank you all for coming out!