Love Bird Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

Love birds! Aren't they the sweetest? They would be fabulous for a bridal shower or wedding!

I've got to thank Dippin' Pops for these. I belong to a forum for cookie decorators. It's my go-to place to learn and be inspired. The ladies there are so encouraging and generous with their knowledge. Dippin Pops posted about her love bird cookies.  I just had to give them a go myself.

Then I had to make some bluebirds using the same cutter.  Super cute!

Snail Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing - Tutorial

I just got a mini snail cookie cutter.  So cute!  I wanted some larger snails to go with the little ones but didn't have another cutter, so I decided to use round cookies and see what I could come up with.

I love how the minis came out.  I have to admit that I'm still unsure how I feel about the round snails.  I just don't know.  I didn't want to add dorky mouths but it feels like something's missing.  No personality.  I'll have to try these again sometime to see if I can jazz them up.

Would you like to see how to make them?  (Brace yourselves for the horrible camera phone photos to follow.)

With a food color marker, draw spirals and heads on the round cookies.

Next, totally ignore the spirals that you just drew and pipe them.  Let dry for a little while.

Flood the spirals.  Let dry.  Flood the bodies.  Let dry.

Add the blue sky background to the rounds.  While it's still wet, add the antennae.

Pipe dots for eyes on the rounds.  For the minis, use a toothpick to place dots for the eyes.

Pipe dot details on everyone.

Or come up with your own ideas to cutify the rounds!  Maybe white dots, then the blue on top for the eyes?  Maybe more of a side view with just one eye?  Some cute mouths?  Clouds in the sky?

What would you do differently?

Tulip and Daisy Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

I recently put in FOUR different orders for cookie cutters! Three of those have arrived so I gave some of them a test ride. So fun!

Aren't the tulips sweet?  Oh how I love mini cookies.

I already had the daisy cutter but I did them differently this time.  Usually I decorate them like this.....

 This time I wanted to make the petals more defined.

I like them much better this way!

I was expecting some craters but as you can see, they were quite minimal.  No idea why.

I love this set!

Bluebird Sugar Cookies Embroidered with Royal Icing

Two of my very favorite things coming together - embroidery and cookies!  Instead of fabric and floss, I used sugar cookies and royal icing!

I think that one of the main reasons that I love decorating cookies is because it's a combination of crafting and baking - both of which I love to do.

Most of my crafting is needlework - sewing, crochet, embroidery. Give me some fabric, thread, yarn, ribbon, a comfy chair and I'm happy.

I have embroidery patterns. Lots of embroidery patterns. Tons of vintage embroidery patterns from ebay. Old embroidery books from used book stores. New embroidery books. New patterns. Um, lots of patterns.

The vintage designs are often quirky.  The quirkier the better for me . . . 

Those are some flour sack towels that I stitched up.

For a while now, I've been thinking of trying an embroidery pattern on cookies. I've seen many examples of brush embroidery cookies. Gorgeous (and something I want to try), but they don't look like the kind of embroidery I do.

This past weekend I took out my KopyKake projector, chose a cute vintage bird pattern and got to stitching. I mean decorating.

I am in love with the result!

I've only used the KopyKake a few times. I was still a little intimidated by it but felt much more comfortable this time.

There will be many more embroidered cookies in my future!

How to Make Flower Centers - Royal Icing Sugar Cookies

Do you find it difficult to create royal icing circle centers on your flower cookies? It's not easy to make them consistently the same size.  It's also not easy to get a perfect circle!  Would you like a trick to help you out?

Here's a quick little tutorial on how to do it......

I made this platter of flowers, cupcakes, mini flowers and mini rounds for a lady's 50th birthday party.  I wanted to mute the colors a little to make them more sophisticated so I added a touch of ivory to everything.  I'm liking it.

How to create the flower centers.....

The simple little trick is to make a round impression on each of the raw cookie dough cut outs.  Just find something round, the appropriate size, and make a very slight impression into the dough.  The photo above shows them after they were baked.

There have been a few times that I forgot to make the impressions before baking.  If that happens to you, and you remember as you're pulling them out of the oven, it's not too late.  You can imprint the cookies while they're still warm and pliable.  Just be gentle.

Are you wondering what I use to make the circles?

A soda bottle top, lip balm top and a coupler base.



The soda top and  lip balm top are stored in the bin that holds my flower cutters. 



After I use them, they get washed up and put back just like the cutters.

 


Now it's easy to decorate those centers! 




Just outline over the impression with royal icing and flood.







 








Let the centers dry for a while before flooding the petals.  Let that dry too.



Outline the petal details, add dots around the centers and you're done.



 Easy!

Easter Sugar Cookies

I made Easter sugar cookies decorated with royal icing.

I made Easter cookies a few months ago as samples for my Cookie Class. (which was awesome, by the way. More on that later.)

These are just so bright and happy. I love them.

I also love that I wasn't decorating alone this time. My neighbor and her 16 year-old daughter came over to decorate a few cookies. They stayed and decorated for four hours! They left with a tray of super cute Easter cookies. Good thing I made a double batch! I texted my neighbor a photo of my finished cookies the next morning and just guess what she was doing at the time? Shopping online for cutters! I just may have a cookie buddy! One that lives right across the street! Woo hoo!




These hatching bunnies might just be my favorites. I really like the simplicity of the white polka dots on the bright colors.




This cutter is part of the Wilton set. It also came with two hatching chicks that I'm not very fond of. The proportions seem off to me. This cutter I love!










Tulip and daisy mini cookies.



Oh how I love minis! One perfect bite and just adorable. I always reach for a mini. Just my speed.










Sweet little chicks.


















Of course bunnies and carrots.




I don't know why the carrots are one of my favorites. I don't normally think of carrots as being cute but these are!











I just picked this cutter up last week. I was really unsure as to how to decorate those ears.

The area seemed too wide for just one ear, so I added that back one.

I don't know. These cookies don't thrill me. Kinda cute I suppose.

I do like the tails though. They're little dots over the flooded area.


Happy Easter cookie friends!

Team Sugar Cookies - Tennis Balls, Pennants and Megaphones

Sugar cookies decorated with royal icing for the tennis team!

My neighbor's daughter plays high school tennis. Parents provide snacks to the players on game days to keep their energy up during those long matches that they're not playing. My neighbor asked me to make cookies to go along with some healthier snacks. Yay!






The pennants and megaphones were fun to decorate.

OK, so they don't have cheerleaders shouting through megaphones for tennis teams, but they should! Megaphones aren't exactly associated with tennis, but I thought they'd be a fun "Go Team!" addition.









You'd think that tennis balls would be super simple to decorate, huh?


I think these were too yellow. I added just a touch of green, but was afraid to go too far with it.

The white piping lines should have been wider. I used a #2 tip. Should have been a #3.








I put sets of 2 into cello bags.




I was told that the girls and coaches enjoyed them. Score!