I'm ready for fall

The weather here has been a tad on the warm side lately and it makes me long for fall. I wanted to add something personal to the FSU cookies I was sending my sister-in-law and one of her favorite things are sunflowers. These started as simple flowers and as I was using a small chocolate cookies as a guide for my center circle, I decided to just drop it down and see what happend. These ended up being double layered using chocolate royal icing as glue and just a few little dots to set off the center. I could see making a whole tray of these in a few months... I may even try doing this in the cookie dough stage by cutting a hole in the bottom cookie and putting the chocolate cookie dough in the hole before it bakes so they are flush. In my head it sounds cool, we'll see what happens :)

Here you can see both cookies stacked using the icing as glue. I had to stack them first and then decorate so I didn't ice over my flower petals.

FSU is on the warpath now... well not really but, Go FSU!

My sister-in-law is a FSU alumni and very proud of her alma mater, and rightfully so. She is not the biggest fan of deserts, no pie, pudding, cake, ice cream... but she does LOVE sugar cookies. Ever since I started this hobby I thought that I needed to make her something special since usually I have to resort to an unmentioned, over-priced, cookie on a stick company when I want to send her a treat. I'm sure I'll get heck because the color isn't just right but I had some really bad images to go off and they were all different colors of garnet and gold. I was really pleased with the way the helmets came out. I didn't want the arrow to be raised so I attempted to do it all wet on wet, and for the most part it worked really well. She has no clue what's coming so I'm hoping this will be a good surprise :)

Few more pics here.

Summer Fun... Flip flops and fishes!

So Emily sent me an email after seeing my very first cookies and wanted flip flops for her and fishes for her husband since he likes to fish. She let me have total creative freedom which was really fun. I probably made way too many colors for such a small order but I couldn't help myself. These were my first fish and let me tell you, that little "smile" makes all the difference, they went from looking like a cheap decoration to something with personality with just one little stroke of my magical markers. She said she wanted some sort of "gone fishing" sign so I decided to make matching dots to display her message.

They just went into the mail to meet them on vacation later this week. I really hope she likes them, I totally fell in love with them and they almost didn't make it ;)

See some close-up pics here.

You spin me right round baby, right round...

A co-worker of mine issued me the challenge of doing vinyl records to give her husband for his birthday. He is a music consultant and the "K-one" is his business name. Since he doesn't have an official logo yet I was allowed to be creative. I was a little worried that these were going to look like tires when I got them done but they are really cute and I think they read quite well. I used a straw to poke the little hole in the center and the "vinyl" part of the record is dark-coco royal icing.... all the yum without the black mouth :)

His birthday is Friday so I'll let you know how he liked them... 

Stay tuned for more, I've got a bunch to decorate tonight and maybe tomorrow so this is gonna be a busy week :)

A new baby about to join the world

My friend is expecting his first kiddo. He is totally playing the proud papa role right now sending out pictures of the ultrasound and posting video of the heartbeat to his facebook. He and his wife are such good and deserving people and we are all very excited for them.

Since I work with the future dad, he has had a chance to sample many of my "boo-boo" cookies that I bring into work (so they don't all go to my waist). His wife has been supper supportive and encouraging but had not had a chance to sample anything yet. I wanted to make them something special that was just for them. Since they are not very far along they do not know any gender information yet but knowing mom and dad I put together something that is pretty gender neutral and not too "baby" in color. I really like the color palette for these, I think they all worked really well. I love the stars and want to make a million more just to see how many faces I can come up with. We had a chance to deliver them tonight and they were very well received. All my love goes out to Brian and Barbara, so far it hasn't been the easiest first couple weeks but she's almost over the first hurdle and ready to enjoy being pregnant.

See more pics here.

Animal Crackers in My... Soup?

Animal crackers in my soup
monkies and rabbits loop the loop,
Gosh, oh gee, but I have fun,
swallowin' animals one by one.

I recently purchased an awesome set of vintage animal cookie cutters from my local antique mall and immediately thought of Bake@350's posting for frosted animal cookies. I know she's not the first or only one to have this idea, I've seen quite a few of them, but hers was the first one that came to mind. 

I have a friend in college that used to eat these thing by the tub full (well the non-frosted ones anyway, they're "non-fat" so it's okay to eat a bunch, the frosted ones were a treat). I've been trying to think of something to make for her and her family as a nice "thinking of you" kind of gift, and these are going to be it. It wasn't until after I got them all decorated and ready to ship that I realized I broke the cardinal rule of cookie shipping... Don't ship anything with "limbs," and these are nothing but limbs. I'm gonna try and reinforce them a little and hope they make it. With 3 boys, not counting her husband, I'm sure if they are a little battle damaged by the time they get there. Even limbs will taste good going down.


See close-ups of the animal cookies/crackers here.

Moose and Zee... Cookie Time

These are for a friend's little boy who turns one this weekend. Moose and Zee are characters on Nick Jr and they are his favorite right now :) These are my first "character" cookies and they were all done freehand. If I had any concerns about them looking like the characters, the first thing my son said this morning was, "look Mommie, you made Moose and Zee cookies... can I have one?" Fears quenched. The mom was very happy with them and I can wait to hear how the birthday boy liked them. There are a few more pics here.

Thank you to the Garrison Brothers...

Garrison Brothers Distillery is located in the little town of Hye, Texas. They are the first legal distillery in Texas and have only shipped twice to local retail stores and both times were sold out in a matter of a few days. I had the wonderful fortune of getting on a waiting list for one of the first shipments just before Christmas and the day it came in I dragged my son all the way to Fredericksburg (1.5 hours away) to buy the little bottle of amber gold. On the drive back we saw the sign for the tiny town of Hye and decided to take an adventure and see if we could find the actual distillery and get a picture to go with the bottle. A few miles of dirt road later we came across it and pulled in, almost instantly a man in a big pickup pulled up behind me and I was sure he was gonna kick me out... I was there without any appointment and I had an infant in the backseat. He didn't, his name was Dan and he was awesome, I told him why I was there and he took me up to see the operation and get better pictures, he even signed the bottle for Karl (which was so awesome he wouldn't open it to try it out). I left so excited, Mr. Dan Garrison totally made my day and a pretty cool gift transformed into something totally custom and amazing.

So, flash forward a few months and my parents are down to visit for my husband's birthday. As a gift I sent the guys down to the distillery for a "Sit and Sip" tour. I wanted to thank Mr. Dan for his kindness and decided that all men love food so cookies were a safe bet. I did some research on their operation and came up with a good variety. The royal icing was flavored with their bourbon which gave it a nice subtle spice flavor once dry. If anyone is a big bourbon fan and traveling through the Fredericksburg area, I highly recommend giving them a visit... just remember to call first ;)

The main cookies: bourbon bottle image, texas star logo, Hye bottle tag, black wax seal in chocolate, bourbon barrels with logo stamp, white cowboy hat (for Mr. Dan), and in the center... the Cowgirl, their first sill that started it all.