Cookies for the Rockin' City Rollergirls

Now that all the girls have had a chance to see them, here is the rest of the Roller Derby set for the Rockin' City Rollergirls here in Round Rock, TX. Check out their website:http://www.rockincityrollergirls.com/, or facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/rockincityrollergirls... these girls are so much fun, and kinda scary at the same time. I am so excited they enjoyed their cookies because I really enjoyed making them, so much so that I got a little carried away with how many I did... but I don't think they minded much ;) 

This is halloween, this is halloween...

Boys and girls of every age

Wouldn't you like to see something strange?

Come with us and you will see

This, our town of Halloween

This is Halloween, this is Halloween

Pumpkins scream in the dead of night

This is Halloween, everybody make a scene

Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright

It's our town, everybody scream

In this town of Halloween

I am the one hiding under your bed

Teeth ground sharp and eyes glowing red

I am the one hiding under yours stairs

Fingers like snakes and spiders in my hair

This is Halloween, this is Halloween

Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!

In this town we call home

Everyone hail to the pumpkin song

In this town, don't we love it now?

Everybody's waiting for the next surprise

Round that corner, man hiding in the trash can

Something's waiting now to pounce, and how you'll...

Scream! This is Halloween

Red 'n' black, slimy green

Aren't you scared?

Well, that's just fine

Say it once, say it twice

Take a chance and roll the dice

Ride with the moon in the dead of night

Everybody scream, everbody scream

In our town of Halloween!

I am the clown with the tear-away face

Here in a flash and gone without a trace

I am the "who" when you call, "Who's there?"

I am the wind blowing through your hair

I am the shadow on the moon at night

Filling your dreams to the brim with fright

This is Halloween, this is Halloween

Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!

Halloween! Halloween! 

Tender lumplings everywhere

Life's no fun without a good scare

That's our job, but we're not mean

In our town of Halloween

In this town

Don't we love it now?

Everybody's waiting for the next surprise 

Skeleton Jack might catch you in the back

And scream like a banshee

Make you jump out of your skin

This is Halloween, everyone scream

Wont' ya please make way for a very special guy

Our man jack is King of the Pumpkin patch

Everyone hail to the Pumpkin King now!

This is Halloween, this is Halloween

Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!

In this town we call home

Everyone hail to the pumpkin song

La la la la-la la [Repeat]

These need no further introduction, Happy Birthday Wes... hope you like them.

(more pics here)

Dishonored launch party

These are for the Dishonored launch party tonight. The game was done by Arkane Studios and Bethesda. The game looks great, check out their website here (http://www.dishonored.com/). The blood splatters were especially fun to try and recreate along with the tattoo the main character wears on his wrist as well as the mark of the plague (the red "x"). The game looks awesome and I felt honored to be included on such a special night for Arkane Studios here in Austin, TX.

Happy Mother's Day, Part 1

It's Mother's Day, and I was asked to make cookie for two very special moms. This set was for a "classy" mom who loved black and white with just a little red for accent. I immediately thought of  a guest post by Ali-Bee on Sweet Sugar Bell's blog who did a tutorial on creating brush embroidery (here) and thought this would be a great time to give it a shot. I really liked the way these came out. I was a little afraid of doing black and white cookies for Mother's Day and that they'd be a little odd but all in all I think these were exactly what she wanted.

Supporting my friend... Stylehouse 512

My friend and coworker, Abby Schultz, has decided to start her own business as a Personal Stylist/Shopper/Organizer, Stylehouse 512. She has done some local stuff within her area of Lakeway but as an up and coming independent stylist, she wanted to try and expand her cliental and share her love for fasion at the semi-annual Le Garage Sale next weekend, Jan 28-29. There are going to be over fifty vendors there all giving great deals, so if your in the Austin area you should check it out.

She didn't want to hand out generic candy so she came to me to make some thing fun and memorable she could hand out with her cards that would represent her style. I would describe her style as eclectic vintage. She loves color but is a sucker for pastels and lace. If you want a to read some fun commentary on fashion, check out her blog :)

Since we had to do so many of these, I decided to try stamping them with a monogram. I'd read about people using rubber stamps on fondant and figured it may work for royal icing just as well. We did a simple vanilla cookie with ivory frosting, stamped the monogram with black food coloring, and then I went back and added the scallop border to make them a little more frilly. All in all, this is the biggest order I've done of the same image (we ended up with about 210 total), I love the idea of the stamps and may have to find a way to use them more on instances like this.

A plate of party cookies...

This is the result of friends "helping" me make cookies. They are not exactly how I normally do them, but it was our annual Halloween party with all our friends and they weren't going to judge them by anything but taste... so I let them help, and it was actually quite fun and a little free-ing. I didn't get very many pics, but it is one pretty fun looking plate of cookies.

See if you can find all our spooky friends: witches, vampires, frankenstein (he's a little hidden) and his wife, black bats, purple bats, witch brooms and cauldrons, gravestones, eerie eyes, spider webs, ghosts, jack-o-lanterns, coffins, and various random halloween bites.

Get Russ to Kenya

So we have a friend that is working with CTC International (a world community outreach that enables less fortunate areas of our world experience something better) to teach art skills at a local orphanage and help them find ways to create income using their creativity. He's going to be filming a documentary while he's there and I am so excited for him that he is going to get this opportunity to go and help. Since I don't have the cash to donate, I told him I would make him cookies and he could try and sell them at work... any money he gets goes toward his trip. I found this flag cookie cutter and wanted to do something that related to where he was going instead of something just fun. I hope everyone likes them and they can bring him a few dollars to help out. If you are feeling generous and want to donate, or if you just want to learn more about the program, here is a link to the CTC and Russ's team.

More cookie pictures here.

Update: He got enough money :) After much work and wonderful friends, Russ raised the money he needed for his trip and is all set to go sometime in the next few weeks. Thanks to everyone who supported his cause and congrats to Russ, have a blast and do some good for a change ;)

Texas Tech Graduation - First Order

After last weeks Memorial Day cookies, Mrs. Nancy (who runs The R.O.C.K), was kind enough to trust me with making cookies for her daughter's graduation party from Texas Tech. She asked me to make some girl cookies with long blonde hair like her daughter and another set of the Texas Tech logo. I was super excited to do these because it was technically my first real "order" and it was going to be a challenge, 2 dozen of each. We decided to do the girls as a vanilla cookie and the logos as a dark chocolate cookie since the logo had a lot of black in it. I ended up custom creating each of these cookies.

The girl cookies were based on another blog I read regularly where she showed how to combine two cookies cutters to make one cookie. The logos I made a template out of card stock and hand cut each one so I would have all the right angles. I also started experimenting with my icings at this point and tried to make a dark coco royal icing instead of using a whole bottle of black food coloring and staining everyone's mouth black. I was very excited to discover that adding my black coco directly to the royal icing until I got a very dark brown resulted in only having to add 2 drops of back to push it away from being brown. I did a test and it reacted perfectly, piped great, dried nice and glossy, and tasted great! I will never make standard "black" icing again, this recipe rocks! The logos were outlined with white, flooded with red then allowed to dry. I then went back the next morning and painted all the black shadows and bevels on the logo to make it really punch and complete the look.

I was told as a follow up that Mrs. Nancy's daughter LOVED the cookies, which totally made my day. See more pics and a photo of the entire order here.