Birthday Doodles for Wizard101 Artist...

Arkane Studios

Arkane Studios is a local gaming company here in Austin, TX. They are a small company (so far) so one of their wives, who work with my husband, asked if I could make some cookies in their company colors to take with them to the party. The only thing she asked for was a large rectangle that had the company name and logo on it, the rest was up to me as long as there were at least 2 dozen cookies.  These made me really want a kopykake :) I was told that they all really loved them so it was worth all the hand drawing. The flavors were simple but it looked really cool with the vanilla and chocolate cookies all laid out on a platter with such a graphic style cookies.

UnderToe is under way...

I have a friend of a friend that is starting a business down in Mexico called UnderToe (UnderToeInMexico.com). She is going to be selling toe rings and renting Stand Up Paddle Boards along with floats for cruise ship tourists that visit the small town where she's setting up shop. I helped her create her logo which lead to business cards, post cards, beach flags, banners, koozies, temporary tattoos... you name it, there's a flamingo on it. Carolyn, my friend, wanted hot pink on everything, it was fun project. So when I came across a flamingo cookie cutter in the store the other day, I knew I had to make a handful for my hot pink loving friend. I forgot to take pictures before I gave them away so I was lucky she didn't eat them all in the car on the way home :) These were a blast to do as a just for fun cookie.

Happy Birthday Wizard 101... 3 years and growing!

We have a small company out here called KingsIsle Entertainment that puts out an amazing game called Wizard 101. It's a massive multiplayer online game for kids (and adults) of all ages, kinda like World of Warcraft meets Harry Potter. If you aren't already one of 20+ million players then you should check it out (Wizard101.com), you can play for free but it's only available on the PC :(.  Okay, enough sales pitch for one day, back to the story. So the game is 3 years old today which is awesome and I'm very proud of my Austin guys for coming up with something special that everyone seems to love so much. I wanted to do something extra special so I decided to make a large arrangement of cookies with all new flavors that would correspond to their 7 schools of magic (Life, Death, Fire, Ice, Myth, Storm, and Balance). I've never done this many cookies at once and I can say it was way more work than I was expecting but so worth it in the end. They ate it up, literally, and loved the new flavors.

On a side note, Texas passed a law that became effective yesterday which legalized home based baking businesses... so I'm now official and legal :) Look for way more news and changes to come, I can't wait to start seeing where this all takes me.

This is what 181 cookies look like, and this was only half!

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.