Pretty Pink Princess Cookies

Girlie, Pink, Purple, and Sparkly... mission accomplished :)

Floral themed cookie collection

Cookies for the fabulous Tricia Dunlap of Dunlap Portraits... Seriously if you are anywhere near Austin and want some awesome pics... Tricia blows me away (check her out, http://dunlapportrait.com/). I did these as part of a celebration for her husbands Grandmother. I love the color palette, soft yet still kinda modern... I think I have to go back and find a few more of these plates Tricia, I hope you and your family enjoy them!

ECU themed wedding treats

Hartley's First Birthday... Tutus and Ties

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair...

The second set of princess cookies for this week was for Rapunzel favors. I had an idea in my head of her hair acting as a border and overall I love the look and effect these had. I wanted to play more with using the icing for texture and they were really fun to do. I think I watched Tangled on loop about 4 times while decorating these to keep me in the mood (and awake)... but I still love the movie and these cookies.

Happy Mother's Day, Part 2

 

Happy Mother's Day to all those moms out there. These are the second set of cookies I did for Mother's Day this year, this time I was told the mom loved flowers and her favorite color was yellow.  I knew they were going to be shipped so I didn't want to go too crazy, but thanks to a wonderful flower tutorial from Sweet Sugar Bell (here), I had the perfect idea for my "yellow" flowers, the rest just had to keep up. Instead of using luster dust like she did, I did some washes with color to add depth and definition. I was told she very much enjoyed them, something fun and simple for the Mom who loves bright colors and flowers :)

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.

Pink and Yellow Baby Shower

Baby Alicia is on her way and I got to make her baby shower cookies :) I was told their theme was yellow and pink... not a combo I'd usually make but I went with it to see what I could come up with. These were fun to play with, I tried a little bit of everything to get some fun textures and make them different from the first set of baby girl cookies (here) that were done for the mom's sister. I love the little details I was able to get into these, the little flowers and hearts on the yellow onesies, the bow on the duck, and even the little "A" on the blanket in the stroller. They were a surprise for the mom and I got some great feedback that they were well loved by all.

It's a Boy... Hawaiian style

I got a last minute call to do some baby shower cookies to welcome a new little boy into the world. The shower was going to be held at a hawaiian themed restaurant here in town so the customer wanted the cookies to try and reflect that theme. I never thought of boys and hawaiian... most of the time they are pretty girly. I loved the idea of doing hawaiian shirt styled onesies but that wasn't enough... then I remembered seeing images of guys wearing these great leis made of leaves. I took out my tiny leaf tip and started playing. These came out too stinkin' cute for words. I really like the way the leis came out and I totally think it pulled the theme off while keeping it very much "boy" themed.  

Face to Face Spa... Member's wine and dine

My friend convinced me to go and get a facial last weekend for the first time. She has been going to this spa in Avery Ranch for the past few months and loved it so I thought I'd give it a try. I gave it a shot and had a wonderful experience. If you're in the austin area, give them a shot (they give first time guest a great discount). We were waiting in the lounge waiting to check out and I started talking to the owner, Jenny, who was telling me about her member get-togethers she does every month. I've been trying to be more bold in telling people what I do, so I pulled out a card and started my pitch. I didn't even get further than, "I make custom sugar cookies" before she opened her check book and told me to bring her some that weekend. She said she usually just orders stuff from HEB (our local grocery store) and this would be a lot more fun.

I was given the chance to make anything I thought appropriate, so this is what I came up with. Their logo has a fuchsia orchid so I wanted to so something to reflect their company image. It was a really quick turn around so I knew I needed to do something simple but I still wanted them to look cute and elegant... I love the little silver nonpareils, they work for so many things :)

Bees, what to do with left-overs

So I originally made 2 batches of cookies for the American Bee Federation. The first batch was a little strong on the lavender and light on the honey so I made a second batch to make the honey stand out more, since these were for bee keepers after all. But now I had a bunch of strong lavender cookies that I didn't want to go to waste. I decided to ice them plain with a lemon flavored frosting to see if that would help balance the lavender flavor. Let me say these were delicious.

Now that I know the flavor worked I wanted to try painting on them. I've seen the blog for a wonderful cookie artist, Arty McGoo, who paints wonderful cookies in all sorts of themes. Since I knew these could be a quick and easy design, I was inspired to try painting these cookies and see how they come out. I just did them really quick but I can say I'm not as afraid to try as I was before. I got a lot of good compliments on they way they look so I may have to try my hand at a more complicated design in the near future.

Okay and I had to share this... My son (who is 3) wanted to "help" me decorate one morning. So I filled a bottle and let him decorate one of each cookie all by himself. He came out while I was painting the bee cookies and asked if I could please paint a bee on his cookie too. He was very proud of his cookie and showed it to everyone, for about a day, then it was promptly eaten :)

American Beekeeping Federation Conference

I was asked to donate some "bee" themed cookies to the American Beekeeping Federation conference next weekend in Las Vegas. I really wanted to do something to highlight the honey so I did some research and made a few batches of Lavender Honey cookies with Honey/Vanilla Royal Icing. It took a few tires to keep the lavender subtle but these were really tasty and something very different that you could really taste the honey in. I am fortunate enough to live in a place were local honey is available almost anywhere so I was able to use Round Rock Honey in my recipe. The wings on the bees were dusted with honey powder to add some extra sweetness and texture. It was amazing on just the smallest amount of honey added to icing really came thru in the flavor, I may have to start using it more often ;) Hopefully the beekeepers enjoy them.

I want a purple hedgehog...

Whew! It's been a very busy week and these were so much fun to make, and so girly too. Happy Birthday to Ms. Finn, who turned one on Tuesday and is having a petting zoo themed party this weekend. Her mom's favorite color is purple so since Finley can't talk yet, purple it is. I can't express how happy I am in the way these came out. I just bought a few new fancy icing tips and I can really tell a difference. I can't wait to see how the kids like them... maybe we'll give the hedgehogs one to share ;)

You can see a few more pics here.

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.