Baby Shower Books

I love books!  I love reading! I love this order!  I was asked to make 30 cookies for a baby shower, the theme was books.  The customer gave me a list of the books they would be featuring and I was able to go wild with it after that.  This is what the result was.

I hope you are ready for a ton of booktacular photos of some tasty cookies. 

If you liked these cookies be sure to go an like my Facebook page and check back tomorrow (Friday 5/1/2015) for a chance to get your very own book cookies!

This set of book cookies was a lot of fun to make because I had the chance to use a bunch of different techniques on these cookies.  Up first was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  For these cookies I used a wet on wet technique and then piped the coconut tree and letters on top once the cookie was dry and hand painted the rest.  

Book cover in all its brightly colored glory!

A told B and B told C I'll beat you to the top of the coconut tree. 

Next was a book I haven't read before but thanks to the power of the internet and YouTube I was able to read this charming book.

I loved doing the book cover for Giraffes Can't Dance I think it turned out super pretty.  Everything was hand painted and I used a hand made stencil to be sure to get all of the Giraffes bendy parts in proportion. 

The whole story is very charming and about embracing your own unique self.  What a great message to share with the younger generation.

The two cookies above were hand painted without any stencils.  The little cricket was a doozy to get right.  

I think the next book will be recognized by one and all.  Goodnight Moon is a classic that most of us grew up with.  

For as simple as the artwork is in the book it was hard to capture the single plane illustrations used in the book.  

It really was a challenge to replicate such iconic artwork.  

Talk about challenging artwork to replicate.... Dr. Seuss has always been a favorite of mine.  I love his artwork and his writing.  I was thrilled when I had the chance to do not one but two of his books.  

First one of my child hood favorites Green Eggs and Ham.

For these cookies I used a combo of wet on wet icing technique to create the white space on the orange background and hand painting.  I am thrilled with how they turned out.  I love Dr. Seuss's sketchy whimsical style.  

These cookies were a joy to paint.  It was easy to get lost in all the fin detail that appears in all the characters.  

While painting these all I could think of was the special day this book arrived at my house as a child and my mom read it to my brother and me and then we had green (scrambled eggs) and ham for lunch.  As a kid it was a magical day and one I can't wait to repeat for my kids one day. 

Here comes another crowd favorite!  The Cat In The Hat!  

These cookies were made the same way as the Green Eggs and Ham cookies, wet on wet with hand painting.  

As much as I enjoyed this book, I'm not going to lie, I always identified more with Fish than any of the other characters.  Cat always made me uneasy with all his crazy shenanigans.  

Painting Fish in all his grumpy glory was one of my favorite moments in this set. 

Up next we have a book that is near and dear to my heart.  Growing up I always loved creepy crawlie things, Heck to this day I still do, but I will always have a special place in my heart for caterpillars and butterfly's (my name does mean butterfly after all)

These cookies were all hand painted and the caterpillar on the book cookie was an icing transfer.  I wanted to give the cookie a bit of dimension and I thought a transfer was the best way to achieve that.  

It was a challenge trying to replicate Eric Carle's work with tissue paper and translate it into painting with food coloring.  Because royal icing is pores it starts to absorb the color that you paint on it thus making it a bit difficult to build layers like what Eric Carle does with his work. 

nom nom look at all the tasty food!

Well that's all folks.  I hope you enjoyed all these book cookies as much as I did.  Be sure to go out there and read a book today, or better yet share the joy of reading with someone else!

Remember to check back tomorrow for a chance to get your very own book cookies!

Stay Sweet Everyone!

Hoppy Spring Busy Bee

I have been a busy Bee as of late, making lots of fun cookie sets that I can't wait to share with you all!   Up first is a fun 2 cookie set I made for a local garden center.

The folks at Drummers are amazing, they are so helpful and knowledgeable.  The cherry tree Hubby and I planted in our wedding ceremony came from Drummers.  

If you are in the Mankato area be sure to go and check them out, they have a wonderful selection of plants, trees, pond supplies and little shiny baubles to place around your garden. 

This cookie above combines two of my new favorite decorating toys, first don't you just love the birch stencil, it is so dreamy....

and the gum paste bee!!!! I am going to start putting little bee's on everything because they are so darn cute!

Because spring has finally hit Minnesota I decided to do some cookies to welcome in spring!  This set was gifted to one of my loyal customers who I made this set for.  She had given me some cookie cutters to use for the set and I totally forgot to return them. 

I figured when returning something late you better have a nice gift to go with it... thus the spring themed cookies.

This Bunny is my favorite, and take two, the first one met its sad end when it fell to the floor along with a whole baking sheet of finished cookies.

Oh well I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles. 

That being said it is sometimes fun to start over, it gives you a chance to fix mistakes you made on the previous cookies or to try something new.  

Over all I am very happy with how all these cookies turned out.  

Happy Spring Everyone!  Stay Sweet :D

Nautical themed wedding cookies, and Gum Paste Tutorial

There are people in this life that do nothing but spread happiness to others, they walk into a room and light it up with their smile and positive attitude.

Keith and Amy are two of those people in this life and I am so happy that they found each other.

I was thrilled to make some wedding cookies for the two of them and share a bit of my love with them during this amazing journey in their lives.  The two of them are getting married soon in the tropics thus the beach theme of the cookies.

 This set gave me the opportunity to use a new technique, Gum Paste!  I used ModPodg molds to make all the different shells and then airbrushed, petal dusted and hand painted the dried results.

Making GumPaste decorations is now my new favorite thing to do in the evening, it's quick and easy and I can do it while watching TV or chatting with the hubby. 

I was so surprised how easy it was to make these little decorations.  All you have to do is buy some powdered gum paste and follow the directions to mix up the gum paste, then you can work with it straight away or keep it in the freezer for later use.  

Once your GumPaste is mixed and kneaded I make small pea sized balls and push them into the molds.  I let the GumPaste sit in the mold for a few min. before popping it out.  Any silicone mold will work just be sure to wash it before use and dusting it with powdered sugar helps keep the GumPaste from sticking.  

Once the GumPaste pieces are removed form the mold I use and exacto knife to cut off any of the scraggly bits and smooth up the edges.  Be sure to do this before the GumPaste dries otherwise you will be hacking away and the edges the next day and may end up breaking your lovely pieces you just made.

I let all the decorations air dry for about 3 days and then store them in a small tupperware.  Be sure to let the pieces dry out before sealing them away or they could cause already dried pieces to melt.  Same goes for painting your decorations, if you are not applying them to a cookie right away let them dry for a day or so before sealing them up with other decorations.  

Comment or e-mail if you are interested in a full tutorial on making GumPaste decorations.  I would be more than happy to make a photo tutorial or even a video if their is interest in it.  

Stay Sweet Everyone and Congrats Amy and Keith <3

Corporate Marketing Cookies

More often than not I am making cookies for baby showers or birthdays, however every now and then it is fun to switch things up.  

I made these cookies for a local caterer in town to help them advertise to local businesses.  

If you have a business you want to market your services to, or you are hosting a corporate event be sure to hit me up.  I would love to make you some cookies with your business logo on them.

If you are in the Mankato area and want to check out some of these local businesses you can find them out at the links provided below.  

And if you are in the area and want some amazing food catered for your next event be sure to place an order from Najwa's Catering!

Stay Sweet Everyone!

http://www.mtuonsiteenergy.com/home/

http://www.hilltopflorist.com/

http://www.bruntonarchitects.com/

http://www.cbfg.net/

Chevron Baby Shower Cookies

How sweet is the name Oliver Watson K,  it just warms your heart, and if you could see the little guy your heart would be even warmer, he is a cutie!

This is one of those sets that got me really excited because I finally had a chance to make a chalkboard cookie......and I got to use my super cool new contraption for tracing difficult designs (more about that in a later post)

When I was commissioned for the set I was asked to make cookies to match with a chevron, chalkboard and teal themed baby shower highlighting the baby's name.  From there I had creative freedom to come up with whatever I wanted.

I opted to airbrush a few chevron cookies, do a K cookie to match a beautiful metallic K they displayed at the baby shower and the highlight of the whole set was a chalkboard cookie that matched the birth announcements.

This set allowed me to use a few techniques that I normally don't get to try out, like making my own K transfers and using (non homemade) stencils to airbrush patterns on a cookie.  

My all time favorite cookie of this set was the chalkboard cookie.  I was really excited about this one not only because I had the chance to finally make a chalkboard cookie but I also go the chance to use my Camera-Lucida app on my tablet and the new cool holder my hubby made for me so I could finally use the app.  I will do a nice write up about Camera-Lucida and how to make a stand for it some time soon.  For those of you like me who don't have a kopycake it is a great way to keep things consistent on cookies.  If you are itching to know more go and check Klickitat street for an awesome tutorial.  

Stay sweet everyone!

Funky Sock Cookies

I can't even begin to tell you all how excited I was to get this order.  I love funky socks!  When I go to Korea one of the first things on my list (besides eating lots of Korean food) is to buy crazy Korean socks.

When this order came in for a set of crazy sock cookies for a surprise 18th birthday I was thrilled!

The birthday boys mom sent me photos of some of his favorite funky socks and I replicated them in cookie form.

Hope you all get as big of a kick out of these cookies as I did.

Stay sweet everyone!