Antique 1st Birthday

By now most of you know my favorite orders are..... I would like some cookies, for this event, decorate them as you please.

It gives me a chance to try out a bunch of different techniques that I haven't had a chance to try on other cookies.

This next set was exactly that.  I got to play around with gumpaste, stenciling with icing, and adding cool texture to cookies with sprinkles and then airbrushing over it.

Hope you enjoy the cookies in all their Antique themed glory!

Stay Sweet Everyone ^^

Swimming themed Grad cookies

It's graduation season, which means lots of fun cookies in school colors.  This next set is one I hold near and dear to my heart because not only did I get to make them for a Mankao West graduate (my alma mater) but they were swimming themed cookies as well which is one of the many activities I took part in while attending West. 

It was fun to think up different color and design combos for these lovely ladies.  

However I do have to say these were some of the most difficult cookies to work with.  From time time to time I have a client provide me with a special cookie cutter that they want me to use.  I will gladly do it too, but this cutter was a doozy.

Small shapes at sharp angles make for a cookie that doesn't release well from the cutter, and to top it all off the cutter had guide lines built into it to distinguish the different parts of the cookie. 

These guide lines in theory are great, they keep each cookie looking the same as far as swimsuit and cap placement.  However in reality they are a nightmare, the guides were set so low in the cutter that I couldn't make the cookie very thick or the whole thing would have fallen apart.  

After baking the cookies were equally as fragile because of how deep the guide lines cut into the cookie. It's a good thing I made a few extra cookies because these poor girls kept loosing their heads.  

Had the cutter been one of mine I would have cut the guide lines out.  If you are ever having issues with a cutter it is always a safe bet to remove sharp angles form the cutter by bending it a bit and remove those guide lines.  While they make decorating easier (in some cases) it's not worth worrying about the structural integrity of your cookie.  

After all the girls were decorated I was still a bit worried about a few breaking.  The last thing I want to do is give a client a bunch of broken cookies.  To hopefully make up for any broken cookies (once they were put on display...it happens) I made this lovely focal cookie.  The flags read Congrats Ally and the starting blocks display the graduation year.  

Here is a closer look at the little swimmers ready to start off their blocks.  I am so happy with how this one turned out.  Plus how cute is that crowd of cheering people.  I will for sure be revisiting this cookie design in the future.  

Congrats to all you grads out there!!!

Stay sweet everyone :D

Mankato Ballet Company Alice in Wonderland

http://www.mankatoballet.org/

For those of you in the Mankato area and looking for something to do this weekend, go and check out the Mankato Ballet Companies performance of Alice in Wonderland.  I hear it is going to be magical!

I love making cookies for local businesses, even better is making fun Alice in Wonderland cookies for a local business. 

It was fun trying to incorporate the poster design in to a mini cookie.  All in all I am pleased with how these turned out. 

Let's be honest here the first thing that probably comes to your mind when you think of Ballet is pink and point shoes.  I thought it was appropriate to add both to a few of the Alice cookies. 

Hope you all enjoy the Ballet if you decide to go this weekend.  If you missed it above here is the link to the Mankato Ballet Companies site so you can get all the information you need if you plan to attend this weekend. 

Stay Sweet Everyone!

Lorax Baby Shower Cookies

It is so nice to see how timeless Dr. Seuss and his stories are.  I have had so many requests for Dr. Seuss as of late.

This set was made for a lovely local gal for a baby shower she was throwing for her friend.
I loved making this set, airbrushing the Lorax as well as the Truffula Trees really helped add to the whimsy of this set.

The book covers gave me a great chance to use my fun new americolor food coloring markers.  I love these guys, they are so vibrant!  I got mine from Global Sugar a few months ago and love them! I highly recommend adding a set to your cookie/cake decorating arsenal.

The all time best part of this set was the delivery, the lovely lady who ordered the cookies was an acquaintance form high school.  It was so much fun to sit down and catch up over a cup of coffee.

Hope you all enjoy this set as much as I did.

 Stay Sweet Everyone!

j

The Journals of Thaddeus Shock Pocket

I am so excited to share this next set of cookies with you!  Not only because they were a blast to make but because they depict the fabulous books from Local Mankato Author Henry L. Walton!
As you all already know I love reading and I love sharing the joy of reading with others.  Let me tell you Henry Walton does a wonderful job of sharing the joy of reading with young and old alike with his Thaddeus Shockpocket series.

If you haven't read the books yet I suggest you go out and do it straight away.  They are an absolute joy a fun and funny steampunk type adventure though a fabulously created world.  Oh and not to mention there is lots of fun art scattered thought the books.

This set was made in celebration of the second book release in The Journals of Thaddeus Shockpocket series.

I am still working my way though Albion 77 unfortunately I can't decorate cookies and read at the same time.  But I have been assured by the authors wife that the 2nd book in the series Victoria is even better than the first.  I can't wait to read it.

 If you aren't intrigued yet he is a brilliant review form Amazon that basically sums up how I feel about theses books

 "Okay! This book is the most fun I have had in months! The author uses matter of fact hilarity to tell his story. Eight year-olds would love the stories, though they would not be independent readers with it. Fourteen year-olds would love the scientific inventions (I would love to hear if they pick-up on the invention of the internet!) Anyone over sixteen or eighteen will love the word play. As a teacher, I would read it/teach with it from second grade onward. It is fantastic from cover to cover! There are so many ridiculous and incredible stories--so many are so subtle. I cannot wait for future journals to be published. I am curious to see if Thaddeaus follows up with his experiments watching paint dry....is there more story line with that????? Yours in Friendship and Distance...." 

I figure since the books are all about adventure why not make the cookie making process an adventure as well.  I learned a lot of new things making these cookies, like how to airbrush in a gradient.  How to use corn syrup to make parts of the cookies look like glass, and how to make holographic cookies using stencils and multiple layers of airbrush sheen.

The cookies above are the "holographic" cookies.  If you look closely you can see a few different layers of gears.  I used a warm brown, gold, copper and bronze color in different layers to get the effect.  

Check out this quick video to see a bit better how the whole effect turned out.  

These cookies truly were a labor of love, a good hour or two went into each of the book cover and back cookies.  The results in the end were totally worth it, but let me tell you my hand and wrist will not miss painting all those fine details any time soon.  

Just to give you a bit of an idea here is the comparison between the book covers and cookies. 

Well that's all for now.  I will have one more book inspired set coming your way later this week and then on to other exciting cookies. 

Stay sweet everyone!

A chance to do some good....and eat some cookies!

Sometimes at the end of an order I have a few extra cookies.  If they don’t get gobbled up by the hubby first I will take the time to decorate them….and then eat them.

I decided this time around why not let you eat them?

Here is how this is going to work, This set of Cat In The Hat cookies will be auctioned off to the highest bidder. 

The proceeds will go to Minnesota Literacy Council http://mnliteracy.org/ which helps people of all ages from 3 years olds mastering their ABCs to grandparents determined to get their GED.  They are able to reach nearly 90,000 children and adults each year!

What you need to do….

Go to my  Facebook Page and comment on The Cat In The Hat album with your bid.

Bidding will start at $10.00 (which is the minimum donation that can be made to Minnesota Literacy Council)

Comment below with your donation bid

The Auction will close Sunday (5/3) at 6:00pm CT

The highest bidder can pick up or have your cookies delivered (If you live in the Mankato area)

If you don’t live in Mankato I can ship your cookies to you but I ask that you pay for the packaging and shipping (approximately $15.00)

The winning bidder may choose a charitable organization that you would like your donation to go to as well, I only ask that it benefit children or literacy.

Thank you all for your support!  Let’s go out there and do some good!

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!