Cookie-ing Like Crazy!

I've been busy with cookies lately! It makes my day when I get an e-mail or a Facebook message and someone wants cookies! I'm loving all the practice I'm getting in and the feeling of getting better.

So, here is what I've been up to lately during naps or in the evenings.

Baby shower cookies for a pink and brown shower.


Batman! I really enjoyed making these, but they took stinkin' forever to decorate!! If I do them again... well, I'm not sure if I'll do them again or not... But, I do love how they turned out! I copied some designs by Sweet Sugarbelle. And, of course, hers are absolutely amazing! (Unfortunately, I can't find the cookies of hers that I copied to post a link. So, just look at mine and imagine them a million times better and you will know what her awesome cookies look like.)


Guitars, music notes and stars for a Rockstar Birthday Party.


Hearts with the initials of the "bride" and "groom" for a friend who renewed her vows to celebrate her 10th anniversary.


Rattles and name/initial circles for a friend's baby shower. It was an amazing Cookies & Milk shower and was decorated beautifully. And, I'm getting better at writing on cookies, slowly, but surely.


Cookies for a friend whose son was proposing to his girlfriend. They threw a "He Popped the Question" party that looked amazing. Luckily, with all the work that went into the party, she *did* say "yes" *grin* I really enjoyed working on these and matching the colors of the hearts to the colors in their tablecloths.


Birthday cookies for my niece, Julia. I asked her what kind of cookies she wanted and she replied, without hesitation, that she wanted stars and hearts with hot pink and turquoise and her name across the front. I didn't do the name across the front, but she still enjoyed them.


And, last, some fun pirate cookies! These were a blast to do and I was pleased with how they turned out!


I'm getting better at not eating as much of the dough or the finished cookies. You would think I'd get tired of it, but, unfortunately, I haven't yet. So, I have to exercise self-control and limit how much I munch on... *grin*

Barbershop Cookies

So, my dad is into singing Barbershop. He has joined a chorus (I think that's the right link) that meets in Nacogdoches once a week and is in a quartet that meets at his house another night each week. He watches YouTube videos on Barbershop groups, practices singing and talks Barbershop all the time. My mom says he's the Barbershop version of my cookie-ing. I don't know what she means...


So, when my dad's quartet, Chord Play, got Novice Champions at a divisional contest, I wanted to make cookies to celebrate. It was also my dad's birthday and I've voted myself the official cookie maker for all family celebrations. So far, no one minds that one...


My mom gave me a great idea and I thought and planned and drew and came up with these cookies.

First, a simple music note.



With a hat (I'm sure there's a name for this type of hat, but I don't know what it is?) I realized after I had already frosted these, that I didn't exactly make the hat like I should have, but that's okay.


And every good barbershopper needs a handlebar mustache! Not that I managed to make a handlebar mustache, but it's close...


And, finally, my very favorite cookie to date. I made a big music note with a barbershop pole.


The whole set:


I packaged up 4 cookies in each bag and gave one to my dad and one to each of the other three guys in his quartet. They were pleasantly surprised.


My dad wants me to sing with the Sweet Adelines that meet in Gilmer, but I'm not sure I'm ready to do that yet. I'm very interested, just aware of my stress level with a little one around. But, perhaps soon. Then I can watch YouTube videos about cookies *and* about barbershopping. And I can sing while I bake! Perfect!

Three birds with one stone...

...or not...

I have been talking with my sister about cookie bouquets and decided I wanted to try to make some and see if I enjoy it or if they're too time-consuming and such. I also have a sweet friend that was due to have her baby any day and I wanted to make her some cookies to celebrate in the hospital. And (yes, it keeps going...) I wanted to try to make these cute faces from Sweet SugarBelle.

So, what did I do? I decided to combine all three into one! Did I think that one through all the way? I don't think I did... Because... What did I get?

Adorable little baby heads on a stick. On a stick. Baby heads. Oops...


I also made these cute baby rattles. Rattles on a stick are okay. Nothing weird about that.


And then, because the adorable crying baby was my favorite, I put her in the front when I arranged the bouquet.


And, that was just not the best idea.

I had a few extras and gave one to my mom and she found it quite humorous. It reminded her of another time when I had a good idea that went bad...

I did give the bouquet to my friend, although I didn't get it finished in time to take it to her at the hospital, because she delivered so quickly and was back home before the icing had finished hardening. Yeah, not fair. But, I apologized for the not-so-well thought through bouquet and she just laughed.

So, I leart a few things whilst making this bouquet.

First, making a cookie bouquet is very time-consuming, but does look very pretty when finished.

Second, perhaps baby-celebrating cookies should be placed on plates.

And, third, I will *never* be as good at decorating cookies as SugarBelle!! But, that's okay. She's just really, really good!

It was a good trial-and-error process.

And, for the record, the head on a stick was very, very tasty!

Basketballs, Soccer Balls and Birds. Oh, My!

I made basketball cookies for Russell's Upward Basketball team. Russ likes the chocolate chip cookies better than the sugar cookies (whose child is he anyway?), so that's what I made.

All packaged and ready to go.


Labels on the back.


Then I made some soccer ball cookies for my friend, Angela's son's birthday at school. I decided to go with chocolate chip cookies for him, too, since the three voting males in my family prefer them to the sugar cookies. Judson doesn't really get a vote, but if he did, he would agree with me that sugar cookies are better. I'm sure of it.

Soccer balls are a little harder than basketballs...


Mark the "belly button".


Finished! She wanted John Deere green, but I'm not sure if I quite got that color or not...


Packaged.


Labeled.


Boxed and ready to go.


Since *I* like sugar cookies, I made some birds a few days ago and then never got around to frosting them. I was afraid they would be stale, but they were still delicious and soft and moist. So, I just played around with some leftover frosting I had and came up with these.

I *really* liked this bird with the staff and treble clef.


A piano teacher friend pointed out that there are 5 lines on the staff, not four. I knew that...

A happy little bird.


And, of course, polka dotted birds. I love polka dots and I love birds. Score!


I have an idea for some cookies for my nephew's 8th birthday that is coming up in a few weeks. I'm already working on a template to make my own "cutter". I've never done that and I'm very excited!

Cupcake Cookies

I know, I know, more cookies! But, I'm having so much fun making and decorating them that I just can't stop! Unfortunately, I made these cookies with no particular plan of getting rid of them and I have eaten more than is probably legal.

I was inspired by the color combo on a cupcake wrapper I saw and decided to make cupcake cookies. I wanted something kind of whimsical, so the frosting is "swoopy".

The whole batch drying.


Finished drying.


Nice and thick and, finally, not too brown on the bottom. Perfect!


I managed to run out of white icing, but had extra red (when will I figure out how much of each color that I really need?!), so I changed up the color combos a little. I really, really like the brightness of the red with the turquoise.


When I first mixed the frostings, I was trying to make a hot pink and ended up with this purple. Yeah, still learning... When I ran out of red, I hated to just use turquoise or not frost the remaining cookies, so I used the weird purple. And I ended up loving it! It's different, but I like it.


Our neighbors across the street are pregnant (well, the wife is) and they just found out the sex of their baby. We haven't seen them to find out if they're having a girl or a boy, so I wrapped up some purple and turquoise and some turquoise and white and included a little note to say congratulations and that we can't wait to find out if they are shopping for purple or blue. Is it legal to leave it in their mailbox after the mail has been delivered?

Neither Russ nor Rand like real cupcakes, so they decided that these are the perfect "cupcakes".

Teacher Valentine Hearts

These are the "valentines" that the boys gave their teachers.


Russ said he drew the Texas Rangers because his teacher likes them. Then he wrote the note. He said he didn't know if she would eat them or not because she doesn't like to eat too much sugar. I said that probably someone in her house would help her out if she needed it. *grin*

Randall wrote on and drew on these cookies for his teacher.


He drew a frog and wrote "frog" with an arrow pointing to it. His teacher likes frogs and the whole room is decorated in them. It's a cute room. He also loves to label his drawings and draw long, squiggly arrows to them.


I love how the food markers stand out on the white icing. I also love how this is a unique idea and it's edible. Two good combinations in my book. I have seen this idea before on a few blogs, so I don't remember who to give the credit to.

Valentine Cookies - Basketball Hearts

So, Russ wanted basketball hearts to take to his class. No problem, right?... I mixed the dough, rolled it out, baked it, mixed my icing and iced the cookies in about 3 hours! Not bad!

Unfortunately, for some reason, I couldn't seem to keep my lines from being wiggly or the icing from blobbing and such. I changed tips a few times and it still kept happening. But, Russ was pleased and that's all that matters.

I didn't take as many pictures because the process was the same, just in orange frosting, instead of the red and black.


The plain white ones in the top left are for an idea that I will share soon.

I had the bright idea to add hearts to the girls' cookies to make them a little more girly. Great idea, but it didn't work out so well. The red frosting was a little too runny and the cute hearts died...


I had to turn the fan on to dry the icing quickly before it had a chance to flatten. It kinda helped.

And here are most of the cookies packaged and ready to go.


All in all, I was pleased. You can tell what they are and Russ said they taste good. Mission accomplished.

Valentine Cookies - Spiderman and Zebra Stripes

Well, ever since the cookie bug bit me, I've been thinking about cookies, dreaming about cookies and imagining every cute thing I see as a cookie. So, of course, with Valentine's Day coming, I wanted to make Valentine cookies. The boys humored me...

I saw a post on one of my favorite cookie blogs (that I now read faithfully), The Sweet Adventures of SugarBelle, and she showed how to make some really cute spiderman heart cookies. So fun and perfect for Valentine's Day!

Well, Randall was on board with Spiderman, but Russ was only so-so. He asked if he could maybe have a heart-shaped basketball instead. He's really into basketball these days (someday I'll remember to post his Upward Basketball pictures). I thought that was a great idea, too!

I decided to make the cookies for Randall's class first because I thought they might be a little more difficult. The day before I started making them, Randall said he was afraid that the girls might not like Spiderman and asked if I could do something else for them. Sweet kid. Well, I had just watched SugarBelle's tutorial on how to do zebra stripes, so I sweetly (no ulterior motive here...) offered to do zebra stripes and said, "Girls love zebra stripes!" He didn't look convinced, but I guess he figured it was better than Spiderman, so he agreed.

I don't know what it was, but I really enjoyed making these! Maybe because girls really *do* love zebra stripes!

I decided to go with black and red like I would use on the Spiderman cookies so I didn't have to mix up any more frosting. I think deciding how much frosting I will need and coloring it is my least favorite part. I need to find some good tips on that so I won't dread it so much. I seem to either have way too much frosting or too little.

First, outline all the hearts.


Next fill in the hearts (for the Spiderman ones).


Oops, got it a little thick and it dripped. Not too pretty to look at, but it tasted good... I used it as my trial run and tested the zebra stripes a few different ways.



I didn't totally follow SubarBelle's tutorial. I put the stripes and the background color on the same "level". I realized after I made the stripes that they looked more like flames, so I went back and re-watched the tutorial to see what I did wrong.


I liked how there was "texture" between the stripes, but they weren't raised like in the tutorial.


I'm sure it was more time-consuming, but it was worth it.


Then I drew the belly buttons on the Spiderman cookies. Okay, they're not belly buttons, but they looked like it as I was drawing them (in edible markers, for the record).


Lots of Spidey webs.


And, the finished products:




Wrapped and ready to go.


Next up, Russell's basketball cookies.