Good Idea Light Bulb Valentines

For the most part every cookie starts with a sketch of an idea that I have. Well I took the "idea" and ran with it. I used a heart cutter and made a lightbulb base out of a piece of metal that is for making cookie cutters.

I pieced them together and baked them.

I flooded the bulb part with white and immediately added the cheeks with pink and the highlights with yellow. Then I put on black pearls for the eyes.

Then I set them aside to set up before piping on the gray for the base.

I let them dry for 20 minutes so it could set up and I could add the dimension to the base.

After they dried I masked off the white and sprayed the base with silver spray. It is hard to tell but it made a big difference. 

When they were dry I used a fine tip black food marker pen and drew on the element

Then I used a new food only soft brush to brush on the yellow Wilton pearl dust.

I piped on the mouth with a PME 00 tip. 

For the speech bubble I piped white and flooded leaving an edge so I could add pink around the outside.

I piped on the lettering and let it dry then piped the pink.

I immediately added the sprinkles to the edge.

Very happy with the outcome. 

Bad Robots...

Quite possibly the worst consistency I have done in a long time!! Good grief!

They turned into this...a bad craft using leftover Christmas decorations....Robot...Valentine...

Not good.

Valentine Pizza Cookies

My friend had posted this little sketch on her Instagram.

I commented under it that I could translate it into cookie. She thought that was a good idea. I did not document my progress very well but here is what I have.

I used a candy corn cutter that I made just more elongated and my speech bubble cutter.

I flooded the crust first piped and flooded the pepperonis and let it set for about 20 minutes, then I flooded with an ivory for the cheese. Put in black pearl eyes. On the speech bubble I just left myself an edge so I could put a rim around it with sprinkles when the inside was dry.

Done with piping the mouth and lettering and putting the heart sprinkle border on. But they needed something more so I cut a piece of cardboard to mask off the cheese part and sprayed the crust with orange color mist then brushed on some brown lustre dust. Then used pink lustre dust for the cheeks.

Always amazing the dimension you get from just a little lustre dust. She loved them and I am very happy with them,

Chili Cook-off Birthday Cake

Today is Bryan's birthday. He has church and he is judging the chili cook-off. So...I made a cake to take in to surprise him. 

I made crackers out of sugar cookies, used Dr. Pepper Jelly Bellys  for kidney beans, buttered popcorn Jelly Bellys for the white beans, strained raspberry jam for the sauce, white Brach's jelly beans cut up for the onions, red and green Jujubes cut in half for the peppers and Nestle's Buncha Crunch for the meat. I made the wooden spoon handle out of fondant on a skewer, the pot handles are fondant on toothpicks and I cut the banner and pepper out of fondant. The cake is frosted in buttercream and sprayed silver with Wilton Color Mist. So pleased with the outcome.

The man and his cake!

Hershey's Kisses

I saw Hershey Kisses on Bakerella's Instagram and thought they were so cute. I had some leftover silver spray so I just piped them gray then sprayed them with the silver and when they were completely dry I stamped them with my letter stamps. I used a heart cookie cutter and trimmed off the top. 

Love On The Run Cookies Part 2...

I have ideas and when I have a theme it really amps up the ideas. So I made a few more cookies for Love on the Run here in Lincoln, NE on February 13. 

I have a stencil that looks like typewriter keys so I stenciled the little round ones. Then I made cookie sticks and made them look like pieces of paper with notes on them.

Made two little squares and stamped them with this stamp and added a red heart to the paper.You can see where I had to fix the stamp because my cookies are not perfectly flat. 

Valentine Cassette Mix Tape Sugar Cookie

Since the radio stations have been playing a lot of Eagles songs and that is the soundtrack of my teen years, I got to thinking about cassette tapes and how we used to make mix tapes for people we liked and that led to thinking how to translate that into cookie. I was looking at a present with a bow cookie cutter and turned it upside down and there it was. A cassette tape with the tape coming out because it got played so much and got caught in the tape player. 

The first ones I made with the smaller cookie cutter. I cut stencils to mark my lines so I could keep them uniform.

At this point I kept seeing robot so...those are coming later. Hahahah 

Added the brown tape parts

Added the white label and let them dry overnight.

Really pleased with how they turned out. Thought I could do a birthday mix and write "happy" with the tape. Wedding...the possibilities are endless. Hahahaha

I used my food markers to make the lines of color on all these because I wanted them different. Then I dug out the large present cutter and trimmed about an inch off the present part to make these next one which are a little bigger than an actual cassette. These I piped the pink lines on the label and had room to add a heart at the bottom. Let them dry overnight and finished the details.

This is my favorite. I used a tiny Nebraska stencil to make that design and stamped the tiny hearts and flowers. Truly the soundtrack of my teens. 

I made a few for some friends. What a fun project. My house isn't clean but I enjoyed every minute of making these.

First Words and Cookies

About a year ago Jayme showed me the most darling children's book. It is called "First Words" The pictures are so adorable. They made me want to translate them into cookies. I did want to make sure that if I took a picture and posted it that it would be ok with the publishers. So I emailed them and in about 2 weeks I got an email back from them very kindly telling me they thought that was a fun idea and that is was fine with them. They also asked me to send them pictures when I did do it. Well, I just haven't had a reason to make them. I want do them justice. I did find a picture in the book of a pregnant woman so today I made one cookie with that on it for Bobbi at her shower. It turned out so cute. Now I really want to do some of the other ones. 

BABY SHOWER TIME!!

In a couple weeks I am having a baby shower for my first grandchild who will be born in April. It is a girl.

I decided to make baby bottles. The pink spray on them is because I wanted contarst between the outline on the cap and the fill in. Instead of making two colors I just used some spray I had.

I used gray for the glass and white for the milk, a light peach for the nipple. 

I used the same pink spray and a couple heart stencils I made and sprayed hearts onto the white part. I like how they turned out. And I am so excited for that granddaughter to be here.

Sadly I never took any photos of the finished cookies and I never posted this. We are now just a few short weeks from that little darling being here!!

This is the cake I made for the shower.

Love On The Run Cookies

There is a business in Lincoln called Porridge Papers. They do an event called Love On The Run. He provides old typewriters and paper for people to come 2 day before Valentine's Day to type love notes to people in their lives. Then on Valentine's Day they drive all over Lincoln delivering them. I just learned about this because a young woman who knows that I make cookies asked if I would be willing to make some for the event this year. It sounds like such a fun thing for people to be able to do. I decided to make small envelopes that are light pink and put a little heart on them then write Love On The Run on the bottom. Then I did tiny hearts and decided to make them look like typewriter keys. Pretty happy with how they turned out. 

The envelopes are about 3" x 2" the hearts are about an inch across.

This leads me to storage of cookies. Since I know that my time closer to is limited I made them now, put the in air tight containers each layer separated by parchment paper and put them in the freezer. This works wonderfully but it is very important to remember that you must not open the container until the contents have come to room temperature. I have opened them before and it makes them all wet and the icing gets very messy. If you let them come to room temperature without opening the container there is no problem at all. 

Now I must admit that recently I cleaned out my large freezer in the garage. Always a good thing to do when the weather is below zero...nope not good. Anyway I found a container of cookies I had made for Thanksgiving 2014 (You read that right...) I had completely forgotten them. I took them out of the freezer and after they had come to room temperature I opened the container and they looked as good as the day I did them. They actually didn't even taste that bad or were they stale. But I threw them away anyway because that is a bit old. My point being a couple weeks in the freezer doesn't change the taste or freshness of the cookies at all.

December 2015 Birthday Log Cake

Three people sent me the Internet picture of this cake (it was on Sugar Geek, I think) Anyway I just knew I had to make it for Ashley for her birthday. 

I just colored the white cake mix. Used buttercream instead of fondant and used chocolate sugar cookies brushed with whited royal icing and piped on the letters to look like they were carved into the bark.

I had a Playmobil girl with red hair, a cat  and wood pile.

The inside was just perfect! I was so excited to cut this cake open. Very fun to make.