Never mind...

I will have to figure out something else as Google no longer allows uploading of photos unless I use their storage....

I’m back...I think

I’ll try anyway. After Letti died I just didn’t have much to say even though I kept decorating cookies. Probably even more than I had before. There is still pain and grief but life keeps moving on and things happen and pain eases. And I’m 60 now so I should probably spread all my wisdom to my 12 followers...they are probably family though so...

ANYWAY...cookies. My Instagram contains most of what I have done but sometimes I have techniques and I’ll share them here. 

Anniversary rainbows

August 17 was Bobbi and Travis's 2nd anniversary. The things they have endured this past just 4 months really have been more than anyone should have to walk through. But rainbows have occurred almost weekly since Letti died. So I made rainbow cookies with a tiny pink balloon for Letti on the cloud. 

I used a couple round cutters for the rainbow and a speech bubble for the cloud. Then I put them together in different designs. 

Love the very "Lisa Frank" colors. 

After they were dry I drew a little pink string on each balloon. 

Then I piped on white swirls. 

Facing the storms and seeing the rainbows.

Flea Market Find...

The Fourth of July Bryan and I went to a Flea Market and there is always a Tupperware lady at these. I love looking at what they have in their bins. I happened upon this little gadget for $3. Let me tell you it was worth every penny! I made apple pie tarts the other day and three at a time was wonderful. Also the cutter on the back side cuts the dough slightly larger so that it fits still with the ingredients in the pocket! Genius!

I put an egg wash to help seal them and I put in 1/8 of a small Apple coated in cinnamon sugar and then a tsp of salted caramel that I had made.

I learned on the first one not to pinch it too tightly. 

Egg washed the top and sprinkled with sugar crystals.

Baked at 375 for 25 minutes and they came out wonderful. The Apple is done perfectly and the caramel leaked out a bit fortunately I had baked them on parchment.

Golf Birthday Cookies and a Cake...

Travis has a friend, Jamie, and Jamie loves my cookies and cakes. Bobbi asked me if I would be willing to make him cookies and a cake for his 30th birthday party. Of course I would! Jamie has been such a good friend to Travis and Bobbi. 

I used a large skull cookie cutter to make the golf course. I cut a tiny hole in each one.

First I piped the greens and added a small pearl for the golf ball. When the green was mostly dry I piped on a brown line and a red flag laying on the ground. The sand trap is light yellow icing with pulverized vanilla wafer cookies and a bit of gold sanding sugar mixed in. 

I let those two areas dry completely then piped the fairway area in darker green and immediately poured on dark green sanding sugar. 

For the golf balls I piped white then immediately piped on grey dots then...

On the lower half of the grey I piped a white dot to make it look like the dimples. I had found this technique on Sweet Sugarbelle's website. She has such great tutorials. 

I wanted to make more cookies so I cut out little golfball size circles and made more golfballs, tiny greens with a ball and hole and tiny fairways with a green and water hazard.

Next I started on the cake. I wanted to make some of it surprise inside because Jamie gets such a kick out of that. So I made white cake balls and put them in green colored cake for the putting green area cake. Then I put some in blue cake for the tee box/water hazard cake.

I did over fill this cake a bit but ooh well...

Baked two small paisley cakes and one medium one for the fairway. Made some chocolate sugar cookie trees. They may be a bit big but I will just deal with that...

I do always draw out the plan so this is how the cakes will set up. Three seperate cakes. I needed something to put each one on and retain the shape so I went out to the shop and cut an old board into each shape.

I always forget how much I enjoy using the bandsaw. 

I know this looks so unsanitary but trust me I cleaned them really well and then sealed them with three coats of waterproof sealer.

The finished product. 

The cakes are on a cardboard cake board between the cake and this board so they never actually touch these. I am sure they would be fine but just to be safe.

This is the blue cake with white balls in it. It will be the tee box with a water hazard and a tree.

I cut a stencil pattern for the tee box and put it over the cake after I skim coated it. While the pattern was on there I put on the sanding sugar onto the icing I had applied then pulled the stencil off.

I put white icing in some shallow cut out areas so that when I add the Wilton blue sparkle gel it will look like water. 

Next I worked on the putting green.

I cut out a sand trap area and put light yellow icing in it then added in the same type of sand as I used for the cookies. Then I iced in the putting green area and smoothed it with a VIva towel.

I used a large piping tip to cut a hole in the icing on the green and while the tip was still in the icing I used a toothpick to get the extra icing out of the hole and added in a tiny bit of black sanding sugar. I put little blue candy squares on the tee box for the markers. I will add the water after I put the rough on.

The larger cake is the fairway. I skim coated it then put a thicker coat on the top. I freehanded the shape with darker and lighter sanding sugar for the fairway. Now for piping on the rough...

I went around the bottom and worked my way up and around. 

When I got to the tee box I embedded chocolate candy coated rocks, that I found at Hobby Lobby long ago, for a path. Little blue square candies make the markers in the tee box. Keep piping that rough. 

Added some rocks and grass at the edge of the pond. Finished the rough then added the Wilton blue sparkle gel for water. I put three "balls" in the water. And one on the tee box.

On to the putting green and sand trap cake.

Piped in the rough all around the cake. Put in the flag and the ball on the green and one in the sand. Cake 2 done. For the rough I made two colors of green and used a split two color piping set to get the verigated look. I used a tip with lots of holes in it.

By this time my hand was so tired from piping all that grass... I was so happy to pipe the last clump. I added some rocks and three "balls" on the fairway. Several more in the rough.

I had my trees and decided to go ahead and put them in and if I didn't like it I could just pipe over the holes they made. 

I did like them. Very much. They added a dimension that the cakes needed. So cake 3 done and now to put them all together. And lots of pictures from every angle. 😀

Hank and the Coffee Pot from Finding Dory

As I have said before I like to sketch out my cookies if it is a bit complicated. So I traced around the wedding dress cookie cutter, drew what I wanted to add as his tentacles and found different little cutters to make it work. The coffee pot is an engagement ring cutter but you can see what I used in my pictures.

I cut out the dress ( I put these onto parchment paper on my cookie sheet to build them.

Then I used a small egg to cut out the round part of the tentacle.

The other side I used a small ghost cutter then...

Cut out a section with a tiny heart and used that half of a heart to make one of his ear things on the side of his head.

Used a small umbrella handle to cut out the tip of the tentacle.

Used a small heart to cut the shape for the back of his head

Here are all the cutters and how he looked unbaked.

For the coffee pot I cut the ring out.

Then I trimmed it off with the ghost cutter for the spout.

I used this spider cutter for the handle.

Ultimately I changed this. But I did think I wanted the spout thicker so I cut a piece with the egg cutter to add in to the spout but when I looked at it I didn't like it so I ended up taking it out.

It is in in this picture but not in the finished cookie.

The second Hank I used mostly the same cutters plus the tiny onsie. I just didn't take progression photos...sorry.

For the coffee pot and Dory I piped on white flood icing and put the Dory candy on while it was very wet.

Let that set for about 15 minutes then piped on, in a bit thicker black, the handle. Let that dry some. While that was drying I used a fine paintbrush and put some colored icing on Dory to make her look more real. Yellow, black and a white dot for her eye.

Piped in the top and bottom of the spout.

When the pot was completely dry I used a fine paintbrush and some white gel color and painted on the highlights.

Used another paintbrush to make the water and used a black food color pen to dot her eye. Was extremely happy with the outcome.

On to Hank. I will say here that should I do it again I would ice a bit different. But I did the sections then changed my mind so that is why it looks a bit messy. If I did it over I would ice the whole cookie orange, let it dry some then spray the red onto it then add the details but...this is what I did...

Iced the back sections

Kind of changed my mind and iced the whole thing minus that one part. You can see the lines.

Sprayed it with red color mist then

Piped on some darker orange eyebrows.

Piped on some white for the eyes.

Piped on the ivory beige on for the underside of the tentacles.

Then piped on the orange for the tops of them and did a little outline in the darker orange because the definition wasn't what I wanted.

Piped on his under eye bags and "nose". Piped on little circles of the beige for the suckers on his tentacles. 

Painted the blue part of the eye and used a tiny bit of white to make it more lifelike. Then painted in the black and put a white highlight in. Pretty happy with how they both turned out.

So here is the set and when the movie comes out on DVD I will dig them out of the freezer and share them with Poppy!