Dad

After my dad retired he took up miniatures.  It started with a miniature circus tent and two years later it is a full three ring, three tent circus with port-a-potties and a sunbathing area for the circus staff.  This thing is amazing, every time I look at it I see something new.  I finally asked my Dad how he got into all things circus.

I was surprised by the answer.  I love you Dad. 

Well it has been a VERY busy summer! Somewhere between working on the house and going to the beach I managed to squeeze in a few cookies!  I made these gray and white onesies for a friend's baby shower.  I think they turned out pretty cute. They live outside of Boston so naturally I had to put on a Red Sox B. Their last name also starts with B and they are having a boy so there were many reasons for the B!

                                                           

These UVM cookies were an order for a local hotel. They were going to put them in each guests room for a conference. I thought that was a really nice touch, I hope they liked them!  I used royal icing transfers for the catamounts which worked well. However I let the base layer of icing dry and then put the transfers on with some icing.  I do not recommend that.  I think it works much better to put the transfers on while the base layer of icing is still wet, much less breaking!

 

                                               

Go Cats Go!

A Bit of a Fixer Upper!

Well we just bought a house so cookie making will be on hold for awhile!  It's a bit of a fixer upper, but that's a minah thing...I love those little trolls!  Just to give you an idea of what I mean by fixer upper, here is the bathroom.         

Pretty awesome huh? There is a sliding door thing on the shower that is also lime green. It doses have this pretty door on the "garage" that my sister in law likes.

We are very happy though because the fixer upper also came with 13.5 beautiful acres.  There is a whole forest for our little one to explore.  We went to the circus yesterday, it was amazing.  This a a circus where all of the performers are kids and the money raised goes to charity.  I think our daughter is ready to enlist!  It is called Circus Smirkus www.smirkus.org maybe they will be coming to a venue near you! 

                             

 Cute little bugger!

    

   

I love all of the bright colors and clean lines, maybe I will be making some cookies after all! 

Painting on Cookies

Well summer is in full swing, we have even gone to the beach already! Kids love the beach which means I love the beach! They just play in the sand and run away from waves the same way kids have been playing on the beach for decades.  

I had started this collection of Juneau cookies on a very Jueauish day, that is to say dark and rainy!  Then we left for the beach and when we returned it was beautiful and sunny so the cookies took a sunny turn. 

                                                                     

                                                                     

The fly fisherman is my husband.  I painted this cookie from a painting I painted in Juneau when we were too poor to actually buy decorations for our apartment.  His arms turned out a little short in this one, sorry babe! It is a little bit harder to paint with food coloring than actual paint! 

I found these beautiful raspberry colored sprinkles at a nice grocery store a few towns over.  They have been sitting in the cupboard for awhile so I finally decided to use them.  I love the chevron pattern that has become so popular lately so I decided to try my hand at it!

                                     

                                   

I just piped on white royal icing in a chevron pattern and then dipped the cookies in the sprinkles spread out on a plate.  It smushes the pattern down a bit so you have to do some touch ups with a toothpick. 

Happy decorating!

Today my daughter and I painted egg wash on strawberry cookies.  It is so easy and kids love it!  After you cut out the cookies just paint them with an egg wash mixed with a little food coloring.  You don't need much of it so divide a whisked egg mixed with water between several different bowls and mix in food coloring.  My daughter is five but I am sure older kids would love this as well.

My daughter learned that it is difficult to add detail.  Her Black dots didn't really look like seeds!

She painted and repainted this foot several times.  I do not recommend trying to wipe off the egg wash from the cookie!

Here is the finished product.  These are great for kids because there is no pastry bag full of frosting to contend with.

These blue and white cookies were fun to make, I love the contrast of the two colors but they did not really turn out the way I had envisioned.  That happens a lot with cookies!  It didn't help that my husband thought all of the roses were pigs.  After he said that it was all I could see in the rose cookies...guess I need to practice my roses!

Happy Summer!!!!

                                                 

I have been playing with the church cookie a bit more.  I am trying to figure out how to get the names of the bride and groom on a banner hanging from the church.  I tried just using edible ink markers ( like I did for the people) but it didn't look right.  I think I will try royal icing transfers next.  That is where you pipe the design onto a silicone mat, let it dry and then fasten it to the cookie with icing.  They are delicate so you have to make a lot of them. 

Today is Memorial Day and I am not sure if we are going to go to the parade or not.  I would like to but I promised my daughter several days ago that I would take her to a McDonalds with a play place because she earned it on her potty chart. It might not seem like a big deal to go to McDonalds but for some reason she LOVES it and the nearest one is an hour away!   Argh why do I use the word promise? She never forgets when I promise her something...

I was thinking back to last Memorial Day and I remembered that I had made all of these cookies to sell at an artisan fair in town.  We ended up having a crazy rain/snow storm and the event was cancelled!  It was very disappointing. Although I don't know what was worse, making all of those cookies for nothing, or snow the last week in May!

                                                                        

Giant Cookie Cutters

                                          

My uncle just gave me these GIANT cookie cutters!  He found these beauties at a flea market in New Hampshire.  They are bronze and they are solid! Now I need to whip up about four batches of dough to make a dozen cookies.  The tulip cutter is especially large, I am thinking cookie pop but I am afraid it will be too heavy for the stick! How do you use giant cutters?