Back To School

It's that time of year again.  The time of year that I used to dread as a kid...

Back. To. School. 

(Insert ominous music here.)

The end of summer and freedom.  Back to homework and early bedtimes. 

Well, at least it's good excuse to make cookies!

I made these to send with my sweet niece on her first day of second grade.

Hope her new teachers like cookies!  (But who doesn't, right?)

I've got cupcakes and onesies on the drying table this week...can't wait to share!

As always, think cookies.

~B~

My Daddy Always Says...

So, sometimes I spend a chunk of my day looking at other people's cookie creations.  That may sound like a confession, but I like to call it "research".  Some of my favorites right now are JP Creatibles (love, Love, LOVE everything she does), Cupookie (check out her henna cookies - ahh-mazing!) and I just found Casey's Confections (she's brilliant!).  Looking at other people's work used to get me down at how much better their work is.  But now, I just let it motivate me to try new things.  I've been realizing that I need to spend more time with my #1 icing tip.  Not my favorite.  It's the smallest.  (Well, actually, there's smaller, #0 and even #00, but I'm in denial that those exist, for now.)  My daddy always says, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always be what you've always been."  And I definitely want to keep growing as a cookie artist, which means I gotta try new stuffs!

Well, I've added a new shape to my baby collection.  A rattle!  The cutter I used is actually a dog bone, I just straightened up the ends.  (They make actual rattle cutters, I would just have to order it and I keep forgetting about that one when I've ordered recently!) 

Yay for a new shape!!  And having the patience with the #1 tip!!

Onesies and tiles...still a crowd favorite!

Cheers to expanding my repertoire, one cookie at a time!!

Thanks to Cathy for letting me debut my rattle cookies with her!

I've got more new stuff coming your way!

As always, think cookies.

~B~

The Growth of a Tree

I don't really do how-to posts.  I don't have the patience.

(This post is as close as it gets, and it nearly killed me.)

If you are looking for a good, informative how-to cookie/cake blog, try:  Bake at 350, Sweetopia, University of Cookie, or iambaker.  Those ladies are some of my favorites.  They have a whole lot more patience than me.

But after I did the bowling cake, I wished that I had taken pictures of each step because I had so much fun watching it come together.  So, when I decided to make a tree cake, I made sure to take pictures so I could show you!  This isn't really a how-to, more of a how it happened, for those of you that are curious. 

1.  The cake line-up.  I used 2 14" round cakes and a 10" square cake.  2. A dab of icing so the cakes stay stuck to the board.  3. I cut the square cake in half for the trunk.  4. The first layer.  I had to trim the trunk part to fit up against the round.  5. The middle layer of icing. I don't skimp on that part. ;-)  6. Plop! 7. Trim, then plop!  8. I carved the edges a bit to make the shape.  9. Crumb coated, or dirty iced, or middled...regardless of what you call it, a thin layer of icing to set the crumbs. 

Then you have to let that dry for a bit.

Oh, what to do while I wait...hmm...I should do something with those cake scraps...

That was an excellent idea.  Now, back to work!

1. I used chocolate icing for the trunk. I piped it on using a wide tip, I think it was #12.  2. Covered the whole trunk with the chocolate icing.  3. I smoothed it out.  4. I drew the branches on there using a smaller tip, like a #4.  5. I texturized the branches and trunk by dragging the edge of my spatula through it a buncha times.  6. I covered the top end in green.  (That's where everyone's names are going.)  7. The leaf-ing begins.  I used a leaf tip here, #65 and #67.  8. Just showing you that I covered up the seam where the brown meets the green.  9. I used a lighter green for a bit of depth. 

1. More leaf-ing.  2. Done with the larger, darker leaves.  3. The addition of the smaller lighter leaves.  4. Up close and personal.   

Then, once I got to my parents' house, I wrote the names on the sides and carved my parents' initials in the trunk.  (Take a look at the previous post for those details.)

All of that in a day's work.

Well, in addition to decorating 3 dozen baby shower cookies and the 16 personalized Lamb cookies.

It was a lotta work, but well worth it to hear my nieces and nephews rave about how I'm the best cake baker ever...I love being an aunt. ;-) 

And they're the best nieces and nephews ever!

Alright, so don't get used to these type of posts from me...I almost chunked this computer off the front porch several times.  And if you're wondering how I did those nifty collages, www.picnik.com.  But it tried my patience, too!  This is a pretty long post, I hope I'm not trying your patience!!  But just in case, here's my sign off...

As always, think cookies.

~B~

My *Sweet* Family Tree

...or The 3rd ALFBE (Annual Lamb Family Birthday Extravaganzzza)...or Christmas in July, because that's what it looked like.

So, if you've been around long enough, you can remember that the inaugural year of the ALFBE was disturbed by whooping cough (You can read about it here...at the bottom of the post).  The following year, the party went on as planned with the theme of Star Wars, inspired by the Williams-Sonoma cookie cutters I found.  It took me some time to come up with the theme for this year's soiree (yes, I'm seeing how many different words I can use for party).  As the official cake and cookie baker and decorator of the ALFBE (I just made it official, just now. It's in print.), I get the pleasure of determining the theme for the get-together.  I have that power...and I kinda like it (insert ominous laugh here).  I take suggestions, but this year, I more or less kept it a secret.  Even when my sis-in-law had my sweet little niece call me on the phone to pry it out of me, I told her it was a surprise! 

So, the theme this year was family.  I know, it's kind of a weird theme for a birthday(s) party, but go with me on this.  I'm not gonna go into all the details, but just know that my family means a lot to me...a lot.  And I love them more than words on a cake can say. 

So, without further ado...our family tree.  Cake style.

This is what it looked like before it made the 3.5 hour trip.  Thankfully, it still looked like this after the 3.5 hour trip.

The presentation. 

The part where I actually made it a family tree!

Fuzzy pic.  Whoops.

And then there were the personalized cookies for each of my 15 family members.  (My last name is Lamb...in case you didn't catch that.)

That's a magic wand on my dad's lamb cookie.  (He's a magician...I'll leave it at that.)

Mom, obviously, is a musician.

My sister's flock.  (Though technically they're not Lambs.)

My brother's flock.

Me and my flo...well, me. ;-)

My little sis and her husband.  (The symbol is for the Appalachian Trail.  They're avid hikers.  And cyclers.  And runners.  And, well, pretty much anything outside.)

My sweet nieces (all but the littlest) patiently waiting for the cake cutting.

There's the littlest!

The damage.

The fam! (Minus Betsy and Kyle...who were in a TRIATHALON!!)

All thanks to these two...

All in all, a fabulous ALFBE! 

I've got some exciting things coming up, I'll keep you posted.

As always, think cookies.

~B~

Comfort Cookies

As you know, I love cookies.  And I love colors.  And I love giving colorful cookies. 

You may think of giving cookies when you're throwing a birthday party or baby shower or celebrating something special.  But I also think of cookies when I don't have the words to say. 

A friend of mine recently lost someone very dear to her.  And my heart hurt for her.  I'm not good with words when it comes to tough situations.  I have a great shoulder to cry on, but I'm not so eloquent when it comes to saying the best words to comfort.   But I know what I can do, I can make cookies.  And I know my cookies make people smile.  So, when the question came up of what we should do for our friend, I said - I'll make cookies!  Now, I know that cookies can't make everything better, but if my cookies provide a smile, even if only for a moment, during a time of grief, then my purpose was accomplished.

So, I hope that these cookies made her smile...because I know I loved decorating them!!  Ok, enough of the Debbie Downer stuff...here are the cookies.

I did a combo of flowers and paisleys.  In fun colors, of course.

Yup, you guessed it, these are my favorites.

To this family, I love you guys and hope the cookies brightened your day.

Even in tough situations, think cookies.

~B~

Cookies That Say "Aaarrgh!"

So, you know that I love a theme. Well, when one of my frequent customers asked me to do a pirate theme, how excited do you think I was?! I got to have lots of fun with these!

And I got to use my special cookie markers again to draw the treasure map!!

Ashlee sent me a picture of how she displayed the cookies and I loved it!!

So cute!

Thanks, Ashlee, for giving me the opportunity and I'm soo glad you enjoyed them!

 

Crafty Cookies

I've had the chance recently to meet some pretty amazing and talented women here in the Augusta area.  Dream Come Tutus, Sew Devine, and of course, Neapolitan Cupcakes to name a few.  Another creative crafter is ArtsAnneCrafts.  She recently asked me to do some logo cookies for her.  Her logo is so cute, I had to say yes. 

 

She does everything from gifts tags, hair bows, to hand painted ornaments.

Check out her talent here.

And I got to use tools I've never used before. 

Markers.

Yup.  I drew her logo on those cookies. 

(They make special markers for that.)

I've had the markers for awhile now and finally put them to use!

So, thanks, Anne, for the opportunity!

As always, think cookies.

~B~