Minnie Bows

 I just had to do a quick post to share what I got for Mother's Day from my 5 year old, Matthew. Or as I sometimes refer to him on here "Big M" ("Little M" being my 2 year old, Miles). For those of you who don't know him, Matthew loves to make everything out of paper. And I do mean everything. Well for Mother's Day he was absolutely positive that what would make me really happy was a Minnie Mouse bow cookie cutter. So what did he do? He made it for me. Out of paper.

He's such a sweet heart! That's the card he made me complete with Minnie bow "cutter" on the left, and a "cutter" for the polka dots, on the right. He was so excited and so proud of his gift that of course I didn't have the heart to tell him that's not how it worked. So at night after he went to bed I hand cut a few bows and decorated them, leaving one for him to do. 

 I love that he loves making cookies with me, and I love that he tried so hard to think of something I would enjoy. Another bonus is that we got to eat the results, which happens so seldom in this house!

I hope everyone else's Mother's Day was great!

catching up

Life is busy - as always - so I've been neglecting this site. Although if you follow me on Instagram you'll know I haven't stopped baking! But I am way behind on pictures. Some of these will look familiar to those who do follow my Instagram, but not everything. Since this is a picture heavy post just click on the link at the bottom to see all of the pictures.  Ok no more talking, here is a brief view of some of  what I've been up to over the last 3 months or so (I'm saving a couple of my absolute favorites for posts of their own).

tutus and leopard print

I'm getting so far behind in my posts! I have so many cookies I haven't posted, so I'm going to try  getting several short posts over the next week! These were for a baby shower, here is the invite...

I'm a sucker for girly themes - I just don't have enough pink in my life! Not with having 2 boys anyway. This zebra was one of my favorites...

And I got a lot of feedback when I posted the leopard print on instagram!

This little lion was another of my favorites, I love the leopard print in his mane!

I loved these zebra print cookies as well... with a name like Killer Zebras I feel like I should do more of this kind of thing but I really haven't done many animal prints! (so many possibilities there, I'll have to explore it more!)

And here are all of the characters... seriously I could never resist a combo of pink, tutus, and cute animals. So sweet!

ahoy it's a boy!

A friend of mine is about to have a baby and about a week ago I made some cookies and a cake for her shower. Another friend of mine was the one throwing the shower and it was adorable. Here is the invitation:

 The party was just perfect, down to the last detail.

 She even made that tabletop out of old pallets! (it's just resting on top of her normal table)

these spoons were just too adorable...

Karen looks so pretty! When I had only a month left to go I definitely didn't look this good.

 Here is my cake - the gradient (or ombre {please do not pronounce that "om-bray"! ...sorry, pet peeve of mine}) color was a bit of an experiment. I wasn't sure how it would look with the color fading diagonally but I like it! If there's any interest I'll definitely do a tutorial on how I did it! The texture ended up looking a bit like fish scales... which is just as well with the theme! But I'm not sure anyone was paying attention once it was served... chocolate cake with strawberry swiss meringue buttercream and vanilla buttercream on the outside. SO. GOOD. Or at least I felt that way! Though I'm guessing I'm not the only one, based on the rate at which it disappeared!

Here's a closeup of the cookies hanging up...

 So congrats Karen, happy baby-making and all of that! I wish you an early delivery (because seriously what pregnant woman wants to drag that last month out any longer than necessary). She's due the same day as my sister... whose shower I never really took photos of since I was the one actually hosting it! I'll have to see if I can scrape together enough photos to do a post on that one because it was so much fun! In the meantime, one last shot of these sweet little whales...

I'm baaaack!

Life keeps changing, but it looks like I'm going to finally - really - be back to making cookies.

Updates soon...

but I'm working on some big changes!

{dragonflies and dancing fairies were for my sister

Merry's fairy party... it's as awesome at it sounds}



a random assortment of cookies

Life gets busy and I don't always get around to posting everything I want to post. So I was going through my phone trying to clear out some space when I came across these photos... lots of cookies I've never posted here. These are by no means everything, but I thought it would be a good way to catch up a bit. So here is a random assortment of never before posted cookies...

{monster eyeballs, for Halloween, if you can't tell}

the very hungry caterpillar

This is probably my most favorite set of cookies that I have ever done.

I have tentatively started taking cookie orders again... one here or there, but when it rains it pours. When I say yes to one person, suddenly everyone wants cookies! Well I had taken on 4 cookie orders all at once when I got the request for a set of Very Hungry Caterpillar cookies. My initial reaction was to say no because I just don't have a lot of extra time right now! But it sounded so fun. So I went to Aaron... it always drives him a little crazy when I take on too many cookie orders because I get consumed and so does our home! I was sure he'd talk me out of it. However, as soon as he heard what they were his reaction was "that would be so awesome!" So... I agreed to do them. Which in reality I wanted to do anyway.

I wasn't given specifics aside from the theme being this book, but i decided if I was going to do it - then I was going to do it right! So every piece had to be hand cut and hand painted. I'm not complaining though, it was fun!

I did my best to stick with Eric Carle's illustrations... but watercolor is a

hard thing to dublicate on a cookie! How did I do?

A few of my favorites....

Afterwards Aaron informed me that there is a cookie cutter set of these for sale. Of this I was not aware... if I do these again, I am definitely getting that set.