August 30, 2012

Thank You Cookies

My husband is involved in pretty cool ministry called Young Life. I'm not actually involved myself, but I'm friends with a lot of the other leaders and hang out with them frequently. I tell you this, because it was these people (specifically those on my husband's team) that were the instigators for my next cookies. By instigators, I mean they asked me to make some thank you cookies for some people who had been really great to them. Really, any instigating that took place was self-inspired. Now, I've used the word instigating enough that I'm questioning its meaning and if I'm using it correctly (I just looked it up, I think I'm good on the first two, not so sure about that last one). What can I say, English was never my preferred subject. I mean, if we're playing cranium or catchphrase and I need to describe or act out words, I'm golden. Actual writing-not my strong suit.

Now that I've gotten way off topic, maybe its time to talk about cookies again. Writing on cookies never goes how I envision, so I thought it would be much safer to  use alphabet cutters and decorate each letter. Other than the fact that these needed to convey thanks, I had free reign. After a quick glance through my inspiration boards (aka, my pinterest cookie board), I chose paisleys, some brushed embroidery and a color scheme. Normally I really like bright colors, but I took these basic colors and softened them all a bit by adding ivory. I really liked how they turned out, though I wished I had softened the green a bit more.





August 29, 2012

More Cookies!

I promised you all the rest of the cookies I made alongside my contest cookies and I'm here to show them to you. These were to bring to my family while we were spending a week on the beach, so they are just a bunch of fun cookies.








August 17, 2012

Cookie Olympics!

In my last post, I mentioned I was entering a cookie contest. I have been waiting to find out the results before telling you more about it and showing you my cookie entries. The results showed up on facebook earlier today, so I'm ready to share the details and my cookies with you! I don't want to keep you in too much suspense, so I'll tell you I did win some awards! Keep reading and you'll find out what.
 bought some pretty cute cookie cutters from them myself a few months ago.

The Contest was called the cookie Olympics (and coincided with the Olympic games) and was put on by The Cookie Cutter Company (can you guess what they sell?). For the cookie Olympics, you could enter at the professional or amateur level, based on what you consider yourself. I consider myself an amateur, so that's what I entered as. Within each level there were awards best use of Olympic theme, best technique, and most creative. Each person could submit up to 3 cookie pictures (you just submitted pictures of your cookies, not the actual cookies).

I'm about to show you my cookies and tell you how they did, but if you want to see them on the facebook page where they announce the winners, here's the link.

My Olympic Stadium fireworkds cookies took home the Gold in Best use of the Olympic Theme, Silver in most creative, and Gold in best technique!


My Florida beach scene cookies took home Gold in most creative and Bronze in Best technique! (I know it's Florida because that's where I grew up and because of the cute little alligator)


These cookies didn't win any prizes, but that's alright. I knew they wouldn't win any awards, but I couldn't just not submit a 3rd entry and I didn't have any time or energy left to bust out another cool cookie collection! I still think they are pretty cute though :)


So there you have it, I may not be able to do crazy flips off a 4 inch wide beam like little Gabby Douglas (Don't you love her?) or swim faster than the speed of light like Phelps, but I can medal in cookie decorating!

Next Post I will show you the other cookies I brought to Florida with me when I visited family last week.

August 6, 2012

Chocolate covered sweets!

I've been so focused on my most recent cookie project that I completely forgot I had other yummy sweets to post! I just finished some cookies over the weekend that I'm really excited about! I'm actually entering some of them in a contest :) I'm not posting them yet, but be on the look out for them!

For today's post, I was asked to make some chocolate covered strawberries and pretzels for a friend's bridal shower and it was fun to do something a little different! I started dipping the pretzels in the normal fashion and then remembered after about 3 pretzels how old (aka tiring) that process gets. So I came up with a different way. I spread a layer of pretzels onto wax paper, put my chocolate into an icing bag and covered the entire layer back and forth. I put it in the freezer to help it harden, pulled it out, flipped the layer over and did the other side. Then I broke them apart. It came out looking different, but kind of neat. I really wish I had taken a picture before I broke the pretzels apart. The sheet of iced pretzels looked really cool.