Christmas Trees...

I seriously debated blogging these. These were by far my biggest fail, which is a shame, because I was VERY excited to make them. I made them for a Christmas party we had last month...so what did I do to "save" my fail? Dump a bunch of sanding sugar on them to make them sparkly! There's nothing like distracting with sparkles! My mom finally convinced me to put these on here...only because I think it's healthy to show mistakes, not just successes. What did I learn from my Christmas tree experience? Watch how thin you make your icing...if you make it almost watery, it will take ALL night and the next day to dry and it will have little pock marks all over it. The result? Not pretty.



Regardless, everybody at the party loved them. Good save with the sanding sugar. And good thing I have a mom who talks up all my work. =)

C is for Cookie!

And cupcakes, and that's good enough for me. And it's good enough for my sister too, because I made these little guys for her 14th birthday. She always points them out whenever she sees them at grocery stores or on the internet, so I thought she'd like them for her birthday. And they were indeed a hit!

Heh heh, it's like a little army of Cookie monsters!! These little guys were super easy to make, considering I did a bit of cheating. I baked plain white cupcakes and bought some of those pre-made tubes of royal blue Wilton decorating icing. Just pop on a star tip, and bam! Furry monster cupcakes. Then I added big dots of white icing, and placed a chocolate chip in each one. Then you press a half of a Chips Ahoy cookie in their "mouths" and you have not just any monster, but a cookie monster! Nom nom nom!

Dragonflies. GLITTERY Dragonflies!

A while back, my friend Emily celebrated her birthday. Being a major dragonfly lover, she asked me to make her some purple dragonfly cookies for the occasion. Now, since I don't own a dragonfly cutter, Emily let me use hers...and let me just say I don't know that I'll be investing in a dragonfly cutter anytime soon. This was by far the hardest time I've ever had cutting out any cookie. Luckily, after much frustration, I was able to get about 3 dozen decent looking dragonflies from this darn cutter. Next was tghe fun part. Not only do I love the color choices, but this was the first time I've used sanding sugar (courtesy of Debbi) on my cookies.

So, it seems I'm having some issues with my icing still. Like my turkey cookies, I had an issue with the pink icing in the wings sinking in. I have no clue why that is. Regardless, I think the sanding sugar on the body makes up for the lack of awesome in the wings. And Emily liked her cookies, which is what matters when it comes down to it. And check it out! My mom made an extremely cute dragonfly birthday card to go with the cookies for Em. She loooves card-making and scrapbooking, and she's pretty good at it if I do say so myself. She makes really cute stuff. Check out her blog here, and see for yourself it's not just my slightly biased opinion. =)

I have the coolest family ever.

No, really, they are. Why, you ask? Well because I got a TRUCKLOAD of cool baking stuff for Christmas this year. I got cupcake wrappers, silver star sprinkles (which are REALLY cool, by the way), tons of new cutters, and...wait for it....brownie pop molds!! I've never tried making brownie pops or anything of that sort, but I am very excited to try it out!! Now, all these goodies were just from my parents and sister, but what I wasn't expecting was for my aunt to get me some cool stuff!



One of my favorite things to do is browse different blogs and websites for baking ideas. I could literally spend all day doing it. One of my favorite places to visit is a website called Bakerella. Have you visited Bakerella's site? If not, you totally should. She makes the cutest goodies! The thing she's most well known for is her creation of cake pops or cupcake pops. She even made a book about it, showing different pop designs and giving step-by-step instructions for each one. Weellll, my super cool aunt got me her book for Christmas!! It's really good I didn't buy it before Christmas because she would've been soo upset! It was difficult, but I resisted!


Not only do I get to experiment with these cupcake pops, but I also have several cake and cookie decorating ideas! Another book I recieved was this book called 1000 ideas for decorating cupcakes, cakes, and cookies.

Now, it doesn't have step-by-step instructions for anything (in fact, it doesn't even have labels for the pictures), but there are a lot of pictures with some really neat ideas! Granted....with the lack of labels, I have to figure out what some of the sweets even are, but if you can get past that, it's a cool book. I'd definitely recommend both of these books if you're looking for some great baking and decorating ideas. Now, it's time to try some of these ideas out! Thanks, family!!

A Sweet Gift!

So, in my absence, Debbi, my neighbor across the street came over to pay my mom a visit. It was just a normal visit, they stood around chatting about, you know, life. But after my mom told her about my interest in baking and decorating, my sweet neighbor ran out my door saying, "I'll be right back"! And right back she came....with about FOUR containers of baking goodies in tow. One of those containers was a Wilton cake decorating kit, FILLED with stuff (several icing colors, bags, tips, etc)! One container had several different colors of EDIBLE GLITTER (something I had yet to try), and the other two were PACKED with cookie cutters. And I'm not talking those cheap plastic cookie cutters you buy in a bucket of 100 from your local Wal Mart. Oh, no. I'm talking about those nice, easy grip ones, sets of Williams Sonoma cutters, and sets of copper cutters. All this stuff was just sitting in her house unused, so it all needed to go to a good home. Well believe me, it will ALL go to use at my house.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to take a picture of all the stuff. There was so much, and it was literally taking over our dining room table, I had to get it put away. But I know you would've been impressed. =)

I could not express my excitement or my gratitude well enough. Well I probably could've, but that would've consisted of me jumping up and down at her door and squealing like a little girl. I wanted to at least TRY to act 20 years old. But it was like Christmas had come early! And I have sooo many more options for my goodies now. What a sweet gift from a sweet lady. Thank you soooo much, Debbi!

New Blog Design

Hi! Long time no see! I got pretty caught up in all the holiday fun, and playing with new goodies =) Things are starting to wind down now, so now I can do some catchin' up on my blogging. Believe me, I have a few goodies to share with you the next few days. As you may have noticed, I have a SUPER CUTE new blog design!! My mom found this for me and surprised me with the change, and I am SOO in love with it! It's so nice to have a change to bring in the new year! Thanks mom!


Goodies to come very soon, I promise! Pinky promise!