Christmas Cookies

It's that time of year (or was) for Christmas cookies! The cookies were done on time but updating the blog was not. The Christmas spirit cannot be avoided while decorating some festive cookies although maybe I should've had a holiday movie playing in the background.

It always makes me nervous to see the cookies looking nice out of the oven knowing they could all be messed up once the decorating starts. Just like what happened with the candy canes... those were scratched. 

The snowmen make me happy :) I didn't know what to do with the arms so they were armless snowmen. 

Mittens for a cold Christmas (not 78 degrees) :

Snowflakes:

And Christmas Trees: 

I found a platter on sale at Joanns and combined it with a Dollar Tree candlestick holder to make it a cute cake pedestal. To balance it out and prevent toppling I also glued a clear CD to the bottom. 

An added bonus, I sent my aunt cookies for her birthday. She lives in Texas and always sees my pictures online so I wanted to make her day with a special delivery. 

Baby Shower

My very first post on this blog was about the cupcakes I made for Christy and JT's wedding and now this weekend I made cupcakes for their baby shower! Well, she requested I make cupcakes then I just had to make some cookies too. 

Onesies:

Rattles:  

And bottles: 

Packaged and ready to go:

For the cupcakes I made baby animal toppers using this picture as a template. 

I liked the giraffe and elephant silhouettes the best. 

I made the toppers earlier in the week and couldn't wait to put them on the cupcakes.

Now I want to make baby animals to top every cupcake every time!

Halloween Cookies

I bought some Halloween cookie cutters because really the Halloween aisles kept drawing me in. Just luring me to make some holiday themed cookies. Especially the ghost, I couldn't pass him up.

Candy Corn:

Pumpkins:

Ghosts:

I shipped some to a friend in Ohio, apparently without enough bubble wrap :(.  Poor ghost.

Halloween Pumpkin Treats

Fall = pumpkins! For a Halloween party I wanted to try a new recipe for cupcakes to bring. I found this Pumpkin Cupcake recipe from Sweetopia! 

I skipped the maple and just went with plain cream cheese frosting. Delicious!

I went on a quest for green straws with the idea of using them for cake pops as pumpkin stems. The idea came to me last minute so I didn't have time to order them online. I finally found them at Sur La Table and put my plan in to action!

And for my costume: Russell from UP! 

Football Snacks

Football Sundays are really the best days of the week. Snacks make football Sundays even better. I saw this post on Mini Chicken & Waffles on Love From the Oven and had to try them. 

I used this Hungry Girl recipe for the chicken so I wouldn't feel as guilty eating them. Paired with hot sauce and syrup for dipping.

My other favorite football snack to make is mini pretzel bites. I use this Alton Brown recipe for soft pretzels but instead of making them in the pretzel shape I cut them in to bite size pieces for sharing.

Grandma's Birthday

My Grandma celebrated her 75th birthday this month. I was happy to help in the celebration of the life of such a wonderful, loving woman in my life. She gave me a box of old photos to make a collage to put on display at the dinner party. It was so much fun to go through them and see Grandma as a tiny tot on her 1st birthday!

 Royal icing transfers are my favorite way to dress up cupcakes. I used the flower from Saru's Flower Ding and traced.

 The finished display:

Happy Birthday Grandma! xoxo

Engagement Ring Cookies

I wanted to do something special for the engagement party for Michelle and John so I set out to make some engagement ring cookies. I was crossing my fingers each step of the way hoping they came out like I imagined.

First outlined with gray icing, which would then become the silver part.

Added the white for the diamonds.

After adding all the little details, painted on the silver luster. Again, crossing my fingers at each step because there were 5 dozen and I was not about to start over.

And they worked! The pictures don't do the sparkles/shiny parts justice but they definitely added the necessary touches to the rings.

Then I packaged and prepared them to be shipped to NY with LOTS of bubble wrap and a tiny prayer they would arrive in the same condition they left.

Ice Cream Cookies

I bought this cookie cutter set a while ago (a while = probably a year) and wanted to make ice cream cone cookies for so long. A new delivery of food colors was the perfect excuse to break it out and give it a shot. I was so happy with how they came out!

I had leftover bags from cake pops I made and the cookies were the perfect size. A cool treat that won't melt on hot summer days.