Always a Challenge

I had a customer who wanted a broken bones set of cookies for her mom. She also wanted a ladies magazine, a Nora Roberts book and a ladybug.  FUN!

Here is what I came up with for the magazine.

The book was a little harder.  It's also hard to see the flower in the picture.  I hate my writing!  It's improving but it needs work! 

And a cute lady bug!

Brushed Flowers

These were so easy that I felt guilty finishing them in about 30 minutes (not counting the base color)! I have seen many variations and hope to try different colors and shapes.

I'm also trying to find a good lighting solution. So far, Mr Sun wins!

Regular lighting in my house.

Outside in a slightly shady spot.

I'm definitely open to suggestions as this (and writing on cookies) are my most frustrating issues!

Playing with Paisley's

I found some cute paisley clip art that I thought could be adapted to cookie decorating.

I had creative license (I love creative license!) with an upcoming order so I decided to give these a try. 

My hubby made me a couple of new cookie cutters to make things more simple.  He's pretty great and so are these cookies!  Some of my favorites now!

Father's Day

I had a few Father's Day orders but this one is my favorite!  It's for a friend's dad who is in his 80's.  He grows pink, orange and yellow roses.  Isn't that the sweetest!?  He also loves his Lincoln. 

I just made some real simple cars and the letter DAD in cookies.

Then I had fun with the flowers!  I hadn't made the ribbon roses before and I am now IN LOVE with how sweet they turned out and how easy!

 

 This is how they came out together!  In my rush to get them shipped out today, I forgot to snap a few pics before they were packaged.  Oh well, you get the idea!

Fishing

I'm not sure why but I have never done a fishing theme before.  It was pretty easy once I decided on the cookie designs. 

With the flash...

Without the flash...

I still haven't gotten a good grasp on lighting and I definitely don't know how to use PhotoShop Elements even though I own it! 

 

Do you know how many types of fishing lures there are?  I had no idea and was just getting the hang of these when I ran out of cookies!  I will have to try these again when I have leftovers! 

 

Contest Winner

I am finally getting around to announcing the winning logo!  Serena Simpkin of New Zealand found Cookie Capers on Facebook and decided to give it a try.  She's a stay at home mom who has a background in graphic design.  I hope to work with her to get a whole new look to the blog as well.  Thanks Serena! 

This is her submission but I am working on tweaking colors etc!

Goofin Off

I had some leftover cookies and wanted to do something with them since I never got around to their original purpose due to a death in the family.  They sat in a baggie for a couple of weeks until I saw this post and was inspired to practice making straight lines.  I decided to send these to a couple of uncles who have been begging for cookies and said they didn't care what they looked like! They aren't exactly masculine but I'm sure they will enjoy them anyway!  :)

I was just goofing off with these.  I really like how the brown looks as a background for bright colors.

Airplanes

I had a request for airplane cookies that had a "Miss You" theme. I always worry about cookies with narrow appendages like the airplane cutter I have does.

They sometimes get broken while I am decorating for when they are being packaged. Besides, I couldn't really picture that kind of childish plane in this particular arrangement. 

So I turned to scrapbook and stamping sets that fit the idea I had rolling around in my head.  This plane design from Stampin Up was perfect!

Baby, Baby, Baby

I have been studying some different cookiers and their techniques for a while and really liked the idea of painting on cookies.  I had some cookie ideas in mind that required a bit more detail than icing would allow me so I decided to try painting the details.  I love to paint so this was right up my alley!  Before we start, I wanted to clarify that I traced these images onto dry, iced cookies.  I am not privileged enough to have a Kopykake projector.  Yet.

I found these images on a rubber stamp site. I copied and resized them to fit my new homemade cookie cutter!  Yes, I got their permission to use the images and yes, I did color them Sunday morning in church. :)

To paint, you just use 1 part food color and 1 part water.  EASY!

I was tempted just to paint them totally but I didn't.

Notice my shiny new stainless table!  I love it!  And I love these babies before they even have faces!

These were so fun!  I didn't mean to put this doggy in.  The other one I did was better but you get the idea!

For the letter cookies, I found a font, printed D's and then traced them with icing on wax paper.  When they dried, I added them to the blue circles with icing.  I did the same with the domino.

The domino is significant.  The baby, Dominic, is affectionately nicknamed Domino.

Welcome to the world Dominic Anthony Pace! 

Treasure

My first attempt at a treasure chest was really cute

I decided to try something a little different this time and use sanding sugar instead of piping all the gems.  I think it was much neater looking and it sparkled like treasure should! 

How Do I...make my own cookie cutters?

As I have said before, I follow a lot of great cookiers who make fabulous cookie designs and have easy to follow tutorials for those of us who struggle with some concepts!  Sometimes they make something so cool that I ask to borrow their ideas and recreate them but this post was so well put together I decided to just link to that instead of recreating it.  Thanks LilaLoa for the fantastically, easy idea!  

LilaLoa: How Do I...make my own cookie cutters?

Bluebirds

Lately, I am seeing cookie ideas in everything, including a lady in Sunday School yesterday who had an awesome dragonfly on her shirt.  Let's just say I am easily distracted.  Alas, I didn't take a picture of the shirt (It was my first time in that class or I might have asked.) and have already forgotten it.

   I did get this blue bird theme done.  I found the bluebird idea here but the nest and birdhouse, I got from a piece of scrapbook paper.  

Most of my designs start like this.  I had the tree figured out but I could not find a suitable nest.

Doesn't the tree look sad without a nest?

Very cute idea but not for this design. 

The coconut was too real for the whimsical cookie and the eggs, well, they lacked cuteness.  I was beginning the think my little blue bird wouldn't be able to produce eggs.  Finally, I just piped some eggs on wax paper and hoped they'd speak to me while I finished up the other cookies.  After they had dried for about an hour, I took a chance and squiggled out a little icing nest and dropped them in.

I was very pleased with the results!

So was the blue bird!

Sanding sugar is something I don't use too much but it was a great addition to these simple flowers!

I love it when my ideas actually work!  I don't post the failures but there are quite a few!

 

Old MacDonald

I love farms and all the animals that are normally associated with them! These cookies were cut out of leftovers from an experiment with chocolate dough. I like the chocolate dough (and so did the first customer who ordered it) but I don't have many requests for it. The dark color made these characters really stand out! They were sent to a cute little boy for his 2nd birthday!

Food

Here are some fun food cookies!

2 regular cookies with a chocolate cookie for the burger patty.

Left over dough makes great "fries"!

My son loves pizza and cookies!  How about both?

Bumblebees

I love to watch bumblebees. My dog loves to catch and eat them.  These are the only bumblebees that I would consider eating.  Funny how I hardly ever get to eat my creations.  It's probably a good thing! These were for a sweet friend of mine in MN.