Bling and Pearls

I made these super cute cookies for a wedding shower that my sis-in-law helped host. I think they turned out great!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame - A Very Special First Birthday

My baby boy turned one, and I chose a baseball theme for his very small family party. It was really fun, because there was so much out there for baseball. And since our colors were red and blue, all the 4th of July party stuff worked too! I really enjoyed doing all the concession stand inspired food too.

Thank you to my mom who helped me with a lot of the party,  and to my mother-in-law who made the precious party hat.

Here are pics of the decor and treats:

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Party Hats and Number Ones

I made these first birthday cookies for a dear friend's little girl. Due to an egg allergy, I used a new "royal icing" recipe, and I absolutely loved it! It's technically a glaze, but it will be my go-to icing from now on, unless I need to make something intricate or precise. I got the recipe from this website. You can make it thicker or thinner just by adding more sugar or more water. So easy!!

A Very Special Baptism

My niece, Rebecca, was baptized this Sunday. My husband and I were honored to be among the sponsors for her!
My sister-in-law married into a huge family, and with that comes huge gatherings. They had a very fun baptism reception at their house afterwards, and I offered to make cookies. I think the final count was 58 cookies- a new record for me.
My mother-in-law pinned some ideas on Pinterest of the beautiful crosses and dresses.

Here is how they turned out:

  

Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

The sweetest 6 year old I know had her birthday party a few weeks ago. And since her momma (my BFF) is the best party thrower, it was a peanut butter and jelly themed party! 

I offered my cookie services, and she sent me the link to a cookie that is so precious! I think they turned out cute, but I did have a few challenges this project. Biggest one- my flood icing never fully hardened! It could have been one or more of a few possibilities, but I think it was the fact that I put almond extract in the royal icing. I won't make that mistake again. 

Okay, so I'm not going to post a tutorial for this one, because a. Sweet Sugarbelle already did that here and b. My cookies weren't quite as cute as hers.

This post is about how I made these cookies with very little time.
Start backwards from the "due date" and then you will know when to start. I have an infant who needs me to hold him- a lot. Which I love!!! But it's hard to get anything done. So, I've had to plan a little better this time. He sleeps very well in my baby carrier, so I can get things done in small increments of time. 

Here is the schedule I used for this project (2 dozen cookies):

Saturday- make 2 batches of cookie dough, put in freezer

Tuesday- make 1 small batch of royal icing, put in fridge, put dough in fridge to thaw
Wednesday- make icing colors and put in piping bags and bottles, put in fridge
Thursday morning- roll, cut, and bake 2 dozen cookies, put leftover dough in freezer
Thursday mid morning- pipe the crust along the outside of the cookie
Thursday afternoon- phase one of icing (use 20 second icing to do the bread color)
Thursday night- phase two (use flood icing to make peanut butter or jelly)
Friday night- phase three (pipe the smiley face and pink cheeks)
Saturday- Party day!!

Here is how mine turned out:

I'm currently working on the baptism cookies. I hope my royal icing turns put better this time! 

A Family Baby Shower

My husband and I ran around with the same group of friends in college. Most of us live in Houston now, but now that we all have kids, it gets harder and harder to get together. So, a great excuse is a baby! 

Our close friends, Amy and Joel, are welcoming a baby girl in June, and I wanted to throw a mini baby shower to welcome her! We invited a few of our favorite little families. 

The theme was very simple- pink, pink, and more pink. Tough for all the guys that were invited! 

The decor

I made another banner for the mantle. I used these awesome glitter letters from Hobby Lobby. The background paper is cut into 4.5 inch flower shapes (accent essentials cartridge) and the white is 4.25 inch. I used double stick tape and a matching ribbon to put it all together. Pretty painless.

I borrowed the lanterns from my ma-in-law. I think they are from Party City. And I made the tissue pom poms. 

The food

For appetizers, I put together a simple veggie tray with ranch, a spinach parmesan dip from Costco, and Wholly Guacamole. With an array of chips, everyone was happy for a while. 

For our main course, I served Pioneer Woman's Dr. Pepper pulled pork with King's Hawaiian rolls (and pickles!) and Barefoot Contessa's tarragon chicken salad (minus the grapes) with mini croissants. I also had fruit salad on the side. For those picky eaters (like my child), I had a small deli tray with meat, cheese, and crackers. 

The cake!

For this cake, I used the same recipe that I used for Leah's birthday cake, but I left out the sprinkles. This recipe is a yummy lemon cake that turns out very moist. It is my new favorite!

I made a two-layer 8 inch cake and used white buttercream for a thin crumb coat. Then, I took a small circle cookie cutter and gently pressed it into the cake where I wanted my roses. This was used as a guide so my roses would be about the same size and shape all throughout my cake. 

Next, I put a small amount of soft pink coloring into my icing. I made a piping bag of this icing out of about 1/3 of the icing. Then I added more coloring and made a second bag. Then a little more coloring for the last bag. This made the ombre effect on the cake. I used a star tip to create the roses. If you try this technique, start from the bottom of the cake with the darkest icing. Each individual rose should start from the middle and work out. Wherever my crumb coat showed through, I put a small star. 

For the banner, I used cookie sticks (in the baking aisle at Michael's), ribbon, scrapbook paper, and letter stickers.

We all had a great time! 

A Low-key Cinderella Party

Princess Leah turned 3! She wanted a Cinderella cake, so I wanted to give her a Cinderella party. We decided to fore-go the big blowout birthday party this year for a few reasons. So, we just had family over for dinner, cake, and fun!

I didn't have a whole lot of time left when I decided I wanted to make a banner. I made this simple banner in about 45 minutes using my Cricut. If you can't see it, it just says, "Leah is 3!" I used 5" circles for the background, 4.5" circles for the patterned paper, and 4.5" letters. I used the Lyrical Letters cartridge for the font. It took 2 pieces of patterned 12x12 paper, 4 pieces of background paper (also used for letters), one spool of ribbon, and mini glue dots.

I ordered the balloons on Amazon in a pack and had them blown up at Kroger.  

For some simple decor, I spent a few minutes and dollars at Party City. I bought paper goods, blue and white streamers, blue tissue paper balls ( I know I can make my own, but I was short on time), and a princess crown for the birthday girl.

The food

A little off of the theme of Cinderella, we had a taco bar. It included all the fixins and soft and hard taco shells. I also included two appetizer dips (jalapeno popper dip from Pinterest and Texas Caviar), chips, rice, and beans. 

The Cake!

This was the inspiration for the party. I had many different ideas about how to make her a "Cinderella cake," but eventually saw the pumpkin coach and had to give it a try. I used a homemade funfetti cake recipe and traditional buttercream for the bottom layer. For the top layer, I just used a boxed mix, a coat of buttercream, and fondant. To shape the top layer, I bought a sphere-shaped pan from Michael's.

Since I am not a professional and don't have tons of experience, this cake was quite a labor of love. BUT the look on my precious daughter's face when she blew out her candles was worth every back-breaking second!

Twin Baby Shower Goodies

I was asked by my lovely sister-in-law to recreate the peapod cookies and cupcake toppers off of Hostess with the Mostess. As far as I can decipher, I believe the original design was from Sweeten Your Day in Utah. They were so cute! I was excited for the challenge. Her friend is expecting twins- a boy and a girl.

Using the pictures off of the site, I recreated them. Here's how:

COOKIES
I needed two batches of cookie dough and a double batch of royal icing for this project. (I used the royal icing for the cupcake toppers, too.)
Roll out and cut your cookies with a scalloped cookie cutter. The original design was a square, but I already had this cutter which was rectangular. Either spray your pan with Pam or use parchment. I had a few stick and fall apart on my first batch. Boo!
Bake them until you start seeing that golden brown on the edges- about 10-12 minutes.

Roll out and cut small circle cookies for the baby heads. I needed 12. Make sure you bake these separately  They don't take as long!!

For the icing:
I took out a good amount of white and put it in a piping bag (tip #3). Then, in 3 small bowls, I put a small amount of icing. In one bowl, I mixed in soft pink. In another, I used brown. And in the last, I used egg yellow.Make sure you cover these with a damp towel while you are mixing the others. I put these in piping bags with #3 tips.
Use the rest of the icing to make the green. I kept the icing in my stand mixer bowl, adding a small amount of  green and mixing it on med-high until I was happy with the color. Then make a piping bag (I used tip #4) with the green. Always keep your icing covered while not in use, even the tip of your piping bag!

Once the cookies have completely cooled, outline them with green.

 Once all of the cookies have green outlines, make your green flood icing. You should be done with the green outline icing, so empty your piping bag back into the bowl of green icing. To make your flood icing, add a teaspoon of water at a time to the green icing. Stir it until thoroughly mixed. Add water until you can drag your spoon through it and it goes back to its original shape in about 3 seconds. When you have the right consistency, cover it up and let it sit for at least 15 minutes. This will allow all the air bubbles to come up. Then, pull a spatula through the icing to get rid of the bubbles.

I use squirt bottles to flood my cookies, but you can also use a piping bag. Make another outline with this icing touching the outline that is already there. Try to cover any imperfections in your outline with the flood icing.

Then, fill in the rest. Use a toothpick to move the icing to fill in spots. Also use a toothpick to pop any remaining air bubbles. 

 Let these sit at least 6-8 hours or overnight before decorating.

When the flood icing is dry, make the white scallop outline on each cookie. On the boy and girl cookies, attach a circle cookie to the corner with white royal icing. Then, use the brown to make the face on the circle. Add the bow or tuft of hair to the head. Finally, add the name!

For the "Sweet Peas," just do the scallop outline, then write "Sweet Peas," and last add the flower. Use your yellow to add the finishing dot.

Done! (Excuse the messy table in this pic, toddler at work!)

Your hand will probably feel like "the claw" by now. I know mine did. But it will go away. :)

CUPCAKE TOPPERS
I used a leaf cookie cutter to cut the peapods. To get a more rounded edge, I cut out a smaller shape than I wanted and then rolled them out a bit to flatten them. This also made them all slightly different shapes and sizes, which I like.
I then put them over a wooden spoon to get a curve. I let them sit for an hour or so, until they kept their shape. Once they kept their shape, I covered them up. That way, when I added the baby faces, they wouldn't be too brittle.

I then cut out and shaped small rectangles for the stems. I adhered them to the peapods with gum glue.
To make gum glue, dissolve a very small amount of gum paste in about a tablespoon or two of water. Use a food brush to brush it on.

I used a clay extruder that I bought off of Amazon to make the curly ques. I put a small amount of green in the extruder and used the seven-holed disc. After cranking, it made 7 at a time. Time saver! Twist the ends in between your fingers to bring them to a point. Then curl them around and let dry.

Next, to make the babies' heads, I used a small amount of copper food coloring to tint my fondant the flesh color. It looked orange at first, GASP!, but the more I worked it in, the more peachy it became.
I rolled it out and cut it out with a small circle cookie cutter. I rolled each circle into a ball and smashed it with my thumb to make the baby heads. Squish them together in pairs and attach them to the peapods with gum glue.

Now the details:
Using brown royal icing, I put two eyes on each baby face. I used a small heart cookie cutter to indent the smile into each face. Then on the girl baby, I added a small pink bow with pink royal icing.
Lastly, I attached the curly que to the top of the boy baby's head with gum glue.

Let dry. Cute, cute, cute!


Here are the tools I used for this project:
a clay extruder, a medium leaf cookie cutter, a wooden spoon, and a small Wilton fondant roller with guide rings