April Showers Bring May Flowers

I'm a little early with this post since we're not officially April yet but I'm gearing up for the rainy season. At least I'm hoping we have a rainy season after the drought we've had. It's actually raining as I write this post so maybe this is a sign.

Below is where my inspiration for this collection came from. When I saw these boots on a recent shopping trip I knew they needed to be cookies but I didn't want to just make boots. I wanted an umbrella and raincoat too. These cookies are simple to make and would make great additions to your spring cookie collections. I'm going to quickly show you how I made them.

What you need for the boots:

• light blue piping & flood consistency icing
• white, pink, purple, yellow & black flood consistency icing

Begin by outlining the boot. I chose to make a cuff and thick sole. Allow the outline to dry for a bit and then flood the cuff and sole with your flood consistency icing. If you don't like the look of distinct outlines on your cookies you can outline and flood right away. To avoid bleeding allow this step to dry for a bit before flooding the rest of the boot.

Next, flood the inner portion of the boot. Do not let this dry. Immediately start piping dots, using a wet on wet technique, to form flowers. Add a back dot in the center. I found it easier to work with one color at a time.

This is what the finished cookie will look like. Allow to dry completely. Did you notice the dreaded craters? Arrrrgh! This is the same icing I used in my favorite icing consistencies video. I played with the icing a lot in the video to show the consistency & I think I put too much air in it. I don't know. It should have been thicker but I didn't know my design yet when I mixed it and I didn't know I'd be using it in small spaces. I even popped any air bubbles I saw and I ran my boo-boo stick through it. Oh well it happens to us all at times. At least they have matching craters. Lol!

What you need for the umbrella:

• white piping & flood consistency icing
• light blue piping & flood consistency icing
• pink, purple, yellow & black flood consistency icing

Outline & flood the top portion of the umbrella. Repeat the same process as the boots and make your flowers immediately with the wet on wet technique. Allow this step to dry for a bit to avoid bleeding issues.

Then outline & flood the bottom portion of the umbrella.

What you need for the raincoat: (Notice I'm using a present cutter again. Thanks Ali Bee for helping me see this cutter for more than just a present.)

• yellow piping & flood consistency icing
• black candy beads (for the buttons)

Outline and flood the cookie and while the icing is still wet drop in the candy beads.

Allow to dry completely and then using a 1.5 tip pipe on the coat details. I forgot to take a final picture of the coat by itself but you can see the details in the picture at the beginning of the post.

Sorry if some of the pictures are blurry but it got dark on me. I usually like to use natural light when photographing but I can't always wait until there is light to make cookies. I'm trying hard to learn indoor photography so if you have any tips please let me know.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you liked this post and that you'll try making these cookies.

My Favorite Royal Icing Consistencies

Are you a procrastinator? Well I am. I would have thought it started at birth but my mom said I was anxious to enter the world and she was not in labor long with me. I don't know where I got it from but all I know is that I am a procrastinator. In college I used to write twenty page term papers the night before they were due and get A's on them. If I tried to write a paper sooner I did not do as well.

Fast forward to today and this bad habit has never left me. Saturday I was going to start working on cookies for my next post but I got caught up cleaning my house. When spring arrives I tend to have more pep in my step and this is when I try to accomplish everything I have been putting off during the fall. I guess that's why they call it spring cleaning. The cookies got pushed to Sunday.

Today I was going to work on them but I decided to film a video about my favorite icing consistencies. I ran into problems with my computer saving the video and I had to edit it all over again. The cookies have gotten pushed aside again. What was supposed to be a quick video has turned into a long ordeal. Yikes!

I guess the great thing about being a blogger is that it's okay if this type of thing happens. I don't have to meet a deadline. So I promise you those cookies will be coming soon but until then please enjoy my ramblings on my favorite icing consistencies. I don't know what it is about videos but as soon as I hit that record button my mouth goes dry and I get all tongue twisted. Also, I had to do some serious editing because it was way over ten minutes so I apologize if it's choppy.

Important Notes:

There are many posts out there on icing consistencies. It is important for you to find what works for you. This video is meant to show you what I like to use so that when I do a tutorial you will know what Honeybee's piping & flood consistencies look like.

I mentioned using the spray bottle technique that One Tough Cookie came up with. You can read more about that here.

I also mentioned the Saran Wrap method by Karen from Karen's Cookies. You can learn more about it and see her video here.

Finally, I mentioned that I now use Glad Press n' Seal that Jodi came up with. You can read more about it and see her video here.

Lynda---this video is for you. I hope this will help you with your writing on cookies. :)

Mosaic Cross Cookies

Today we're making mosaic cross cookies. When I purchased this cross cutter from Hobby Lobby I couldn't wait to use it. It is substantial in size and has beautiful decorative edges. I was inspired to make these crosses after seeing a mosaic cross my friend had purchased for her daughter. Since spring starts tomorrow and Easter is right around the corner I chose spring colors to decorate them. Are you ready for a tutorial? Let's get started.

What you need:

• white piping consistency icing (I used a Wilton #4 tip but this will vary depending on the size of your cookie)
• 20 second icing in the colors of your choice (I used light pink, light yellow, light green, light blue and light purple)

Begin by outlining your cookie. I used a Wilton #4 tip to make thick lines that would resemble grout. If you are decorating a smaller cookie choose whatever tip you feel will give you this "grout" look. I first started with a #3 tip but it wasn't giving me the look I was going for.

Next, pipe random lines on the cookie to give the look of mosaic tiles. Use a boo-boo stick or toothpick to tap down any peaks or imperfections.

Let the outline dry for several minutes before flooding. I let mine dry for about 15-20 minutes. Depending on how many cookies you are making the first cookie should be ready to flood as soon as you finish piping your last cookie.

Flood sections of the cookie that are not touching. This will allow your cookie to have more visible "grout" lines.

I let the flooded sections dry for about 20-30 minutes before flooding the next sections.

Depending on the size of your cookie and the number of sections you made you will flood in several phases. Let each phase dry for at least 20-30 minutes and repeat until you have flooded all the sections.

Let the cookies dry completely overnight. This is what the final cookie will look like. As you can see if a thinner line was made even less of the "grout" lines would be showing.

FYI...my husband came to the computer to see what I was working on and he said "oh stained glass cookies, those are nice". My head just hit my forehead. Do they look like stained glass? I guess they could be either but stained glass is see through. Thanks babe. I'll probably be thinking about this for days. LOL!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial on mosaic cross cookies. Have a great week everyone. Happy Spring!!!

"Will You Be My Cinderella?"

Do you have children that are getting ready for school dances or do you know someone who's child is getting ready for a school dance? Well I have an idea for you but before I share it I have to share with you that I never went to any of my school dances growing up. Sad but true. Until my junior year in high school I wore glasses, was awkward, shy and a bit of a nerd. I was one of those girls that everyone wanted to copy off of in class or they wanted me to do their homework for them. I graduated in the top 10% of my class. I wasn't exactly dance material back then. Junior year I got contacts and boys started to notice me but it still didn't help me get asked to a dance.

Fast forward several years (let's not say how many) and I'm at work talking with my friend about her son's school dance coming up. I think I talked her ear off about my sad, lame existence in school and how I didn't get to go to any of my dances. She said she thought her son should go even if he didn't have a date. Oh my goodness....I thought about how shy I was when I was in school that the thought of asking someone to a dance was out of the question. All of a sudden a light bulb went off in my head. I told her that if her son was interested in asking someone to the dance that it would be so neat to give the girl cookies to ask her. What girl could deny being asked to a dance with cookies? My first thought was a dress, a suit and maybe a disco ball. Well I've always been a dreamer and I thought if this was me getting the cookies how would I want them to look. My girlie, I believe in fairytales brain came up with Cinderella. So let me present the "Will You Be My Cinderella?" collection.

I'm not going to do tutorials because the post would be way too long but instead I'll try to break down what I did for each cookie. I'm not very good with character cookies and I didn't want the cookies to be Cinderella cookies but more the idea of Cinderella. I wanted to make cookies that represented the fairytale. So we have a suit representing Prince Charming. I have made a suit cookie in the past using a heart cutter so I knew I wanted to do something different. I was inspired by the tuxedo cookie that Alison from Ali Bee's Bake Shop made using a present cutter. I knew I wanted to try this cookie but make it my own by making a suit instead of a tuxedo.

Next, we have the dress to represent Cinderella. I Googled a picture of Cinderella. I didn't want to make an exact replica of her dress but instead I chose to take the front poofy part of the dress and translate this onto the cookie. I love dimensional cookies so after the dress was dry I added the poofs on top. I wanted a simple but elegant looking dress.

I Googled a disco ball and just free handed all the squares on the cookies. I flooded alternating squares and let those dry and then came back and flooded the rest. This allowed for more dimension. I used a thicker 20 second icing to flood hoping to avoid the dreaded air bubbles but I still got a few. After the cookie was completely dry I sprayed it with Wilton's Silver Color Mist to try and give the cookie that mirror ball look. Of all the cookies I like this one the least because what I envisioned in my head was so much better than the actual result. It doesn't have enough dimension and shine. Also, even though I waited for sections to dry in between flooding they still ran together in places.

The next cookie is the slipper. How in the world do you capture a glass slipper? The closest I came was to ice the cookie white and spray it with Wilton's Pearl Color Mist. Originally I had left the shoe opening un-iced but I didn't like the look of it so I decided to ice this part grey for shadow. If you use Color Mists make sure you have the right one in your hand before you start spraying. I accidentally started spraying them silver instead of pearl. Thankfully it didn't ruin it.

I thought Prince Charming should give Cinderella some flowers so I decided to make a bouquet. In my growing collection of cutters I did not have a bouquet cutter. This is when I banged my hand against my forehead. I stared at cutters for the longest time and then suddenly I had a Sugarbelle moment. I decided to take a shell cutter, a bow cutter (I bought this in the clay section at Hobby Lobby) and a shovel cutter and piece them together to make my bouquet. I was so proud of myself. I used a Wilton #102 tip to create five petal flowers and used a sugar pearl in the center. After these dried I added leaves with a Wilton #65 tip. Thanks to Ali Bee's bow tutorial I finally made a bow I was proud of.

Like Cinderella's fairytale I wanted all the fun to end at midnight so again I used Google to find an image of a clock. With a little help from my Kopykake I had a clock that I just love. To make the clock have a little pizazz I outlined it with a Wilton #5 tip in gold. I waited for it to dry and then sprayed it with Wilton's Gold Color Mist. Then I flooded the white section, let it dry completely and then added the details.

Finally, the cookie that says it all...."Will You Be My Cinderella?". I used the large fancy square cutter from Copper Gifts and wrote on the cookie using the technique I showed you in my last post. The flowers were made with blobs of icing that were allowed to dry and then swirls of icing put on top of the blob to mimic roses. The leaves are made with a Wilton #65 tip.

The idea that has been stirring in my head is finally out of my head and on cookies. I absolutely love theme cookies. I'm a dreamer. The passion for me is in the creative process. I love the idea of representing a character, movie or theme without actually making specific characters. For example, one of my favorite sets is the Harry Potter cookies I made for my dad. I wanted to capture the things that I felt represented Harry instead of trying to make Harry himself. I'm looking forward to doing more theme cookies in the future.

You may have noticed that I mentioned Google several times in this post. Google is your friend. There is a vast array of ideas out there to help you when designing cookies. Sometimes I'll know exactly what I want to do with a cookie but other times I'm stumped so I turn to Google and view images to try and get my creative juices flowing. The picture below shows my creative process which changes a lot when I decorate. For example, I was originally going to make a pocket watch but decided to go with a clock instead. Also, my bouquet was going to have drop flowers but that got scratched when I didn't like the way they were looking when I practiced them on parchment paper.

If you have not read this beautiful post by Ali Bee about using inspiration then please do. She says it best.

I hope you enjoyed this idea as much as I do. This collection could easily be changed to "Will You Be My Prince Charming?" if a girl is going to ask a guy to the dance.

Thanks for stopping by! Time to start dreaming again. :)

Writing On A Cookie Using A Kopykake

Have you ever had plans to do something and then everything that could happen that you did not plan on happens? Well that is what always happens to me. I was all set this weekend to work on my first tutorial and then work on a cookie project that's been stirring in my head for weeks. I watched the news Thursday morning and found out that it is supposed to be raining all weekend long. Rain is a cookie decorators worse nightmare because it can pose so many problems with your icing. Thankfully my icing guardian angels were looking out for me and all came out well. Well....all was well until it was time for me to work on my tutorial and it was raining like cats and dogs and thundering up a storm (no pun intended...lol). The lighting in my cookie room was not the best and the sounds not ideal for taping my first cookie decorating video tutorial. Life doesn't always give us rainbows and unicorns so when you're dealt lemons you make lemonade. Rain wasn't about to ruin my plans. I did my tutorial anyway and I must say it wasn't too bad for my first.

I have gotten some positive feedback on my Mickey Mouse cookies that I made for Cristin's cookie challenge. Especially about the writing I did on the cookie.

I thought that showing you how I use my Kopykake to write on cookies would be a great first tutorial. I realize that a Kopykake is not a tool that everyone is going to have but for those considering buying one this may help in your decision. I'm no expert on the Kopykake. I'm simply showing you what I like to do. Here we go. I did a picture tutorial as well as a video tutorial.

I like to outline my words first with a food color pen (in this case I used and AmeriColor Gourmet Writer but I prefer to use Wilton's fine tip food color writers). I like this method best since I cannot pipe directly onto the cookie, when using my Kopykake, because my hand shakes too much and my hand is always getting in the way of where I need to pipe.

This is what the cookie will look like. This method allows you to have more control of your piping since the words are not going anywhere and you don't have to worry about them being covered up by your hand.

I use this technique anytime I'm using my Kopykake. For example, in the Mickey Cookies above I first outlined Mickey on my cookie with a yellow food color marker and then went back over him in black. So what if you don't have a Kopykake? No problem. Use this same technique to write on the cookie in your own handwriting and then simply go over it with your piping icing.

Are you ready to see this technique in action?

Here are the finished cookies. I decorated them with easy flowers and leaves. I simply made blobs of icing on the cookies and let them dry. Then I went back over the blobs with spirals to create a flower. I used a #65 Wilton tip to create the leaves.
A few notes:

I failed to show this in the video but you can use a toothpick or boo-boo stick to get rid of any peaks or imperfections.

In the video I said I normally use the finer tip pens but I should have said that I normally use the extra fine tip writers. The thinner line is easier to cover with icing. I like Wilton's.

My cookie idol Callye of The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle is the queen of cookie inventions and she has amazing tutorials for non-Kopykakers (I made up a word). She has a great video here.

My friend Cristin from Cristin's Cookies has a great video tutorial on the Kopykake. You can see it here.

Also, the amazing Marian of Sweetopia has a great post about the Kopykake as well as great tutorials. You can read her post here and view a video here.

I purchased my Kopykake here.

You can purchase AmeriColor Gourmet Writer's here.

I hope you liked my first tutorial. I plan on doing more tutorials soon. If you have a request for something you would like to see please let me know.

How I Like To Store My Icing Tips

I'm back from my weekend trip and I'm excited to start working on a cookie project that has been stirring in my brain for weeks. Do you daydream about cookies? Well I do. I can be going about my day and all of a sudden random cookie ideas pop in my head. I think I may have a problem. Do you dream about cookies? I do. I wake up some mornings realizing that I dreamt about cookies and what I'd like to try next. Did I mention that I have a problem? Hopefully what is in my head will come out the way I want it to on this next set of cookies.

Anyway, while I'm prepping for my next project I thought I'd share with you how I like to store my icing tips. If you follow LilaLoa then you know that recently she asked for everyone to share how they store their icing colors. I store my icing colors in a toolbox container that I found at The Container Store. Since I store them in my office this toolbox comes in handy to transport my colors to my kitchen when I'm ready to start coloring icing. Of course it's not good for the giant bottles of color but works great for the smaller sized bottles. Now LilaLoa is asking for everyone to show her their cookie cutters but I'm not ready to show those yet. I tend to buy cutters faster than I can organize them so my storage is still a work in progress.

Inspired by her great idea I'm sharing my icing tip storage. It's simply a box that I found in the bead section of Hobby Lobby. I labeled the compartments so I can quickly grab the tip I need. It also holds couplers, tip covers and bag ties. When I first became obsessed with cookie decorating I went crazy and bought supplies like crazy. Honestly, it was a waste of money. The tips I use the most are PME 1.5, PME 2, PME 3, Wilton 2, Wilton 3 and Wilton 4. I like PME tips for details and outlining because of the smooth lines they produce. I like the Wilton tips for flooding. If you're new to cookie decorating start out slow and figure out which tips you like best before you go buy a ton of them. Also, I've learned from other decorators to try and simplify designs by not using too many colors. The more colors you use the more tips you need and the more cleanup you have. Sometimes less is more. It's something I'm working on because I hate cleanup.

There you have it---my icing tip storage. How do you store yours?