My Cookie Cutter Collection

Seven hundred seventy six {776}. There I said it. This is the number of cookie cutters that I own. I feel like an addict admitting to an addiction. Why do I feel ashamed to say it? I know my collection is not as vast as other decorators but it still feels like I own a lot and I should be ashamed. My collection is stored in a plethora {you like that--Three Amigos baby} of storage containers. I like to try out different containers until I find what I like. I really like the scrapbook containers but they don't have a lot of depth to them. My recent faves are the three large ones at the bottom with the purple closures. I wish I had a fancier set up but what I have works for me. I bought the shelf at Ikea for plants I had on my patio but since I have a black thumb it ended up getting cleaned and spray painted and became my cookie cutter shelf.

When I recently posted a picture of my cookie cutter collection on Facebook I got asked what categories I had for my cutters. I decided it would be a good blog post so here are the categories.

There really is no rhyme or reason to how I label my cutters. I just put them into categories that I feel will be easy for me to access a cutter when I need it. Some cutters could be in a couple of categories but I just put them where I think they fit best. For example, a heart cutter is a shape but it obviously fits into the category Valentine's better. Another example is a cupcake cutter. A cupcake could fit into the food category but I have it in the birthdays one because I just associate cupcakes with birthdays. 

Do you like my Halloween overflow? You can't even see it but there is a small container behind the Christmas overflow. It's so funny because I don't even like Halloween. I don't know how I ended up with so many Halloween cutters. Maybe this year I will make some Halloween cookies. Last year I made some pumpkins  & jack o' lanterns for one of my husband's co-workers but that was the extent of my Halloween decorating. Oh yeah I also made some cupcakes for a Halloween party I went to.

Anywho, back to the cutters. What it boils down to is that you should label your cutters not how someone else does but how you want them. You will be the one accessing the cutters and they need to fit into a category where you can easily locate them.

Mostly all of my cutters are plastic or tin but I do own a few copper ones. Thirty five to be exact. Some of them are old cutters my mom gave me. I'm not even sure if they are real copper but they are copper colored so I counted them as copper. Some I have been lucky enough to win in giveaways, some I purchased at Sur la Table and the rest I purchased from Copper Gifts and ecrandal. I love the quality of the cutters from both of these companies. I really treasure the copper cutters I have because my budget does not allow me to purchase many.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my collection. I would love to know what your number is.

Have a great week everyone!

A Personal Story

I'm not one of those bloggers that starts off posts by being witty and telling stories about themself, their husband or their kids. I love those bloggers and I love how they can so easily share their lives with the world. I'm more of a technical blogger. I get down to the nitty gritty and tell you about what I'm making and how I made it. I'm a private person.

Today I want to break away from the technical cookie side of myself and get to the private and personal side. I want to share with you a struggle that I have had in my life for nearly two years now. I have been suffering from chronic pain off and on for almost two years. The main source of my pain is in my right wrist which is my dominant hand but I also get pains in other parts of my body off and on. The wrist pain is pretty much constant and that may be due to the fact that I type all day at my full-time job so it doesn't get much rest.

I began a quest almost a year and a half ago to find out what was causing my pain. Naturally, given the line of work I'm in, I immediately thought I had carpal tunnel. I went through all the testing only to be told that I did not have carpal tunnel. My x-rays showed some inflammation so they referred me to a rheumatologist. I had several blood tests but they all came back negative. I was told that I had immflamatory arthritis and was given pills to treat it. After taking the pills for several weeks I began to feel even worse than I did when I went in. I was experiencing pains all over my body as well as dizziness, nausea and brain fog. I decided to stop taking the medication and go see my doctor. I believed that I was having an allergic reaction to the medication. The doctor said that I wasn't allergic to the medication. She said it was just symptoms of my disease and she switched me to another medication. Again, I started to feel really sick on this new medication. I decided to stop taking the medication and see a new doctor.

I really liked the new doctor because he never prescribed me any medication. He said that he did not prescribe medication unless he knew what he was treating a person for. This was fine with me because I hate taking medication. I don't even like to take Advil. I went through so many rounds of tests to only be told that I was a mystery. It appeared that I had symptoms of an autoimmune disorder but no test could confirm it. I saw this doctor for about a year and spent a hefty amount of money having tests done. It seemed that he was very content to have me come in every few months for the same blood tests. I also had x-rays, a couple of wrist MRI's and a cortisone injection in my wrist done with this doctor. I finally had to decide that enough was enough and move on. I couldn't justify going to a doctor anymore who was testing me over and over for the same thing with no positive results and no answers. I refused to be bled dry anymore, literally.

I decided to go see a pain specialist that is a client of my husband. After ten minutes of talking to him and explaining everything that had been done and said by other doctors he said that he was willing to put money on it that the problem was in my neck. He ordered an MRI and sure enough I have bulging/herniated discs in my neck. We decided to go with an epidural injection in the neck to see if the discs were indeed the cause of my wrist pain.

This past week I went in for the injection and by that afternoon the pain in my wrist was about 90% gone. The next day I was on cloud nine. I felt great and my pain was nearly 95% gone. A miracle. I finally found the right doctor and I was going to be pain free. So I thought. Sadly pain has started returning to my wrist and it scares me. I want to feel that euphoric feeling again. I want to know what it's like to not have pain and have full mobility of my hand again. I was so excited because I was dreaming up all the future blog posts and cookies I was going to work on.

I do feel that I am finally with the right doctor because he is the only one that had a theory that had a test to back it up. Also, the injection worked but it seems to be wearing off so there may be some tweaking that needs to be done. I have faith that this doctor will help me get to a place where I can live my life without experiencing constant pain. I feel that I am on the right track. I'm also trying to be patient and not panic. There's a chance that my body is still adjusting to the treatment and it may work.

I wanted to share this story with you not for sympathy but as a message to say that whatever is going on in your life, whether it's medical or not, don't give up. If you're not satisfied or you're not getting answers keep searching.

When I discovered cookie decorating in early 2011 I had no idea that it would become such a labor of love for me. Pretty much all the cookies, cakes and cupcakes you see on this blog have been decorated when I was having some sort of pain. I absolutely love what I do and I don't want to give it up.

I get asked a lot if I take orders and the answer is no. I will occasionally do an order for a family member or a close friend but rarely. I had to give up taking orders because I just never know when I'm going to be feeling bad and I don't want an order looming over my head if I'm not feeling well. These days I prefer to bake cookies for fun and teach people what I learn along the way on my journey. Baking for fun is less stressful because it allows me to do it on my time with no pressure of a deadline.

I'm not giving up on my quest to be pain free and with this new doctor I am hopeful that it will happen very soon. I'm dreaming of all the things I want to do when I feel good again.

Zombie Cookies {Video Tutorial}

Sunday was our friend Josh's birthday. My husband & his guy friends are pretty obsessed with zombies so my husband found this zombie cookie jar to give him.

Of course since I make cookies I knew that I needed to make matching cookies to go in the jar.

This is the box the jar comes in

You can see how I made these zombie cookies here:

I would like to thank my friend Stephanie from Ellie's Bites Decorated Cookies for encouraging me to try using paper cut out templates to make the face instead of my Kopykake.

1000+ Facebook Fans Giveaway {Closed}

This giveaway is now closed:

Congratulations to the winner Tami Tanzyus Mudd! Check your inbox for an email from me :)

It seems like only a couple of weeks ago I reached 1000 Facebook fans. I started thinking about a giveaway and then time got away from me. I am now at 1401 fans. Wow! I'm so humbled by all this. I started my Facebook page in January of this year and in only 7 months I have over 1400 fans. It's just unreal to me and overwhelming all at the same time.

I started my blog as a way for my family and friends to see what I was doing and for me to grow as a decorator. I didn't think that people would actually start following me. I work full-time and sometimes it's hard for me to juggle work, my blog, my Facebook page, comments, emails and everything else that goes on in my day to day life. Please know that I appreciate all of your comments and your emails and I do my best to answer them all.

I really struggled with deciding what to do for this giveaway because my past giveaways were only open to U.S. residents. I hate to exclude my international fans. I thought about contacting vendors to donate to my giveaway but it's not in my nature to ask for favors. In the end I decided to do what I'm comfortable with and that is to giveaway things that I have purchased myself. So unfortunately this giveaway is going to be open to U.S. residents again because international shipping is just outrageous. I'm sorry. I will try to do something that includes internationl fans in the future.

Another great milestone that happened is that I have reached over 100,000 page views on my blog. I'm at 117,275 to be exact. This is so crazy considering that my blog is not even a year old yet. I started this blog in October of 2011.

Okay enough talk about my milestones. Let's get on with the giveaway.

One lucky person will be winning:

A 16 oz bag of my favorite meringue powder, a bottle of Lorann Princess Cake & Cookie bakery emulsion (I like to use this flavor on occasion) and a silicone spatula from Wilton.

Wilton's Disney fairies, Disney princesses, Toy Story and Cars cutters. Also, a neat cupcake cutter set that I picked up at Walmart.

Finally, probably my favorite of all are these sets of cutters that I picked up at Ikea. They are just too cute.

To enter the giveaway you must be a U.S. resident.

All you have to do is answer the questions on the Rafflecopter widget to enter. That's it! Keeping it plain and simple.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Inspiration Challenge: August {Staying Cool}

It's time for another inspiration challenge for Stephanie {Ellie's Bites Decorated Cookies} and myself. This month's theme is "staying cool". How do you like to stay cool in the hot summer months?

I'll have to admit that I originally had planned to try & do something over the top but due to time constraints and life stuff I had to think easy this month. I decided to get my inspiration from my childhood. I grew up in south Texas {the Rio Grande Valley} and my favorite way to stay cool was with raspas. You probably know them as snow cones or Hawaiian shaved ice. If you're from Texas or have ever visited Texas then I don't have to tell you how hot it gets. Temperatures in the 100's are a given. Once when we were little we cooked an egg on the street.

When my parents or my aunt {who I was super attached to when I was little} would say "let's get raspas" I was over the moon. My favorite flavor was & still is blue coconut. I also love cherry, lime and rainbow. Yum! I've had some raspas here in Houston that are pretty good but there is nothing like the ones in my hometown.

If there was a challenge about these cookies it is that I hand cut them & I just hate hand cutting cookies. I've seen snow cone cookies before but the ones I've seen are made with an ice cream cone cutter. Mine needed to be in a styrofoam cup because that's the only way I've ever had raspas.

Look at that beautiful peak. Yum!

It's time to show you how I made my cookies. First, I found an image of a styrofoam cup and printed it out on card stock. I printed it large enough to fit my kiss cutter.

I hand cut the styrofoam cups and used the kiss cutter to cut a notch out of the top of the cup.

Then, I cut my kiss shapes and placed them in the spot I made. After the cookies were baked I outlined the cup with white piping icing and allowed the outline to dry.

I filled the main portion of the cup and allowed this to dry for about an hour. Next, I filled the lip portion on the cup and allowed the cookies to dry overnight.

For the rainbow snow cone I used edible markers to mark where my different colors would go. I used about a 15 second icing to flood the sections and then immediately covered it with white sanding sugar.

I love how the sanding sugar gives the look of ice. 

So there you have it. My favorite way to stay cool when it's hot is with an ice cold raspa {snow cone}.

Be sure to check out Stephanie's awesome "staying cool" cookies here. I love them! They bring back fond memories of my childhood. It's amazing how two people can take one theme and come up with such different designs.

Now it's your turn to show us your "staying cool" cookies. They can be cookies you've done in the past.

Next month the theme is "Pirates". I kept seeing a commercial on TV saying that September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day so I looked it up and sure enough it was. Get ready in September to show us your pirate cookies. Arrrgh! Lol!

Thanks for stopping by and happy baking!