Friday, December 27, 2013

Christmas, in case you missed us...

these were available at the store in December.  stop in during January, snowmen are on the way!

some airbrushed patterns inspired by wrapping paper...

some gingerbread...

scotties dressed for the cold...

and the first winner of the November raffle, Beth, requested some reindeer.

thank you all, and i hope your holidays were merry, happy, joyous, festive, and safe.  drop in again soon for some baby stuff, coming soon...


Sunday, December 22, 2013

winter break


real quick, cause i gotta catch a train, (i blog on the run) here's what i brought to share at the kiddo's kindergarten Christmas party.  or holiday party.  whatever they call it, that's for another blog to sort out.  anyway, the rule is no homemade stuff, but i cleared it with the higher-ups, that if i made them at work, it's cool. 
the kids got airbrushed gift boxes with red or white bows, and for the teacher and helpers, and the other folks helping my little guy with his energy surplus and language skills, some pinwheel stars. 
merry everything to you, kiddos and educators!  and coming soon, all the other Christmas goodies i've been up to.  now off to that train...

Friday, December 13, 2013

making nice

i walked into someone's bad mood, and she flipped my bad mood switch, and it was 7th grade for 3 hours.  so i baked cookies.  the card read "let's have some wine and bury the hatchet."  yeah, i said it with cookies.
i'm a dork.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

lil tweeters

Mary Jo needed 3 dozen little birdies to match the invitations for the baby shower she was hosting for Nara, new mommy to Aliyah.  the artwork featured little tear-drop-shaped birds, so i used my largest tear-drop-shaped leaf.  being not-quite full sized, i made a few extra. pink sugar in 2 tones made them girly and fuzzy and sweet.  congrats to mommy and baby, and thank you Mary Jo! 
and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.  see you all next week!

Friday, November 22, 2013

Baking Dead

cookie-superfan Wendy asked for cookies for her kiddo Mike who's turning 14 and is a fan of zombies.  who isn't?  i'm glued to The Walking Dead every week, then watch each episode on demand a few more times.  hubby even got me a t-shirt.  and after making dozens of undead hands reaching out of the grave, it was time for some full-corpse, brain-eating action.  i used the same dryer-icing dead flesh technique, drew the exposed skull with edible marker, and painted blood drool with watered down red gel food coloring.  they're cute in a way.  and gross.  :)
happy birthday Mike!  and thanks to Wendy for the challenge.  on the way, lil' birdies...

thankful cookies

i did about 4 dozen Thanksgiving themed cookies for The Meet Market.  fall-colored stripes, sunflowers, 2-toned airbrushed apples, metallic indian corn, and handprint turkeys.  lets hope they sell out, i have about 5 more designs i want to try!  come on in and pick up a few--share with your friends and tell 'em thanks.  in addition, if you fill out the tag attached to each bag with your name and contact information, you'll be entered to win one of 3 dozen holiday cookies in December.  lucky winners will be drawn at the annual Community Thanksgiving Dinner in Elgin.  (can't wait!)
stick around for zombies and little birdies, and then we're on to Christmas...

Friday, November 8, 2013

... and a learner's permit soon...

Mychal is 5!  mommy Monica had us all over to play at Legoland, and though the kiddo and i had to leave before the candles and cake, we wouldn't have shown up without a plate of cookies.  the cake featured Lightning McQueen, so i went with silver, with bold Ms and 5s, and a ring of black and white that (hopefully) reminded one of checkered flags.  Happy Birthday Mychal!

Thursday, October 31, 2013

great pumpkins



boss Candice has a younger sister Sandra who requested pumpkin cookies for her kiddos’ Halloween parties at school.  i have about 14 different pumpkin shapes, but these 2 are my new favorites.
i’ve become unsatisfied with just flat orange pumpkins, and even flat orange with lines suggesting the vertical segments, so when i ice pumpkins i fill in every other segment, and when they’re dry, i go back and fill in the rest, and you get those nice wedges.  my other neat trick was adding black to my leftover orange to get brown for the stems, then adding the leftover brown to the green making a mossy hue for the leaves.  nothing wasted.  green edible ink markers finished off the details, and each got a little favor bag.  
 thank you Sandra, and happy Halloween to all!  coming next week, Michael’s 5th birthday, and not long after, i’m thinking about mustaches.  yeah.

Monday, October 28, 2013

*boneless recipe

happy Halloween early!  this week at the Meet Market, pick up some spooky skulls and chocolate chip cookies with your soup'n'sammiches.  and stay tuned for some fat lil' pumpkins.

boo!

Monday, October 21, 2013

...and more leaves...

so this is probably the first time i posted pictures on facebook, then waited a few hours to write about them here.  gotta get the word out!  on sale now at The Meet Market, cute little trees, and matching brownie pops.  and my spidey sense says there will be chocolate chip cookies later this week.  so come on in for lunch!
and later this month, definitely pumpkins, and i'm thinking some skulls too.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

furry friends

the Greater Chicago Ferret Association held its 25th annual "Greatest Ferret Show on Earth" last week, and i was asked by hubby's cousin, ferret enthusiast, and all-around animal-lover Jessica to provide some cookies for the event.  as i don't have a ferret cookie cutter (about 800 and no ferret!) i took one of my (Disney) Pocahontas cutters and lopped off the top of her head just over the ear, then added the little rectangle and like magic, it provided the outline of one of our furry honorees peering over a little sign noting the anniversary.  a good start, and Karin who took delivery of them said they were lovely, but i had a variety of icing problems with this batch.  i'll let it be, and go with her good opinion... :) 
i was talking about this order at work and the response was "ferret cookies?"  yup.  you just never know who's going to throw a party.  so don't be shy about needing something odd.  being odd myself, i'll always be up for it.
coming soon, an as-yet-undecided batch for the restaurant.  ghosts?  pumpkins?  hmm....

Thursday, October 10, 2013

beautiful day In The Neighborhood

and here it is.  a quick little project stuck into a week busy with catering, made in less space than my hobbit kitchen because there's a whole restaurant happening around me.  i'm tickled pink.  after much searching, i've found a little place that's only 12 minutes away (or an hour if i take the bike path on a warm day), that was looking for a baker of interesting treats. 
In The Neighborhood "Meet Market" is a darling little place in E. Dundee, IL serving deli sandwiches, homemade soups and salads, and cookies (and more things to come) from yours truly.  it's the sister location to the deli in Elgin, and the cafe at the library.  beyond the restaurant, In The Neighborhood caters (with more than sandwiches), and twice a year they organize a community dinner in Elgin.  all the sandwiches are named after local landmarks, and served on vintage mismatched dinnerware that'll remind you of your mom's kitchen back in the 70s and 80s.  the music spans from "rock around the clock" to "don't stop believin'."  the floor is reclaimed wood.  my bosses wear jeans and t-shirts.  and for as relaxed as i feel working here [seriously, parked at a desk doing spreadsheets would have killed me, eventually] i feel compelled to throw my refreshed work-ethic headfirst into making this place a hit.  so throw a party and call them, huh?  put me to work!
the cookies, by the way, were iced with yellow, then airbrushed with red while the icing was still wet, doing that nice mottled look again.  then some gold dust and edible ink leaves.  now they're hanging out with chocolate chip bars and potato chip cookies.  mmmmm.....

Thursday, October 3, 2013

turning leaves

my coworker at The Meet Market brought in some cookies from another establishment.  they were swirly fall leaves with the veins drawn in.  (they looked all right, but i take issue with the recipe.) i felt i had to participate in the making of fall cookies, so i brought these in to share.  just simple leaves, but with a blast of burgundy or red with the airbrush, then a quick sketch of veins.  i like how the watered-down food coloring sometimes makes a splotchy effect--leaves are never evenly dappled, and it looks so water-colorish.  (while they were drying i went to the craft store, and a leaf just like the larger green/burgundy one was lying next to my car.  nice.)
the cookie dough for something decorated is currently in the cooler and i welcome your suggestions for my inaugural, in-house, professional batch of decorated cookies to sell to the public.  more leaves?  pumpkins?  oh the Halloween ideas...  and when i get them made, i'll be sure to tell you all about the place.  for now i'm a mom on the go, and i have to post this quick, and meanwhile you can head over there and sample my banana bread (no nuts) and oatmeal/raisin/date cookies (with and without nuts).  yum.  go, eat, be merry!  and coming soon, ferrets!

Saturday, September 14, 2013

WAR IS OVER!



the title of this post refers to John Lennon’s assertion that all we’d have to do is declare peace on all the front pages and billboards of the world, and we would collectively experience a paradigm shift—that by believing it were possible, it wouldn’t be too far behind to simply make it so.  food for thought.
the next biggest paradigm shift i can think of is becoming a parent.  you think you know people, try making one!  it’s a daily reality check, and Jon and Cassie are joining the club.  Cassie’s cousin Lisa commissioned me to create baby shower cookies based on John Lennon’s baby animal drawings.  it was the much-loved motif at her own shower, and they wanted to revive that same charm.
while i couldn’t copy Lennon’s nuanced doodles, and though i was constrained by the shape of my cutters and the late summer humidity, they still turned out to be cute little animals, sketched on bright pastels with an edible marker.  many thanks to Lisa, and many more congrats to the parents-to-be! 

and i got a Star-Wars something coming up—yay!

Monday, August 26, 2013

i do... want cookies...

a bride to be liked some cookies similar to these, and i did my best to recreate their features on a dozen for a shower, and i hope the original artist won't hold it against me, but they were pretty, and my pleasure to make, and i came up with a great new technique for making uniform hearts:  sponge food coloring onto the back of a metal mini heart shaped cutter, and stamp the cookie.  i did the same with the square outline and got nice even lines and duplicated the shape each time. awesome.  Congrats and thank you!
coming up, info on the opening of the ITN "Meet Market," a baby shower, a birthday, and some yummy bugs...

Monday, August 19, 2013

super readers, super stars


The Gail Borden Library’s “Read on the Wild Side” challenge is to log 100,000 reading hours as a community.  (the program’s name is a hat-tip to the library’s “SuperCroc” exhibit—that thing is flippin’ huge!)  through the library’s Gold Star Program , youth programs and organizations, schools, parks and recreation and daycares etc, that serve kids can become “gold star partners” by agreeing to sign up children for the program and to measure and record the time kids spend reading.

In The Neighborhood (ITN Fresh is the little café in the library) catered the event recognizing these star readers, and i, INT’s new employee, made these star cookies.  (more info on the job later, the E. Dundee location isn’t open yet, but i’ll be there on my new adventure.)  i have many pounds of respect to heap on people that help kids read, so this project had to be pretty.  gold icing and gold pearl dust was the backdrop for subtle scattered airbrushed stars in a darker gold.  i’m looking forward to more library-centric projects for the cafe, and would love all your suggestions.  i’m already daydreaming about children’s book characters, harvest season fruits and foliage, sci-fi, Halloween…   

congrats and thanks to the Gold Star Partners, and stay tuned for my version of John Lennon’s baby art.  i’m seeing little giraffes in my future.