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...

a long ride...

or rather, Ryder Long.  the short version of the Long story is that before Ryder was born, angels and doctors worked together to surgically install a life saving shunt.  some weeks later, after many prayers and emails and a few sighs of relief, Ryder was born on Easter, and he was home by Mothers Day.  and he's cute as a button, and everyone is doing very well, and we're all very happy.
after my "Wild Things" project, i realized that the teddy bear shape need not be a bear--it could be a little boy dressed as a bear!  (a little pinch at the top of the ears before baking, and these could be cats!) so i made fuzzy blue teddies with little baby faces peeking out, and detailed them with the edible ink marker.  and they were off to new Mommy Dana and Daddy Josh, with our shower gift.  welcome home little guy, and congratulations to the Long family!
coming soon, i have a massive baby shower order due next week.  and there's talk of a wedding later this summer.  and i probably should make the hubby something pretty for his birthday :) meanwhile, have a good weekend, all...

birthday girls!

the same week i worked on Brenda’s ice cream, i also did a big platter for Shannon, another friend from back-in-the-day.  Shannon was a fellow She-Ra fan, the take-no-crap middle kid between 2 sisters, and the daughter of a mom who called BS and won against a grinch of a vice principal’s no-snow rule that earned 2nd graders Shannon and me an hour of solitary. in jr high i remember her more in the hairsprayed crowd (those bangs!! remember??) and i drifted to the weird girls who went on to shave parts of their heads. i didn’t, but i did have every hair color. 

anyway, before we all went to different high schools and moved away, Shannon lived next door to Paul, who i remember as an energetic, affectionate boy who wrote me love letters when i was 7. i spurned him, only because that’s what girls did on tv.  he gave me a polished rock.  i think i still have it, but it seems smaller every time i find it.  {hey Paul!}  Shannon’s mom and Paul’s mom Jennifer go way back, and Shannon thought Simeren’s hula girls were too cute, and she was delightfully specific about what she wanted for Jennifer's surprise 60th birthday party: little ladies, with shoulder length black hair, wearing her signature shirt, and bell bottoms, and why not bare feet for a flower child look, and daisies like on the invitations, and hearts somewhere for her odds-beating longevity after a long ago heart operation, and her age. [i actually encourage bridezillism, the condition of wanting something as though one’s emotional stability depends on its presense and perfection. no one really goes that nuts, or even close, but it really wrings the details out of someone’s requirements.]

i used the gingerbread girl shape like with the hula girls, but tried to angle the little ladies to look as though they were walking, then turned to their right to strike a little arm pose mid-stride. And those gerber daisy petals were kind of a pain, but they turned out nice and …petally.  and then i dropped them off—after all these years, Shannon and i live about 8 minutes apart. J  thanks lady, and i’ll see you around town!

tiny dancers!

Simeren and i are friends from way back in grade school. the school district's boundaries and personal aspirations meant we weren't always in the same school doing the same thing, but now the whole world is on facebook, so it's like no one went anywhere. way back in 6th grade we were in a particularly strenuous reading class. i mean i was an honor student, and Simeren more so, but this guy liked giving us essay questions, huge vocabulary words, and involved projects. we spent one afternoon at her house making [pre-Disney] Beauty and the Beast stick-and-paper puppets so we could put on a show for a kindergarten class. this was an actual assignment--the kindergarten teacher actually had to sign off that we performed. but our teacher was the fun teacher too, and though i wasn't over-joyed to be on stage, i was pretty content to draw some characters and put them on a stick. we even made a rose with a bobby pin so one character could hand it to another. we were geniuses.
nowadays i'm still at it: Simeren emailed me asking if i could make gluten-free lemon-flavored luau cookies for daughter Ava's 3rd birthday, and can they be cookie pops? the art she sent me (the graphics on the invites etc) inspired hibiscus and hula dancers, so once again Simeren and i are entertaining kids with ladies and flowers on sticks.
i used the gingerbread girl shape, for the skirt or course, but the shape of the arms allowed for her different arm postures. her hair flower is a fondant cut out. i didn't bake the sticks into the pops, otherwise i'd only be able to bake like, 4 at a time, so i taped the stick to the inside of the bag, then slid the cookies in head first and tied them at the feet. then no one had to bite into a stick!
i get nervous when i have to do people shapes, but i always end up liking them. i think i may have to do some witches this fall. also 3 September birthdays are on the way--stay tuned...

black-friday, over the hill, triple birthday weekend

hubby's sister, and other sister's husband, and yours truly, all celebrate birthdays within 4 days at the end of november. somewhere in the haze of turkey and door-busters, we manage to gather at least for lunch. this year Dan turned 40, and Kristi's my age (i'll be vague: younger than Dan), so i whipped up a few purses for Kristi, and Dan got, well, Dan.

these were made with the tombstone and candy corn shapes from a Wilton halloween cookie cutter set. funky graphics were flood icing dots dragged with a toothpick. little snap clasps are dragees. these would be cute with matching shoes. maybe hats and dresses too?

Dan's Dan was made from a pretty-old (80's?) Wilton snowman. at least it said snowman on it; it seems more like Frosty, what with being a biped... anyway, i thought, if i can make a leprechaun with it, why not a different beard, and why not a trumpet in one hand? (yep, he plays, and he's a music teacher.) unfortunately, icing isn't the most flattering medium--Dan's nose isn't flat, for instance. but he is Vegas-sparkly. (chuckle) the treble clefs were black on toothpick-swirled blue and white, and the trumpet valves are tiny gold dragees.

Happy Birthday Dan and Kristi! coming soon, a bridesmaid surprise, a girl's night out, and lotsa Christmas.

happy st. patty's day!

March means St. Patty's Day! this month Eldra got leprechauns, shamrocks, and pots of gold. once again it was adventures in piping (check out those 'jazz hands') and splicing shapes. would you guess that the pot is a cauldron with a doctored circle segment? or that our little friends were made with a cutter labeled 'snowman'? these were fun, and are delicious with green beer!