Christmas in July!

i know all the cookie greats are beginning their holiday dazzlement now--what you'll see in this season's catalogs, magazines, how-to shows, and high-end bakeries, is coming together in crazy minds like mine, and prototypes are being baked in this terrible heat. yes, we suffer for our craft. :)
my yearly Christmas-cookie-night with Mom is incomplete without some Perry Como playing in the background. the first track on the perennial set list is a reading of "The Night Before Christmas," with all the glitzy, yet cartoon-like, big band accompaniment. it's actually one of my favorite poems, and if i could cookie-tize the whole piece i would, but here's one scene, when "away they all flew like the down of a thistle."


a little zooming in, and you have "the luster of mid-day to objects below" (i did those buttons with a toothpick!)
i think i'll make this one my family's 2010 Christmas card. then again, i have a growing list of holiday imagery that i want to try. maybe i'll make a whole set of cards...
coming soon, a nursery classic, candy, and bride's-to-be and their love of purple.

speaking of frogs...

Brenda wondered if i could help her out with her some thank-you cookies for her daughters' teachers. 'something for summer' with frogs and fishing specified. after falling in love with how i make frogs (see the previous post below) i was happy to do another round of froggies. plus the fish, some leaves with a little beetle, orange monarchs, daisies, and my other favorite, strawberries. Brenda reports that all feedback was positive.
"my work here is done," i said as i shook hands with the townspeople and rode into the sunset... but there i was being narrative again. no, Brenda's cookies didn't end there. these cookies were characters and scenery meant to evoke feelings of summer at the lake. while in parts, they're adorable cookies. when en scene, they're quite a little picture, worth a thousand words. so i baked a handful of extras and made another scene, like "planet cookie" ...maybe "cookie lake"?

i enjoy making these. if i did it for a living, i'd make one every 3 days. i probably could with the ideas that keep popping up in my head. the current one in progress will be for christmas. the next one... suggestions? perhaps something literary. i'll daydream on it.

voyage to planet cookie!

i thought i'd give my little cuties some context--enter styrofoam and a box of fondant. this reminds me of how i used to play with my Barbie dolls: i wouldnt "play" with them, like role playing, and situation crafting. i would just set up the furniture, add a few household knicknacks (an 8 inch ceramic tucan made a heckuva Barbie livingroom floor sculpture), pose the dolls in the space, then sit with my nose level to the coffee table and admire the little scene. for a while i wanted to make sets and aliens for star trek (really!) but they use latex, not sugar...

happy halloween!!

here's one idea i had for cookies-as art. propping the darn things up was challenging, i think next time i'll resize them and lay them flat. raise your hand if you'd like to see more in a picture book :)













and here are eldra's 3 designs for october. more later, as i hafta run to a halloween party (you betcha i'm bringing cookies!) but i just loooved making the little bones and corn kernels. piping is awesome.