best lamp ever

Jeff's coworker Rita also has a horse stable, and she and her husband have a boarding business. she suggested we bring the kiddo by some time, and when she held a garage sale, Jeff figured hey, what's keeping us. so we went, Rowan rode a pony named Caramel (i think?), and we saw all the big horses too; Ro kept saying yee-haw. [you bet he was a cowboy for Halloween.]
then back at the garage, and amongst the sale items, i spied her sister's lamp. a spherical iridescent thing of beauty straight out of Rainbow Brite's condo. i have a slight lamp-rescuing-complex. and i had no cash on me. crestfallen, i asked Rita if her sister would take cookies for it. she replied, "tell ya what, i'll buy it for you and you can make me the cookies." then she threw in a 3-piece cowboy cookie cutter set, with a horse, hat and boot. [i thought, "SCORE!"]
and after the afore-blogged white pumpkins and the to-be-blogged wine-glass-encore, i made Rita some cowgirl cookies. there was a also hat cookie, but it was cosmetically damaged, but that's ok because the rest of them were [rootin' tootin' ding-dang!] awesome. my other horse cookie cutter is more toy-like; this one turned out more like the animal. but i still gave it a gold mane and something eye-catching on the butt. [i couldn't help it, there had to be some nod to My Little Pony. i think i had my niece Grace in mind--horse lover, Nancy Sinatra sing-alonger--through this whole project.]
the boot's gold pattern was done by laying a stencil over the dried icing, lightly sketching where the spaces fell with an edible marker, then piping with gold. when just dry, i dusted with gold pearl dust.
and i had been dying to try a wet-on-wet technique and combine it with the black marker to make bandannas. white icing was piped right after the pastel so it flattened together. then when dry, i added the black details. it's more the imitation of a motif, than actual bandanna patterns, but i adore them.
the colors themselves are a result of just finishing with some experimental colors for the church bake sale (chartreuse acorns, and brick-red leaves with blue veins) and while they were drying, i added the previous colors to the new icing plus different ratios of red teal and yellow, resulting in these fabulous kitchen-of-tomorrow, 57-Chevy colors. i wanted to sing "stand by your man."
Rita pointed out the cookies' only flaw: "they all got eaten." i'll have to ponder about a Christmas platter for Jeff to take to work. but coming up, after wine, shoes, hands, acorns, leaves, and tattoos, i'll have fabric patters, bells, poinsettias, ornaments, maybe some frogs? stick around...

Rambo meets Rainbow

i'm doing family birthdays all year, and i did a couple dinosaurs for nephew Andrew (pics coming soon) and will do a couple [something] for niece Grace next month, but s-i-l Heather throws a co-birthday party every summer for both kids, and each year i make a platter for the party. i did ice cream cones in '09, candy in '10, and this year i did 2 kinds for twice the challenge.

these are the same shape as Taylor's ice cream trucks from last month. Andrew first requested army guys, but of my cookie cutters that qualify as "guys," none were really the right size and shape. the gingerbread man shape looks like they would all be doing jumping jacks, which is kind of ok, and the just-standing one i have is a mini. so i asked if i could do another army shape like grenades, and he was fine with changes. in the end it was a convoy with gold stars.

i lamented in my last post that food-writing markers aren't that spectacular, but they seemed to be alright for that tarp thingy on the back of the truck. i don't trust them yet for words and intricate details.

the other side of the plate was "My Little Phonies," the unicorn edition. i did blue and purple ponies 2 years ago, and ponies were requested again this year, but i had to change it up a little. i made the hair more flowing, the candy-butt-picture larger (that's a snowflake and 2 stars, can you tell?) and i went with pearl dust instead of sanding sugar. again, the markers were hit and miss, but once i find sharper ones, i'll be doodlin' all over the place.

both of my "clients" were very pleased with the results, and the party-goers polished them off in less than an hour. i think i'm really starting to like that fact--that i can spend hours decorating cookies, and if i did them right, all you'll have left is pictures and memories.

coming up, Grace's birthday, Mom's birthday, and Ava's non-allergenic luau.

"my little phonies"

i know i said i didn't want to make (or fake!) licensed characters but these weren't for sale, so i'm sure i won't be receiving a cease and desist letter from the my little pony people. :)

these were for my future niece and flower girl's 3rd birthday. (see the slideshow for the lavender version.) and yes i really did draw the whole thing out and color it. i think i spent about 6 hours between planning, rolling, baking and decorating, and the party-goers finished them off in a half hour. (as it should be, they were darn tastey too.)

looking forward to a farm scene one day, these would be just as nice in regular horse colors. i'll have to redraw them to make the feet and face less toy-like. perhaps i'll add a verticle piece and make carousel horses?