"shiver me cookies!"

it's talk like a pirate day and i actually have pirate cookies to show you! Karina works with the Hubs and was attending 2 birthday parties, and one was pirate themed.  the parrot is actually an eagle with the beak nudged down a little before baking.  across the top is a crown with the 2 inner points pinched together.  that leaves a mini-bell shaped space right where his ear goes.  and when they all bake together, it makes a little boy with a bird on his shoulder.  the skull and crossbones were prepiped so i could draw the little boney details in edible marker.  awesome.  i mean, "yar, they be awesome."     (high 5!)

the other party was Mickey Mouse themed, and since i don't prefer to do licensed characters, and don't have a Mickey cookie cutter anyway, i offered Mousketeer hats made easily with a large circle cut in half, then 2 smaller circles perched on top.  tada! 

i've always liked doing something besides the character him/herself.  like, if ever i do a Snow White party, i'll bring red apples.  Harry Potter would get white owls.  the cake is usually the showpiece, i bring the little birds and flowers for the background.  it's like... accessorizing!
much thanks to Karina! and happy birthdays to my new little cookie fans.  more on the way, and i just finished more baptism crosses and new-baby birdies. making neat stuff for kids is seriously activating my polar elf genes.  are my freckles sparkling?

a baby blue baptism

hubby's mom's cousin's daughter Michelle had a little sweety boy named Evan.  cute as a button and so little compared to my now-horse-sized 4 year old; they had an adorable round of making 'aaahhhh' faces at each other.  Michelle asked if i could do baptism cookies, any style.  the cousin in that opening sentence is a retired pastor, so i did my homework and consulted a Gospel or two and liked the image when, after Jesus is baptized, the clouds part, which i painted with 2 shades of blue icing and white food coloring, with the "spirit descending like a dove" in edible marker.
the E on the crosses is my new favorite trick. usually one uses a stiffer stencil for cookies or cakes, but i used a floppy wall-painting stencil.  turns out if you nudge a dab of icing over it with a modeling tool and lift, you get a spiffy monogram.  nice for light-on-dark letters, which isn't really doable with the airbrush.  still need more experimenting with the white food coloring, but check back in winter, i have some snowy ideas.
welcome little Evan, and congrats to your family!  stay tuned all, more is on the way.  had them all listed, but this laptop ate my original blog entry draft. boo.  well, now we'll both be surprised. :)

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!

brain freeze!

back in spring (i finally got the pictures off the memory card!), Brenda once again ordered thank-you cookies for her kids’ teachers.  “something summery” has been her yearly request, and this year i did ice cream in wafer and waffle cones, double-stick popsicles, and my new favorite, mini sno-cones. bright sugar was the “sno,” edible markers made nice stripes on the paper cups. thanks again Brenda!

and now updates: if you’ve received my card, resume, or someone’s advice to hire me, i am volunteering to work gosh-forsaken hours in a hairnet for you. and i can make more than cookies, it’s just that pretty and/or pictures is so much fun.  full time is swell, part time is doable too.  {radiant honor-student go-getter smile}

second, in the closing of Trinity Lutheran School and the parting of it’s lingering craft supplies, teacher and hubby Jeff’s Aunt Dahlas has bestowed to me enough cookie cutters to keep me busy for about 11 years.  i don’t just have a cornucopia of cookie cutters, i have a cornucopia-shaped cookie cutter.  i have officially lost count of my collection. the zip lock bags i store them in don’t close, nor do the drawers holding the bags.  thank you, oh thank you, Aunt Dahlas.  :)

third, there will be many pictures.  i’ve had a busy summer and despite a lack of job, computer and 2nd car, i’m not yet beat… sometimes flopping petulantly on the floor in frustration, but i’ve managed to get lots of baking done. i haven’t, though, been able to get the pictures off the camera till now, but you’re in for some nice cookie viewing—as many as 9 posts on the way, including pirates!  Now you know you gotta come back…

a little off-course....

in my networks and follows and forums and likes i came across Lila Loa's contest to turn a gift shape into something that isn't a present.  you can view the entries and winners here.
and finally, belatedly, here is my little creation.  i turned mine upside-down, added a little half circle, made a lovely scene that would have delighted you all... then my computer blew up.  so i didn't get to enter the contest.

so there's that.

i have tons of pictures to show you, by the way.  i did birthdays, a baptism, a bridal shower.... maybe by fall you'll see them!  we have a loner laptop in the meantime, a fine machine that doesn't improve on Taco Bell's wifi's suckiness.  so sorry kids, you'll see these pics as time allows, but please believe me, my head isn't in the clouds. :)  and for the love of all things frosted, if you know of a place near Elgin that needs my mad skillz, EMAIL ME.  i'm going a little crazy being unemployed and cooped up.  meanwhile, have a spectacular summer, you crazy kids...

zoobie zoobie zoooo.....

this is the last batch that i brought to the office, my farewell platter, on my last day.  i said the look i was going for was kinda mid to late 60's, to which Mike brought up Madmen (one of my favoritest) but i had to say hmm, and not quite find the explanation beyond something about sundresses, before someone asked me something else, not that i would have been able to remember what i was going to say as the mention of Madmen got that "Zou Bisou Bisou" song in my head again--  aaggh!!  Mike wasn't too far off though, as, if you follow the show, they're up to late 1966.  i sometimes have to watch an episode 2 or 3 times because i'm so distracted by the look of it.  Don Draper buys the Madison Ave. decor, but in 3 Madmen-years, it'll be the year my parents got married, and all that stuff was on sale by then, or at least imitated cheaply, so every striped pillow or barrel lamp shade reminds me of the eventual equivalent that i grew up with, though it was 15 years old by then.

what i would have said to the Madmen suggestion, had i thought of it then, was that he had the right era, but the wrong show.  in hindsight, i see now that i was imitating a mid-60's Pepe le Pue (Pew?) cartoon, from the Chuck-Jones-as-director category of cartoons.  he did Tom and Jerry too, with the same floppy scribbles, giving you the suggestion of a flower, or a filigreed archway, or a scrollish table leg. it was loose and casual, and the same sloppy-pretty kinds of patterns can be found in all my grandmother's scarves and dresses from about 1966 to 1972.  the colors however, were inspired by what i'm seeing in season now.  all i saw all winter was brown and grey coats.  we need some summer-of-love colors now. amiright?

and this will be my 100th entry, and will likely bring my 10,000th page view. (grins and chair dancing) thanks again for stopping by and liking my silly little cookies. more to come!

leapin' lizards!

if you've been tuning in, my 6 year old Dell blew a fuse, or whatever they do, so i'm blogging from loaned computers, and checking email on a reader with Starbucks wifi.  this would be a non-issue if i were still employed, but the temp job ended and i'm thrown back to the huddled masses and job hunting, and the dreaded tightened budget. le sigh. if anyone out there wants to pre-order for year-round projects, (or is hiring!) please email me. 

meanwhile, here are the "leapin' lizards" i brought to the office on Leap Day.  the "scale" effect was brown airbrushed over a piece of lace (the same lace from the witchy dresses last fall) i thought these little guys were kind of sloppy--crossed eyes, undefined toes, less-than-sharp airbrushing--but everyone's inner kid was mesmerized anyway, pausing because "they're too cute to eat" then eating them anyway.  :)

still on the way are groovy flowers, flying ladies, more purses, a 60th birthday, and a pot of dirt. (you'll see...) also on the way: i intend, at least once, to hold a bake sale for Share Our Strength this summer, with a goal of $3k.  i have math to support this, as long as i can round up 23 like-minded people. doing anything in June?