Makeover time!

Sooooo, notice anything different around here? Yes, I did get a new hair-do and I lost some weight. Thank you so much for noticing! Unfortunately, it's just my header and blog that were the lucky recipients of a makeover courtesy of Jennifer at TrendyGirlDesigns. The real me is not feeling half as cute as my little chicky up there what with my rapidly expanding bump that is currently home to EB. In case you were wondering we are now heading down the homestretch and have entered the 3rd trimester. I've started another blog for my ramblings on that here.

I am so, so excited for this new look, you have no idea. I have wanted a new look for so long and tried to DIY it but there is just no way. I ended up messing it up even more. But thanks to a busy summer I bit the bullet and hired someone and I am so glad that I did! I want to blog more and more. *Sigh* Just wish I had the energy to do more projects. It's sad really. I have these great ideas in my head (well to me they're great anyway) and I turn the oven on but by the time the oven is ready to go...so am I...to my bed for a nap. LOL

There are a couple of projects coming up though and I'm excited for those. I have baby shower favors to do (for my own shower, YAY! Okay, so not exactly proper etiquette but so? I've had specific containers sitting in a box since May and this is exactly what I bought them for. I'll claim pregnancy hormones if I have too!) I also have some wedding favors to do which will be time consuming since the bride wants them hand painted. Did I mention those are due a month before EB? Yes, I'm a little crazy. Where I'm going to find the energy I just don't know but I couldn't pass it up.

Enjoy the new look! I'll be filling in some of the missing items later. Right now I have to tend to the cappuccino cheesecake I made earlier today. I hear it calling from some ganache and caramel drizzle....

1st birthday luau!

In Hawai`i we celebrate first birthdays like no one else. These tend to be huge affairs rivaling one's wedding with tons of food, entertainment for the kids, musicians for the adults, etc. Crazy, crazy. Let me tell you, I'm already worried about planning my little one's 1st birthday and I've still got about 3 1/2 months left before we even meet the little guy! Lucky for me, this has been a summer of toned down mainland 1st birthday parties so cookie orders were placed for 50 and below (with the exception of the order I'm working on now.)

The ladybugs were done at the same as some really cute Hawai`i themed cookies for a former Hawai`i local now living in Vegas (or what we locals call the "9th Island.") You may remember the baby block cookies that were done earlier this year, well these Hawai`i cookies were done for the hostess of that baby shower. Yay for me that she trusts me and after she said "slippers and coconut trees" she let me run with it. Now you know that I don't like the make cookies the same unless I have too. Like coconut trees. What can you really do to a coconut tree to make them different from one another? The answer? Not much so all of my trees were identical but to dress them up a bit I added an outline and sprinkled some sanding sugar on it.

The slippers were a bit more fun. I wanted to have a pair of slippers and didn't have time to order one (okay, I'm lying. I didn't order it because the one I wanted was copper and I couldn't justify the price. LOL) so once again I hand-cut the cookies and made each cookie a little different from one another.

Yes, people wear camo slippers. I actually have a pair from Michael Kors, believe it or not!

I also busted out that faithful #1 cookie cutter again (which will be getting another workout in a week) and had some fun with them.

My favorite of these has to be the honu (turtles) swimming.

Now that these cookies have been eaten I can share a secret. These cookies went out on the same day and when I packed them up I neglected to notate what order was what and the boxes were all the same. I was really, really worried that I was going to get a phone call/text/email/FB message asking me what the heck happened! Thank goodness the right cookies made it to right party!! I've learned my lesson, I swear! The next time multiple orders go out, I'll mark the boxes, I promise!

Ladybugs!

In addition to Diego and monkeys, I also made ladybugs and Hawaiian themed cookies this summer for 1st birthday parties. First up were the ladybugs for the little lady in Arkansas. Such an adorable little girl! I'm branching out into making tags for cookies as well and it packs so much better than tying them with ribbon! For our little Southern cutie I did some giant ladybugs, okay, well not completely giant. They were 4" x 3.75" and gave them a little heart shaped mouth.

*Side note: In February I bought these teeny tiny mini heart sprinkles from Williams Sonoma. They are seriously the best decoration I could have bought. EVER. Remind me to post pictures of all of the cookies these sprinkles have been used for and I have barely made a dent in the bottle! I am not kidding. You can find these online everywhere. Pick some up. And angled tweezers to place the hears exactly where you want them.

Here are the ladies, all bagged, tagged, beribboned and ready to steal the show! At least until the birthday girl comes along! Just for fun, I added some 1 cookies decorated to match. Fun, right?



Hawaiian themed cookies are up next!

Camden's Circus Cake

Today I completed what will be my last cake for a while. It tired me out more than I expected - heck, you try rolling out enough fondant to cover a cake in between bouts of nausea! But apart from a few air bubbles, the cake actually didn't give me a lot of trouble.

The cake was a circus theme and apart from flavors, I was given free reign so I decided to make the cake a show ring and featured 3 acts - a Dumbo-type elephant, a tiger and seal. Honestly, I loved the little elephant and I so did not want to put him on the cake. I mean, look at him! He is obviously too young to be in the circus because he can't even do his act yet, the poor little guy! He's probably just nervous and he'll be better next time. The tiger and the seal were able to do their acts just fine - they're pros, you know.


For the cake itself I went with bright primary colors. Originally I thought about doing swags of red fondant but having never actually done swags I thought it might be a tad too ambitious and we definitely didn't want it to fall off of the cake so I went with crescent moons, green stars and some sugar animal lay-ons.


You see that big space in the front there? It's still missing a little something. What's a circus without some snacks?? I took a cupcake and piled on some white chocolate ganache and then added some popcorn that I had made out of fondant and then brushed with colored powder. I also made a cupcake wrapper and a popcorn sticker...you know, just in case no one could figure it out.


After everything was put together I think it came out pretty cute. Of course I would have loved to do so much more like a smaller tier for a ring master and maybe some peanuts but I ran out of time and energy. Oh well, maybe I can give it another try later. Or not.

Well, it's time for the circus to head on out of town. They have to get ready for the next gig.

Birthday cookies, oh my!

This summer has been a time of birthday party favors for sure! It started when my sister-in-law asked me to cookies for her 3 children's birthdays. No, she doesn't have triplets, she just decided to ask for all 3 at once. And I thought I liked to plan ahead!

First up was Diego for my nephew. For those of you who don't know who Diego is (like me, I had to google him,) Diego is the cousin of Dora the Explorer (now her I've heard of!) and he take adventures with his baby jaguar which confuses me because I swear jaguars were endangered so shouldn't Nick pick another animal?? What kind of message are they sending here?

Anyway! Here I am thinking this will be easy, he's a popular cartoon character so there's bound to be a cookie cutter somewhere, right? Nope! Then I realize I will have to hand cut this guy. Have you seen Diego? His hair is in points around his head like so:

The cookie could have been made round and then I could have have put Diego onto that but you all know how I feel about the easy way. Besides, then I would have had to use the projector and I just didn't want to do that. So the Craving Sugar solution? Hand-cut them, of course! So here's the finished product, all hand-cut and decorated free-hand, no KopyKake used at all. I'm so proud!


Diego was followed by monkeys for my niece and let me tell you, these cookies were HUGE! As in monster truck huge! I really wanted a cute monkey cutter, and just the face because I think if you have an entire monkey, it's just not as cute. After searching, I finally found a copper cutter that I liked at Copper Gifts.I like Copper Gifts - your order comes with a packet sprinkles that I ended up using on some slipper cookies (to be posted later.) =o)

In all honestly, I did not expect the cookie to be so huge. Yes, I looked at the dimensions before I ordered but it didn't compute in my pregnant brain so it was a shocker! But, the girly monkeys did turn out pretty cute and they all have their own little personality. I think the birthday girl liked them too. (Sorry, picture of the birthday girl not included.)


The next cookie isn't due until November so there's some time to figure that one out. It's Strawberry Shortcake and wouldn't you know it, there's no cutter for that either. And to top it off, there's a made-over Strawberry Shortcake! This will be interesting!

Do I go with the version I grew up seeing? Or the newer, I don't quite recognize her, apart from her hat version?

There are still a few more summer birthday cookies on the way! More later!

A cookie for me!

I have been so quiet lately! It's not that I don't have a lot going on because I do, but it's more the what that has been going on that has kept me quiet the past few months. There's a cookie that I have been waiting to make for a while now and earlier this summer I had the chance to do so. Without further ado, I am pleased to present the cookie that I made for myself! Well, for myself but to be given to other people.


Now I'm not sure how much cookie time I will actually have after baby arrives but I'm still going to try to find the time AND cram as much in as I possibly can now! I will be giving up caking for a while, though. I have one cake that's due next weekend and then I'm wrapping up the fondant. Although now that I think about it, it would be easier to give up the cookies rather than the cake since cookies (a) take up more space and (b) are a lot more time consuming. Hmm, I think pregnancy brain has gotten to me. Better not over-think.
You know, I think I'll eat some B&J's Chunky Monkey and not worry about anything else right now. Back with more updates later!

Wowza, busy month!

This month has been crazy. Really crazy for me! I have been baking and baking since the middle of April and I am happy to have a break! I love baking, really and truly, I do but the dishwasher was being a little vocal about the amount of squeeze bottles and tips on the counter not to mention the lack of space in the apartment.

Here's a quick round-up of May (minus a picture of a birthday cake and the Cinco de Scotty cookies that already had its own post:

I was a little skeptical when I found a cookie cutter for the state of Hawai`i but I have to say, it works! I just need to work on my spacing and we'll be representing the 808!

Cookies for my first corporate customer! The design represents the Core Values of an international company based here in Honolulu.

VROOM!! The monster trucks are rolling in!

These bad boys were made for a special little boy who turned 2! I think this must have been an awesome party with some HUGE (think 5"!) cookie favors! Happy birthday Mr. Nolie!!

Relay for Life cookies for Nolie's mama! She's an awesome woman with a huge heart for others - there really should be more people like her!



Peace cookies for a 5th grade graduation. Most of her classmates got a peace cookie brushed with some luster dust for hippie sparkle, her close friends received a cat cookie with a peace color. Interesting fact - so far, every time I have tried to type "peace" whether here or when emailing back and forth about this cookie, I have typed "peach." Maybe I should buy some peaches....

Well, that's May so far. What's next?

Cinco de Scotty!

Happy Cinco de Scotty! AKA: Cinco de Mayo and Cinco de Boy's Day, in my head anyway.

This weekend a friend of mine is hosting her annual Cinco de Mayo (known as CDS within our group of gals) party and since I can't be there in person, I decided to combine a shipping test with some surprise cookies. I had a small window of opportunity since her party is clear across the country but I was able to jam this out in 24 hours and delivered them to the post office quickly. I'm happy to say that only 2 cookies broke in their journey across the Pacific and the continental US. Of course, 0 is always better but 2 is good.

Horses masquerading as pinatas. Don't knock it, I worked with what I had. You know, pinata cookies are fun to make. You can make that horse any color combo you want, the brighter, the better! Who cares if it looks like the Crayola box exploded?

Beware the mustached hombre...

Have a great party guys! Wish I could be there!

Easter Round Up

Whew! Easter is over, thank goodness. Did the Easter Bunny visit you? I know he was at my friend's home this afternoon. I didn't have my phone on me so I couldn't take a picture but there was an actual photographer there (my husband and I had to take photos with good old EB,) so I may be able to provide some evidence of his existence. In case you are wondering, he wears a purple vest that has eggs embroidered on it.

I have been so busy this past month that it really isn't funny, and I'm not ready for a break yet. I still have 2, possibly 3 projects to complete before mid-May and then I should finally be able to rest my poor Breville for a while. My poor stand mixer (the 2nd mixer in 3 years thanks to my Kitchen Aid Pro Series breaking on me!) has been busy churning out cookie dough, cake batter, frostings, fillings and icing! But, once everything was baked and frosted we had an Easter that made the kids, both young and old, happy.

Cookie pop pot - one of the easiest projects of the week! Bake cookies on a stick, decorate. Buy a pot kit, cover with scrapbook paper. Insert cookies, done!

This Easter Bunny got a little too excited about the candy and fell head first into the barrel!

Bunny ear cookies - these are missing the photo of the finished project. They were bunny cupcakes a la Sugarbelle. Very cute. May have to ask the photographer for that picture.

Decorated chocolate dipped Oreos.

My second foray into disco dust. Still a little unsure about this element.

The Peep family! I don't know about you but mainstream Peeps are not my favorite. Last year I made my own out of homemade marshmallow, this year the cookie version, next year...still unsure.

Let's just ignore these bunnies. They're a little upset right now. I think someone stole their eggs and I'm pretty it's the dude in the candy barrel.

"Please don't decorate me! I'm ready to come out now!"

That's it for now. I'm exhausted and headed to bed. Thank goodness my hubby took pity on me and washed the dishes. Tomorrow we embark on the next project. Wish me luck!

Welcome baby!

Agh!!! I can FINALLY write about this!!! I have been barely holding myself back from blogging about this for weeks. Weeks I said! Today is my friend Andi's baby shower and while I would love to be there, small problem. It's in Vegas. I'm in Honolulu. So since I couldn't be there, I sent cookies. The only problem was that I didn't want her to know what I was doing. Now, I love surprises...when I'm the one doing them. Unless you plan on showing up with a cashier's check for a gazillion dollars, please don't surprise me. I had to avoid her for a few weeks lest I slip and either hint as to what I was doing or just come right out and say it.

You may ask yourself how I managed to do this and the answer is easy. I managed to use my cyberskills *insert eye roll here* to contact the person hosting the shower (thank goodness for Facebook!) and asked about sending cookies for the party. I think it helped that Andi asked me to do bring some cookies to Vegas last summer to celebrate the hostess' baby. Once we agreed that I would be able to participate, in my typical fashion, I'm steamrolled my way into a design and didn't ask for any one's opinion.

I had seen the cutest baby cookies on Amanda's blog at I Am Baker and I had been waiting for an occasion to make them. Since Andi doesn't know what she is having, I thought this was the perfect opportunity. The invite was polka dots and the decor was blocks so I decided to combine all 3. I didn't have a block cookie cutter but since it was less than 3 dozen cookies and went ahead and hand-cut them. It's a little crazy but if you think about, the cookie was straight lines so it was easy to do.

I'm so glad I took a picture of the cookie with straight lines!

Once baked I added lines to notate the sides of the block and flooded the cookie. Once that was dry, it was really time to have fun. I didn't do any a lot of wet-on-wet with these cookies but I did incorporate lay-ons, my poor un-used food color pens, and disco dust. Somehow my orange dust seemed larger than the blue and green so I didn't care for that much. I am making some dragonflies this weekend though so the blue and green dusts are getting another workout.

Half of the babies were girls so I used teeny tiny hearts to make bows. I used a pair of white hearts for one cookie...it turned out too much like Pebbles from the Flintstones for me.

Now, I dislike tying ribbon on bags but since I wanted to send these 100% complete, I found polka dot ribbon started to cut them, and wouldn't you know it, I didn't have enough ribbon! These guys had to go out the following day in order to make it to Vegas in time but I REALLY didn't want to go back out. I ended up kicking my husband off of the computer (it's okay, he was only playing Bejeweled) and trying to figure out how to make a cute tag that would tie in.

Now, here's where those cyber-stalker skills came in handy again. Andi had painted a mural onto her nursery wall and posted a pic of it. I copied the pic, pasted into Word and added a text box. Tags complete! Look at me - I can work in IT. Not. I'm happy to say that each cookie arrived safely thanks to self-sticking bubble wrap. The next time I ship cookies I am definitely using that again!

Yes, that's one of those school paper cutters. Doesn't every home have one?

Congratulations Andi & Doug! I hope you had a fantastic shower! And if you happen to see this on FB before you find out the cookies are from me, you never saw this!

Amanda from I Am Baker, thanks for sharing your great idea!

Cookies and a good-bye

Last week was a sad week. We laid to rest a man who, is his 92 years on this earth experienced things that many of us have only read about. A man without whom I would need not be married to a man that I love deeply and who infuriates me every day [=o) ] We laid Grandpa C. to rest one week ago yesterday and while it was sad to see him go, we rejoiced knowing that he made it to 92. Quite a feat! (He passed the day after his birthday.) And before he left, he managed to see most of his family and have good moments when he knew who everyone was.

Grandpa C. was a sailor who was stationed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. I can't even imagine what that must have been like for him. The things that he must have seen and experienced could be Lifetime movie material. An avid golfer, even at 91 he worked part-time at a golf course so that he could golf for free and he instilled that love of golf into his sons who, in turn, instilled it into their sons. My hubby is of course, the best golfer of the bunch.

For Grandpa's service, my sister-in-law asked me to make some cookies to celebrate that love of golf I'll be honest - when I first heard the request I started to think "what the heck?" I had never heard of anyone doing decorated cookies for a funeral. But my husband assured me that it was something that Grandpa would have liked since Grandpa had a sweet tooth.

I decided on 3 designs of cookies, all related to golf in an almond sugar cookie frosted with RI. I know the cookies were a hit with the church ladies and the kids but for me, the true test was with my father-in-law. I never saw him eat a cookie but after the services he walked around the guests with the last of the cookies, making sure that everyone saw them and got a cookie. I have to say, that form of appreciation is almost good enough for me.

Since golf is such a huge part of my in-laws lives I had to go slow with these cookies. Each step that I made, I was sure to check with the hubby, lest I commit some horrible golf faux pas from which no one would ever recover.

First up was the all important golf bag. While most of them have black golf bags, I just couldn't stand that though of having such dark toned cookies at a funeral so I went with blue. Nice and bright - and it would go well with the next cookie. After the flooded cookie had dried, I added some detail including the d-ring, a "zipper" and pockets. Each golf bag had a slightly different set of golf clubs that I piped in stiff RI. Since I would have had to go back and create lines in the club heads (don't ask what the lines are for. The hubby's clubs have them. I looked.) I decided to take the easy way out and just use the stiff icing and voila! Lines!


Cookie number 2 was a golf scene and I truly wish I had taken more pictures of these cookies. While the cookie below just has a lone tree, some cookies had sand traps and water hazards! After this design had been flooded with the blue, I added clouds, then flooded with the green, and added the hole. Once the cookie dried, added the flag and pole for a 3-d effect. I was planning on numbering the holes but those flags were small! Oh well, best intentions and all that.


The final cookie in theory, should have been the easiest. It was a flipping golf ball for crying out loud! But no, it wasn't. I went through trial and error with this one. I cold have used MMF which would have been the easiest way to go and would have held dimples very well. But, I wanted to continue using RI so I blew through half a dozen cookies trying to find the best way. I don't know if my process was the right way, but it got the job done.


While I still can't believe I did cookies for a funeral, in the end, I'm glad I did them because in my heart, I know that Grandpa would have enjoyed them.

Year of the Rabbit

Tomorrow marks a new year - the year of the rabbit! Rabbit people are calm, conservative, detail-oriented, graceful...things that I am not. They also tend to get along extremely well with others. Again, something I do not do. Thank goodness I was born in the year of the horse. Horse people are impatient, rarely listen to advice, good with their hands, and have contradictions in their character. Yup, that pretty much describes me. As my husband and he will definitely agree.

To celebrate the Chinese New Year I decided to try a new medium - wafer paper. The paper is easy to use. Since I don't have a printer to print edible images I went ahead and purchased paper that already had the images printed on them. To use, just cut your paper to the desired size, brush a thin coat of corn syrup onto your frosted (either RI or fondant will work) cookie, and placed the paper onto the cookie. Turn the cookie image down for 30 minutes, then turn over and allow to dry completely for 12 hours. That's it! Once the cookie has dried you can embellish the cookie by adding decorations - maybe more icing, sugar pearls, really, whatever strikes you.

Why yes, that is a little cookie easel!

Once it's complete you have cookies that look like you slaved over them for hours!


Kung Hee Fat Choy! (That's happy new year.)