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!

Baby Shower Cake and Onesie Cookies!

We finally got to have the baby shower for a couple of CWs after the original date was canceled due to a sick mommy-to-be. Lucky for everyone, she's much better and eagerly awaiting the arrival of their little one who should be coming next week. For me, this meant a busy week, first making up a whole new batch of cookies for favors, then making the cake.

Now, I had a design in mind and let me tell you, in my mind, it was great. 3 tiers, edible image, fondant perfectly done....what I did wasn't even close. Thank goodness for CWs who let you practice your caking skillls on them!

Note to self: when people (especially those taking photography courses,) with actual (good quality) cameras are taking photos of your wares, remember that all of your mistakes will come through bright and clear. Must either get better at cake, cover up mistakes better, or do not allow photos....





Not the I prefer one colored cookie over another or anything but they yellow onesies were the cutest, IMO. C'mon, can you picture a little baby boy wearing a onesie that said "Chicks dig me." How cute is that? The Hula Girlz onesie is a nod to my friend, Hula Muvz who produces the original shirt.

Baby, keys, and shoes are all made out of gumpaste.

Now if you're asking what happened to the 3rd tier, I could say that it exploded into cupcakes but the reality is that the edible image I ordered was not what I was expecting. Oh, the image was correct...it's the way that it looked once it was applied to the fondant that I didn't like. I assumed the background of the image would be sheer but nope. It was very noticeable, like a bandage and not quite the image I was going for. Oh well. I'll figure it out.

Next up, a break! At least for a few days. Heck, maybe I'll even take the weekend of from anything baking related. Yeah, right!

Thank you, Shan, for sharing your great pics!

Baby "Crocs"

I made the cutest little shoes last week. Yes, I made SHOES. Not shoes that anyone would want to wear, but they were pretty darn cute. These shoes were going to be a decoration for a baby shower cake that alas, was not meant to be. Okay, to be fair, the shower will still happen but just not this weekend so that means the cookies favors will be introduced to my trash can since they will not survive - darn my efficient border-line OCD ways!

Anyway, back to the shoes. Thanks to the genius of makatralsy (I know, you're probably thinking "Who??" but it's okay, I know who I'm talking about so just go with it,) I had the cutest pictures to work from. I made a trial shoe and then went to town.

I'd show you the individual pieces of the shoes as they were put together...if I had taken any pics of the process. As it stands, I only managed to take 1 little pic of the process and then some of the completed shoes.

After each piece was added and it had dried, I had the cutest little life-size shoes a baby has never worn.



The shoes are completely edible, but since they are made out of gumpaste, I wouldn't recommend it. Not only are they very hard, it probably wouldn't taste very good. If you'd like to try it, though, I still have the practice one. We'll just have to get you to sign a waiver first clearing me from having to pay for any dental work you may need.

In case you are wondering why orange, I'd love to say the parents are huge Mario Batalli/Iron Chef fans (you know, before the Food Network decided to drop his shows and he left IC,) but really, it's because the parents-to-be haven't found out the baby's gender and I was using trying to stay away from green and yellow. And orange is such a bright, cheery color don't you think? Or it could be my construction wife side coming through again.