Mexican Sunflowers

Late in the summer Gracie and I planted some seeds, including these Mexican Sunflowers.

The plants grew and grew and grew, taller and taller and taller. FINALLY, they formed some buds about a week ago, and we have one small flower. It's way at the top of the tallest plant. Do you see that speck of orange near the top of the photo? That's it!

Here's a close-up. This isn't quite the festive display I was hoping for, but I'm happy we have a bloom!

The 8th Wedding Anniversary is Bronze

The traditional gift for the 8th wedding anniversary is bronze. I considered a lot of ideas but nothing seemed quite right until I decided on the simple and logical gift of cookies!

I still wanted something bronze, so I painted the lid of a jar.

I don't know that I'd call it bronze but it looks nice! I filled the jar with lemon poppyseed cookies in the shape of the number 8.

The letter S is for hanging on the wall, also in a bronze finish.

Happy 8th Anniversary to my Sweetie!

Spring Flower Photographs

A bit of spring color from the park...

 And our garden.

Ginger Snap Pogens

Do you remember Ginger Snap Pogens?

When I was growing up in Southern California in the 70s and 80s, these were a delicious store-bought treat. They were thin, crisp, and spicy, and in the shape of animals with minimal detail, often just an eye poked into the dough.

I made these using this Pogens Gingersnaps Recipe with a few variations. I added 1/2 cup flour, chilled the dough, rolled it to 1/8" and cut shapes with cookie cutters.

I love the simplicity of these cookies.

These are even simpler! It was nice to take a break from fancy decorated cookies.

This project was a yummy trip down memory lane, and the results were very close to the cookies I remember.

Thanks to a fellow blogger, I was able to track down this Pogens brochure. I'd love to find a photo of the original cookies!

Baseball Birthday Cookies

Personalized Baseball Birthday Cookies

I'm happy with how these came out, although I was wishing for a Kopykake projector while I was decorating them!

Birthday Season

Early spring is a busy time in our family! All three of our birthdays are within 10 days of each other, so there is a lot of celebrating to be done. Easter often occurs in the same week and a half, sometimes falling on one of our birthdays.

An outing to celebrate Easter and my birthday.

We love wildflowers!

Yummy ice cream for my birthday dessert.

Gracie's birthday was next. I made these monogram cookies for her to share with her class. She chose the colors and design. To see more cookies, visit me over at Nina's Cookie Shop.

We had a party for her at a local park on a very windy day! I embellished the hat and made yummy pink cupcakes. It was a new recipe for me, Pink Lady Cake made with strawberries. Gracie chose pink icing and helped decorate the cupcakes with sprinkles.

The party had a garden theme, and this balloon flower was supposed to decorate the gazebo at the park. The wind interfered with the decorations, so it adorned our house instead. This tutorial from All Things Simple was very helpful!

The cute napkins are from Target, and I embellished a party store birthday hat with ribbon for the birthday girl. I made the flower cookies for party favors. You can see more flower cookies over at Nina's Cookie Shop.

Next came Art's birthday. Gracie and I made him a card and bundles of 50 things.

Gracie LOVES wrapping presents and picked out the paper and bow.  She also loves unwrapping presents!

We wanted a simple dinner that would finish well with apple pie for dessert. A DIY BAT (bacon, avocado & tomato sandwich) was perfect! I made mayonnaise from scratch for the first time. Thanks to this recipe from Alton Brown and these hints from Andrea the Kitchen Witch on using the KitchenAid mixer, it came out well.

Finally it was time for pie! I like to use a combination of apples; for this pie I used Lady Alice (which I just learned is a new variety) and Pink Lady apples. With a crumb topping and vanilla ice cream, it was a delicious finale to our birthday season!

Train Cookies

Train Cookie for a 3rd Birthday Celebration

I was inspired by the colors on these train cookies at Sweet Creations by Debbie. They were for a 3rd birthday, too! I also like her accent cookies.

I used a variation of these wheels on the Wilton cookie cutter packaging.

All packaged up and ready for the party!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from Nina's Show & Tell!

Spring Flower Cookies

I've been having fun decorating little cookies, like these mini chocolate flowers. White with colored centers here...

And all the colors in different combinations.

All together they make a pretty and yummy plate of cookies perfect for spring and Easter.

They coordinate with my Easter Eggs & Easter Bunnies!

Easter Bunny Cookies

I love this bunny shape and used it last year on these chocolate Easter cookies. This year I wanted to add a little something more and am very happy with the ribbons. I used the same colors I used on my Easter egg cookies.

I think this is the first time I've used this cookie cutter, even though I've had it for years. I think my favorite part is the ears. The pink one above has an extra back leg detail that I thought was distracting, so I made the rest simpler.

Here is the pink bunny matching her friends. Now at the head of the line! 

Hop on over to The Ginger Cookie to see these and more Easter Bunny cookies!

Easter Egg Cookies

I made a few sugar cookie eggs for Easter. I love this color palette!

I also made chocolate egg cookies. 

One of my favorite things about decorating cookies is creating variations as I decorate.

The cookie eggs have been decorated, now it's time to decorate the real eggs!

Visit me over at The Ginger Cookie to see my recent Easter cookies together in one post, and some Easter egg cookies from the archives, circa 2008.

Wedding Shower Cookies

Wedding Shower Cookies by Nina's Cookie Shop.

Put on your party shoes...

And raise a glass of bubbly to toast the bride-to-be!

Cheers!

Monogram Cookies

Nina's Cookie Shop makes monogram cookies!

Birthday treats to share with classmates.

Snacks for a school open house.

A birthday gift.

Here's my cookie on an apron! CafePress makes it easy to create personalized gifts like this one.

Onesies & Stars Baby Shower Cookies

Sugar cookie onesies and stars for a baby shower by Nina's Cookie Shop.

A special bib cookie for the mommy-to-be.

This was a fun series. I used icing transfers for the stars. The Bearfoot Baker has a great tutorial on making royal icing transfers.

Simple little star cookies perfect for snacking.