Earth Day Tree Cookies

I've had this cookie cutter for a long time, and I love the shape. I thought Earth Day was the perfect opportunity to use it!

I created different variations on the simple theme.

And played with the text.

Happy Earth Day!

Be kind to our planet. It's the only one we have!

See these and more trees over at The Ginger Cookie.

A Strawberry Birthday Party

My Sweet Gracie turned 5 this month! We celebrated with a Strawberry Party at the park.

I used the beanbags I originally made for Gracie's Ladybug Birthday Party when she was 2.

The kids put the "strawberries" in a bucket during a relay game.

I also made a strawberry bingo game.

We used dried "fiori" pasta for markers.

Here's the strawberry piñata I created using paper mache and a balloon covered with tissue paper. This post was very helpful for ideas to create the piñata, and this post was useful for figuring out how to create the trap door and the pull string feature.

 

I used a strawberry drawn by Gracie to create the artwork for these personalized goody bags for the piñata prizes. I printed them on large sticker paper and cut them out with my favorite paper cutting scissors.

We baked cupcakes, strawberry and vanilla with a simple buttercream icing, decorated with sprinkles by Gracie!

Our guests were invited to add artwork and sign Gracie's birthday poster card.

The Strawberry Cookies are for favors. You can see more about these cookies in this post and over at The Ginger Cookie.

The cookies are individually wrapped in clear bags from Karen's Cookies, ready for our guests to take home.

And finally, I made thank you notes for Gracie to send. I printed them on Avery postcards, and they fit perfectly into invitation size envelopes. 

It was a great party!

Happy Birthday, Gracie!

Egg + Flower = Strawberry (Cookie)

Gracie's birthday is coming up and she's having a Strawberry Party. Of course we will need cookies for favors.

I used an egg and a flower cookie cutter to create the shape I had in mind.

The flower is from a set of fondant cutters, and it was perfect for this! Notice that I used the complete flower and cut out part of the egg. The seam between the pieces is much more stable this way, especially when the cookie is iced with royal icing, which acts as a great stabilizer once it's dry.

The cookies are baked, decorated, individually bagged and in the freezer, awaiting the special day.

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.