2013 Year in Review - Cookies

As promised... Here is my 2013 Year in Review - Cookie Edition. 

It was such a busy year that I made just a handful of cookies. 

#1: Autumn Fall Cookies with Raspberry Jelly Centers
      These were our favorites last year. Although time consuming, they are SO delicious. 
      Used my 'go to' Sugar Cookie Recipe, Raspberry Jam, and Powdered Sugar

#2: Chocolate Crinkle Cookies with Powdered Sugar East Design
      Needed something quick and Festive and this did the trick... Love these!!!

#3: Pascal from "Tangled" cookies used as cupcake toppers
      For a dear friend's daughter's birthday. The toppers were a surprise and she LOVED                 them!

#4: Mickey Mouse Oreo Cookies
      These were additions to my nephew's birthday party. Instead of labor-intensive                         decorated cookies in the goodie bags, i offered these to my sister as an alternative. 

#5: Baptism Monogrammed Cookies for a friend's baby

      I love the simple design of the cookies. So classic

#6: Chocolate Mint M&M cookies....

       Wow, that was a mouthful. And, yes, I made these about 3 times more... YUM!

#7: Baby Simba Cave Painting Cookies

      These were for my dear friend's son's birthday. They were hand painted, as my airbrush 

      was clogged and I needed to think quick to make this look like the movie. 

#8: Mickey First Birthday Cookie Platter

      For my nephew's First Birthday Celebration. The variety was nice and the colors so 

      Vibrant!

Thanks for taking a look at what I made last year....

Looking forward to making more wonderful creations this year....

"Living a Sweet Life..."

              - Jackie

READ MORE ...

Thanksgiving cookie platter

Thanksgiving will be here next. It's my favorite Holiday. Who doesn't love spending time with family and just eating GREAT food. 

Oh, wait... For those who know my family, my mother cooks like it's Thanksgiving every time she has us over for Sunday dinner... LOL! But there's something so special about watching the Parade on TV and then spending the afternoon laughing and reminiscing.

----------------

Anyway.... I was recently asked by a dear friend, N, if I was interested in donating some cookies for her church's fundraiser and silent auction. I immediately said, YES!!!!!! and started to think about what to make. 

Luck has it, that I was attending CookieCon in Salt Lake City, UT, (I will talk more about this event in another post) the week prior to this platter being due. And I KNEW I would learn sooooo much while at CookieCon and I would be able to apply it to the new cookies I would make. 

The amazingly talented MaryAnn Rollins: AKA The Cookie Artisan gave a WONDERFUL presentation about platters and the How-to's when it came to arranging cookies on a platter. I vigorously took notes and was excited to come home and try it for the first time on this particular platter idea.

After much research and sketching, this is what I came up with: 

Not bad for a first attempt?!?!?

Since I always give credit for my designs and inspirations, here it goes: 

Turkey cookie: Pixie's Treats
Leaves: Lizy B Bakes (she even has a tutorial online) 
Tree with dot leaves: LilaLoa 

My friend loved it and I hope it was able to raise some money for her church. 

I say Thank You to her for thinking of me and allowing me to make something special to share with others. I was honored to be a part of such a wonderful event. 

I also want to say Thank You to Maryann for offering all of us at CookieCon information and her expertise in the area. It was so kind of her to share her 'secrets' with others and I will be forever grateful!!!   

 

READ MORE ...

Halloween Cookies

It's the day before Halloween and I am, literally, stuck at home Post Hurricane Sandy.
The kids are loving a few days off from school, but I am anxious to get things back to our regular routine. Thankfully, we did not have any damage, but we are concerned that Halloween may be a flop this year and may have to celebrate inside. 

Last year, I made cookies inspired by LilaLoa. They were a set of square Halloween faces and they were so cute.  

This year I wanted to make spider webs...  That was my only goal. And I made some, but not all the webs I had wanted to..
I still have a list of Halloween cookies I haven't completed, but there is always next year.

Here are pictures of the cookies I have shared with my family and that are also being sent to my step-daughter at school. 

Be Safe Everyone!!! Have a Frightfully Good Halloween!!!!

xoxoxoxo, 

Jackie 

READ MORE ...

Autumn Leaves and Acorn Cookies

During this season of giving thanks, I am most thankful for: 

My family, friends, my health and my job.

With so much going on with work, I was not able to make cookies that were on my cookie to-do list. I was able to squeeze in a few leaf cookies, though, that I gave to my daughter before she headed back to college. She loved them and I'm sure they didn't make it the whole 5 hour drive back to college.

They were inspired by the beautiful creations by the 

Wonderland Cookie Company

http://wonderlandcookiecompany.blogspot.com/

Here are some pics: 

READ MORE ...

Halloween Cookies

Happy Halloween
to all my friends and family!!!!
  
I made the cutest Halloween cookies ever (okay, I guess I'm biased) for my goddaughter's class.  She's handing them out to her friends today. They are certainly a special treat!!! She has lucky friends!

I came across a great post in August, yes August,  from LilaLoa (a wonderful cookie artist) and I thought these cookies were so much cuter than the traditional cutouts. I saved the picture in my 'cookie file' and when asked to make a set of cookies for Halloween, I immediately went back to the picture.

Since I must give credit where credit is due, here is a link to part of LilaLoa's cookie tutorial: Click here for the tutorial  

 I think they came out great. My favorite is the Frankenstein, or maybe the candy corn, or maybe the Dracula... I love them all! 

Happy Trick or Treating and stay warm. The snow in NY has wrecked havoc on our Halloween this year. Be safe and have fun! 

Look at the whole Halloween Gang!

READ MORE ...

Apple Cookies

It's Back to School Time! 

I think the only one of my children not very excited about starting a new schoolyear was our 5 year old son. It took him quite some time to warm up to the idea of Pre-K last year and was not thrilled with the idea of 6:45am wake up calls again. 

I made these set of apple cookies for the teachers, as a way of letting them know how much we already appreciate the work they do (even before the classes officially started). These were done in red only, but I'm sure they would look so cute in green and yellow too. 

READ MORE ...