3D Ducky Pull Toy Cookie

My baby boy turned 5 months old Monday!

The months are flying by and he's doing all sorts of new things.

He can roll over, he has two teeth, I have five new grey hairs, and the doctor started him on fruits and veggies. He LOVES to eat.

I can't wait until he's walking around dragging toys behind him.

Remember the old duck pull toy? Old toys are the best. They were plain and simple, just like these cookies. These cookies look cute yet there wasn't much decorating to be done. They were really easy to make.

For each duck pull toy cookie you will need:

4 small circle cookies
1 duck cookie
Royal icing (yellow, orange, white, and black)
yellow sprinkles or sanding sugar
string

Duck Pull Toy Cookie

Outline and fill small circle cookies and allow to dry. You will need four for each duck. These will be the wheels for the duck toy.

 Outline and fill duck cookie with yellow royal icing. Allow to dry several hours.

 Outline and fill duck bill with orange royal icing.

 Add a black dot of icing with a #1 tip and black royal icing.

 Add some squiggly lines for duck feathers.

While the feathers are still wet, sprinkle with some yellow sprinkles or sanding sugar.

Let dry then shake off excess sprinkles.

Add a dab of thickish royal icing. You can use yellow. I used white...it's what I had left over.

Here's where it gets all fancy. Get a piece of aluminum foil and scrunch it up. Place it along side the cookie. This will hold the end of the circle cookie upright. Place circle cookie on top of the foil and dab of icing. Do this for both wheels. Allow to dry overnight.

After the cookie has dried overnight, flip it over and add two wheels to other side.  Place aluminum foil between the two wheels while it dries. Let dry about 6 hours.

Add a dab of thickish white icing on the back of cookie to hold pull string. Use a boo boo stick to push the string down into the icing. Allow to dry.

These would be great for a baby shower or a baby's first birthday party.  They would even be cute decorated in pink or blue!

Hope everyone had a great week. We have lots of changes going on in our house this week.  I'm still working on a schedule so I can bake, blog and take care of the family without draining myself of all  available energy and brain cells.

When do y'all do your baking and blogging? Are you a late night blogger or do you get it all done over the weekend?

Mardi Gras Bead Cookies

Mardi Gras in New Orleans......

hmmmm, how can I put this...........oh let's just skip to the chase. You show the Ta Ta's you get more beads. This is one of the few places you can get away with pulling out the girls.

Hey, I don't judge. The good Lord knows I've showed mine enough back in the day for some silly beads. These days the girls are nothing to show...... just keeping it real. I've nursed a few babies.

Tomorrow is Mardi Gras and I thought I'd make you some Mardi Gras inspired cookies. After all....it's about the beads.

This is a kid friendly blog so I gave my girl a top. If you want a more naughty version, you could totally do the entire cookie flesh colored and give her some Ta Ta's.

Mardi Gras Bead Cookies

Cut out heart shaped cookies and simply cut off the top. Then bake.

 Using flesh colored icing outline and fill cookie. Let dry completely (about 6 hours).

With grey icing outline and fill. Allow to dry several hours.

With a 1.5 PME tip add a scalloped edge. Allow to dry. 

With green, purple and yellow royal icing, add bead necklaces. Start with one color and leave the spaces for the others. Let dry about 30 minutes before adding next color. I started with one necklace and after it was completely finished and dry I added another necklace. 

Metallic Dress Cookies

It's FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!

I took a little break to recover from the holidays. I need a real vacation. I thought after I had the baby my life would just go back to normal...wake up, drink coffee, get kids to school, clean house, eat lunch, clean some more, pick up kids, clean some more, cook dinner, decorate cookies, blog, clean again, then off to bed.

Not happening! It isn't going that way. I certainly didn't think adding baby #6 would make that big of a difference. What's one more?  Apparently one more is like fifteen more. I'm frazzled! Don't get me wrong, he is a fantastic baby. He just ALWAYS wants to eat. Nursing is a full time job. My girls never nursed this much. Not to mention I am now a human pacifier. 

My schedule goes a little more like this now.....wake up, fall back asleep, wake up, drink coffee my teenage daughter has made me (God bless her), get kids to school, nurse baby, potty train toddler (that's an all day thing), get baby down for nap, pull out my hair because toddler wakes up baby, feed myself and toddler, nurse baby, pick up kids from school, nurse baby, throw dinner together, nurse baby....blah blah blah...it's now 2am and I've not made cookies and I can't blog!!!! 

I really think I got ten grey hairs last week. GREAT, now I have to squeeze in a hair appointment. Can you say stressed out?

So I took a step back to focus on the most important things in my life....my family. I had lots of snuggles with the baby. Spent time with the older kids. Still potty training the toddler....she's a bit slower than the other kids were. Things are getting into more of a system. I even got some baking and cookie decorating in! Life is good. 

Georganne of LilaLoa gave us a challenge on the first of January to make something without color. I thought...how perfect. Less colors to mix=more time to decorate! It was a win win. I'm not a fan of mixing icing....or the clean up after. I simply like to decorate cookies. 

These were the cookies I came up with for the challenge.

I'm going to show you how to make the dress in the middle.  The dress on the right was inspired from these cookies by Callye of Sweet Sugarbelle.

1. Bake cookies and allow to cool. I pieced the dress together using a heart and large party hat cutter.

2. With a #5 tip and piping icing, pipe a row of dots across bottom of cookie. Take a small damp paintbrush and stick it in middle of dot and pull toward you.

3. Pipe a second row of dots, repeating step #2.

4. Repeat this until you reach the top dress section. Leave room for the sash. 

5. Outline dress top with #2 tip and grey piping consistency icing.

6. Fill dress top with flood consistency grey icing. Let dry several hours.

7. Add a sash with white icing. I used icing that was a bit thicker than flood icing. Let dry over night. 

I made rose royal icing transfers and allowed them to dry overnight. I added the rose the next morning using a dot of piping icing and glued it onto the sash.

8. For a metallic sheen, spray cookie with Wilton color mist spray in silver. Let dry.

Sparkly Snowman Cookies

Ok Christmas is right around the corner and if anyone is wondering....No, my wrapping still is not completely done.

I've just been so busy.....but I totally plan to be finished tonight. I'm just glad all the online orders arrived on time. This year has been free of customer service drama. There's nothing I hate more than when I order things for my kids weeks ahead of time and it doesn't arrive because of some screw up. 

Not this year.....I've got all the presents here and I can't wait to see the children's faces light up when they open them. 

Well I've got a lot of wrapping left to do so I'm going to leave you with this snowman cookie tutorial. This was a tag design I saw here and just knew I had to make a cookie version. I used a tag cutter. These are very easy to make and don't take much time at all. 

                                           

1. Outline and fill bottom portion of tag cookie with white royal icing. Let dry for several hours.

2. Add snowman face and allow to completely dry. 

**TIP** make sure all the icing is completely dry before doing the next step (glittery hat) because the glitter will stick to anything wet.

3. Outline red hat with a #2 tip and red royal icing. 

4. Fill hat with flood consistency red royal icing.

5. While icing is still wet. Pour red disco dust over it. 

**TIP** for easy clean up, hold cookie over a cupcake liner when doing this. I used the foil liners because they are a bit stiffer. 

6. After the icing is dry, shake off excess glitter.

**TIP** After icing is dry, you can use a small clean paint brush to remove any stray glitter along the edge of the hat.

7. With a #3 tip and white royal icing add a poof at top of hat. You want to use thicker icing so it doesn't run off. 

8. sprinkle with rainbow disco dust.  I use a small brush that I dip in the disco dust then 

 kinda twirl the brush over the poof so that the disco dust falls onto it.

Let cookie dry and you're finished!

Snowgirl Cookies

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas........NOT. At least not here. It's rarely wintery and cold here.

It's a bit colder this morning in New Orleans, well cold for us anyway. I believe it's about 50˚ outside. I don't think I'll be going anywhere today. I'll be staying home baking. That way the house is nice and toasty.

Cold is not my thing.....but snowmen are. I love anything with a snowman on it.

Today I decided to make a girl version of the snowman....a snowgirl. Is that what you'd call the girl version?

Ahhhhh I don't have a clue. That's what I'm going to call her. A snowgirl.

I picked up the Wilton Santa cookie cutter and after I started looking at it I saw more of a snowman then Santa.....but if Sugarbelle has taught us anything in the world of cookie decorating, it's that cutters can be repurposed!

Ready to start?

First you'll need the following:

baked santa shaped cookies
white royal icing
blue royal icing
black royal icing
orange royal icing
#2, #3 and #1 icing tips
piping bags
petal dust in pink
small clean round paint brush

1. With light blue piping consistency royal icing, outline the hat. For top portion of hat I used a #2 tip and for the bottom of hat I used a #3 tip. I wanted the bottom to be thicker for some dimension.

2. Fill hat with flood consistency icing and let dry several hours. Don't worry if the two sections run together during the drying time. Mine did and it's ok.

3. Outline and fill in the snowgirls face and poof on top of hat. Allow to dry for several hours.

4. When white icing is dry add her face. I used a #2 tip for all the details. For the eyelashes I just drug a toothpick through the wet icing to form eyelashes. For her nose I piped dots. I started big and got smaller as I got to the tip of the nose. 

5. Fix cookie mess up....

**TIP** Mistakes are made...it happens. My icing broke when piping and left a mess. Black icing does not wipe off well......so I did a little fix and added a tongue on the cookie with the mistake. 

(Shown below)

6. Cookie fixed! I just added a little blob of red icing for a tongue.  

7. After the hat was dry. I outlined the hat with piping consistency royal icing and a #2 tip.

8. With a completely dry cookie, take some petal dust in pink and make some rosy cheeks with a small fluffy round paint brush. 

Now go make some hot cocoa, put on some Christmas music and find some cookie cutters to repurpose.

Mrs. Claus' Dress Cookies

It seems my life has gotten so busy lately.

My time has been consumed with the Christmas shopping....the wrapping....the children's school parties ....the Christmas dinner.

THE CHRISTMAS DINNER!!!!!!

Then it hits me......I haven't planned Christmas dinner or bought the food for it! Seriously I don't know where I put my superwoman cape at but it's gone! I have become "that mom". The one who forgets everything. The one leaving the house in her pj's to get her kid to school just in the nick of time.

I mean where are the cute clothes and heels?  I think I need to gather myself and get it together.....fast.

I certainly can't go to a christmas party in my pj's, or can I? Noooo people talk and they would certainly be talking about me.

I've been decorating a lot of Christmas cookies this year. One of my favorites is Mrs. Claus' dress.  She has to be well dressed. I imagine she has quite the heel collection. After all, she needs to always look her best.

Wanna see how I made them?

1. Roll out cookie dough and cut out dress shape. I used this cutter from Copper Gifts. Then using a heart cutter cut out the top part of the dress.

2. Trim off scalloped edge of dress. I used a large party hat cutter since it was curved at the edge. Piece the heart and bottom portion of dress together and bake.

3. After cookie has cooled, pipe a belt on the dress with a #2 tip and black piping icing. Allow to dry completely to prevent bleeding. If you need a good icing recipe you can find mine here.

4. Pipe red royal icing using a #2 tip. I used Tulip Red for this.  You can find the Tulip Red icing color here at Karen's Cookies.

5. Fill in top and bottom dress portions with 15 second icing in tulip red. Allow cookie to dry overnight.

6. After cookie is completely dry pipe white fur on dress top. I used a #2 tip and thicker icing. Probably around 20 second icing. I did this to prevent the icing from running and I also didn't want it to be completely smooth.  I also did not pipe a line but did more up and down motions when piping. I wanted it to have a rough edge.
Next, using a clean paint brush, paint a belt buckle with silver luster dust. You can find luster dust here.

Santa Boot Cookies

The days are just flying by. Can you believe Christmas is only a week away? 

A WEEK!

I'm not prepared at all this year.  Normally I'm on top of my game, but this year it's just not happening. 

All of the presents are NOT wrapped.

The four that are wrapped do not have bows on them yet....and it's a crime to have a present without a bow. My mother-in-law would die! 

She's the queen of pretty bows on packages. The woman knows her bows.

I've really gotta get my stuff together. Having a new baby is not what it was years ago. Somehow I think I aged a bit and lost energy. 

My get up and go, got up and went. 

I'm still trying to organize my time better so I can have more time for baking.....and cookie decorating. 

Today I made Santa's boots. Simple, just two colors.....black and gold. 

Easy! and lately easy is what I need. 

1. Roll out cookie dough and cut using a boot cutter. Cut a straight edge across the top. If you need a good cookie recipe you can find mine here.

2. Bake and let cool.

3. Outline and fill top of boot with 15 second black icing.

4. While icing is still wet pour sanding sugar on top. Allow icing to dry several hours then shake off excess.

5. Outline boot with black piping icing. Then fill with 15 second black icing. Allow cookies to dry completely. (about 4-5 hours)

6. Add gold buckle to bottom of shoe with gold piping icing.

7. While icing is still wet, sprinkle with gold disco dust. Allow to dry and then shake off excess disco dust.








8. With black piping icing and a #2 tip outline boot and add lace detail. Allow to dry.

Cute Dalmatian Cookies

Slade's 2 months old!!!! Well he's 2 1/2 months now, but I'm slow getting things up on the blog because HELLLLOO I can't get anything done with a new baby.

He's such a good baby....BUT, if I start cookie decorating or blogging the cries start.

Pay attention to me mommy.

Then I look at him and get a huge smile. How can I refuse those cute toothless grins of his.

No worries though, I've had a talk with him and we came to an agreement.  Ok, well maybe I gave in and just decided to let him get his way.  Something tells me there's gonna be a lot of that.

Can't blame a girl though. He's the center of my universe.

I really can't believe how big he's getting. He's certainly a little butter ball. He's already 13 lbs. I don't know why he's such a chunky monkey.  All five of my other babies were around 8 lbs at three months. Slade on the other hand is just growing along.  He's the last baby, so I wanted things to move a bit slower.

Guess he has other plans.

I decided to make cookies for his two month mark. Too bad he can't eat them right? I'll be sure to make him some when he has teeth and can chew a cookie....not that he wouldn't try now.

I hope everyone is having a great week and doing lots of baking!

Spa Day Cookies

The Thanksgiving vacation is over and the kids are back to school this morning. They had so much fun being off of school. 

Late nights.

Slumber parties.

......and lots of "Spa" nights.  They would stay up late with their four year old sister and have make overs. They did hair and nails but, the part they liked the most was the blue-green face mask. They may have went through an entire tube of it.  

They had a great time and my table, carpet and hardwood floors survived all nail polish spills! That's a big plus around here. 

As always I made cookies.  If a cookie can be made for an occasion, I make them.  Everybody loves to eat cookies at a sleepover right?

Today I'm going to show you how I made the girl. It was pretty easy. The main thing is to wait in between sections so you have dimension. I used a jelly bean cutter I got in a Wilton set last Easter. You can purchase the set here from Karen's Cookies.

1. First bake and cool jellybean cookies                                                

2. With a FOOD SAFE marker draw the face, neck and towel on cookie as a guide.

3. Outline towel and fill top and bottom sections of towel, leaving the center unfilled. Allow to dry about an hour.

4. Fill in center of towel with flood consistency icing.
5. Outline face and neck. Fill in face with flood icing, leaving the neck unfilled. Allow to dry about 2 hours.

6. Drop two black non perils onto face for eyes.

7. Fill in neck section with flood icing add a mouth with pink icing, a little thinner than piping consistency icing. Allow icing to dry a few hours.

8. Apply blue greenish icing a little thicker than flood consistency onto the face, avoiding the eyes and mouth. Let dry.

There you have it!  Cookies for your girls when they have their spa day at home.