Cookie Ornaments for a Mini Tree

Henna inspired Christmas Cookies {for some VERY cool clients}

These beauties were made for the Aba Agency. I was pretty excited (okay, I was freaking out) when I got an order from Aba for all of her high end clients.. including Vogue Magazine, Fendi Casa, Cirque du Soleil, Mercedes Benze, In Style Magazine and many more!

They were sent out to 30 of her clients and I LOVED how they turned out.

I wish I would've taken a picture of all 160 henna cookies, but here's about 30. Seriously, our house was cookie-fied. 

Each client got one of these little ornament girls with hand painted snowflakes. I loved all the colors she chose for these. 

Thank you again to the Aba Agency for your order!

Christmas Lambs and Candy Cane Cookies {easy picture tutorial for lamb with a flower cutter!}

So dang happy Christmas is just around the corner! Our house is nuts right now with my husband in the middle of his law finals, and me in the middle of my undergrad finals (with lots of cookie orders on top of that). Of course, it's always crazy at the Bowen house what with the 3 year old and 20 month old little boys tearing around. 

I hope to do at least one more tutorial for Christmas, but for now here is a very simple lamb cookie using a flower cutter. You could even do this in buttercream and add little eyes or a bow to the lamb. 

What you'll need:

- thick black icing

- thick white icing in a bag with a #2 tip

- flower cookie cutter

First fill in a little black head and ears right in the middle of your cookie. I didn't wait for mine to dry, but you can if you'd like. To start on the 'wool', just add small dots close together until eventually the entire cookie is filled in. Add more dots in any areas where the cookie is showing and voila! You've got your very simple lamb cookies (which go great with some very simple candy canes). 

I love getting emails with questions and pictures of cookies you've made inspired by things on my blog! I love seeing others work and hearing their stories, so thank you to all of you who have sent me emails and left comments. As for tutorial requests, I will really try to get around to all of them as quickly as possible :) Just be patient with me!

Happy cookie-ing!!

xoxoxo,

Caitlin

Superhero Cookies {for a little girl birthday}

I did these for my niece's 5th birthday party. They were shipped off to Manhattan a few weeks ago (notice the Manhattan skyline cookies?!). I want to make them again, they were so much fun!

I love the way they turned out. In the pictures you cant tell, but each superhero is sparkly. 

Happy birthday to one of the sweetest, most beautiful little girls I know!

What Does the Fox Say?! {fox cookies using a butterfly cutter}

I'm sure everyone has heard the funny/slightly annoying song 'What does the fox say'.. my two year old LOVES it and asks for it every time we get in the car! He is constantly singing it and dancing around the house. I confess, I like it too. So I had to make some fox cookies.

To make these you will need:

* a butterfly cookie cutter

* orange 20-second icing (check out this tutorial here)

* black 20-second icing

* white 20-second icing

* ivory 20-second icing

* fine tipped paintbrush

Once you've cut the bottom of the butterfly off with the top of the butterfly cutter, press the little jagged edge at the bottom until it's smooth

Using your 20-second orange icing, make the outline to the face. Wait for 15 minutes, then fill in the ears and rest of the fox's face. 

Add a black nose and eyes once the cookie is dry (give it at least 6 hours). I used brush embroidery around the face. Out of pure laziness I didn't make a thicker icing to do the brush embroidery and it would've been much cuter if I would have! Oh well, lesson learned :). 

The last step is to pain on little black eyelashes and you are done!

There you have it! Happy fall ya'll. 

Royal Icing 'MONSTER-osities' {how NOT to decorate cookies}

Decorating cookies is time consuming. I always carefully draw and design my cookie ideas onto paper before actually making them. I have pages and pages of ideas drawn up just waiting to be made. Of course I have WAY too many ideas to ever make all of them into cookies, so you can imagine that when I do choose to make some, I pick my favorite designs. 

One of the best parts of cookie decorating is being able to see your finished product at the end.

Especially when they turn out just as you had imagined in your head. 

And then, there are always days like this....... 'Monster-osities'. The cookies only a mother could (pretend to) be proud of. 

Oh the horror. This is a good example of two mistakes that are easily made.

1. Not washing out your bowl before making royal icing. If you look at the purple and green, they have a funky grainy texture to them. (I decorated my voodoo doll cookies with the same icing, it's even more noticeable with them!) THAT is what happens when oil gets into your icing. Sometimes you may look at your bowl and think 'that looks clean enough to me'.

I'm warning you, DON'T fall into that trap like I did. These are the results of that exact thinking. And of course laziness. Because who wants to wash a clean mixing bowl?

You may not be able to tell from the pictures, but even after sitting out for 3 days these cookies never completely dried. 

2. Adding too much food coloring. Do you see the black? Horrible, I know. Color (especially dark colors like black or red) take time to develop. The best tip for making dark colors is to make a lighter color (like deep gray) and let it sit in the fridge for a couple days. THEN add more black if you need it. But usually after a day or two it becomes much darker

Don't try to make black in one afternoon. Trust me, it doesn't work if you want a true, deep black. 

After taking these pictures I waited a few more days and the black still never dried. 

It's always so sad when such tender loving care goes into making your cookies and then they come out like this! Hopefully this post will spare some of you from the same mistakes.

And thank goodness it was my 2 year old who ate them and not a neighbor or client :) Especially because the first time he saw himself in the mirror he started laughing and then said "Look mommy! Arrrrrrgh, I'm a pirate!"

Happy Halloween everyone! Hopefully your cookies won't turn out quite as scary as mine did. 

Hand Painted Teacup Cookies

Sometimes I stay up so late doing cookies. Sometimes I take very last minute orders (like this one.. literally had one day to do them). It always makes me realize just how awesome my husband is. He stayed up with me for these ones and made carne asada at 1:00 am AND cleaned up my cookie dough and icing mess so we went to bed at 3:00 with a clean kitchen. Really though, it doesn't get any better than him. Makes cookie decorating a lot more fun when you don't have to clean anything up :). The best part is he does it to be nice, not because I ask. And he's a hunk, so that's nice too. 

I love how delicate and pretty these turned out. Perfect for a baby shower. Thanks for the order Katy!