Peter Rabbit Practice

First attempt at painting with food coloring: success.

These are a couple of extra cookies that I set aside to use for decorating practice. After seeing some incredible hand-painted cookies on Pinterest, I wanted to try the technique on some Peter Rabbit cookies (since I've got a Peter-Rabbit-themed cookie order coming up next month). Definitely excited about how these turned out! Just FYI, if you're painting with food coloring, a little goes a loooong way. I'm looking forward to trying out other hand-painted designs in the future :)

Brush Embroidery Cookies

So much goes into learning a new hobby or skill. In addition to practicing a specific ability, you're also learning what tools or gadgets you should use to step up your game.

As I've been bookmarking cookie ideas on Pinterest, I kept running into something called "brush embroidery." It gives the icing a soft, brushed look, very delicate and extremely fancy (if you do it right). The trick to brush embroidery is using a small brush to gently sweep the icing into a wave-like trails. I decided pretty quickly that brush embroidery was a cookie decorating goal.

I made these cookies for a farewell party at Whitefield honoring a very sweet co-worker of mine. I had the opportunity to teach both of her daughters, and now that the youngest is headed off to college, the empty nesters will be relocating their nest somewhere warmer :)

I wish that I had gotten some better close-up photos of these, especially since they are so detailed. I guess that just means I need to make more... right?

Twin Smash Cakes

This time last year, my friend Lyndsie introduced me to MOPS: Mothers of Pre-Schoolers. Designed to be a group for mothers with kids under the age of 5, it was just what I was looking for as I started navigating the uncharted waters of mommyhood. It was a great way to meet other moms and connect with like-minded ladies!

There at MOPS, I met Elizabeth. She is high-energy, always smiling, and - I was to later discover - has a pair of sweet little twins. As they were approaching their first birthday, Elizabeth asked if I would make some smash cakes for the little prince and princess.

These are similar to the lower tier of the Embrace Grace cake, but with an ombre effect on the roses. Of course, one is blue and the other is pink!

I wish I had gone lighter with that lightest shade of pink. I still feel like there's too little difference between the pink shades. Hey, it still looks great though! 

I'm not sure why the lightest blue shade seems to have a green tint to it, but I'm still pretty pleased with this cake.

Both cakes had small pearl nonpareils in each of the roses. After making the Embrace Grace cake, I realized that it's much easier to position these nonpareils using a narrow pair of tweezer-like pliers. I've got a pair specifically for this purpose now, and it was SO much easier. 

Here are the birthday prince and princess, about to smash into their cakes! With a 6" diameter, these were a little on the large size for a smash cake, but they needed to fit with a large candle (which they'd already removed by the time this pic was taken). I think a typical smash cake would be about a 4" diameter.

So Elizabeth's amazing royal birthday party seemed to be a big hit! I'm glad I got to contribute to their special day, and with a fun mom like Elizabeth, I'm sure they're in for many more fun-filled adventures in the future :)

Happy Birthday, Jenny!

This is the year when Ashley, Jenny, and I all turn 30! Jenny's birthday is actually today, so Ashley and I gave Jenny her gifts yesterday evening. To really celebrate our birthdays, we're taking a girls trip to Disney World later this year! Woohoo!

Although I had a few other Taylor Treats orders I was working on, I wanted to make a little something special for Jenny. This was kind of an experiment cake, since I was testing out a new cake recipe, a new buttercream frosting recipe, and working with sprinkles for the very first time.

I wanted the cake to be small with an informal, fun character. The bottom is a 6" round with a 4" top tier, and it's covered roughly in the teal buttercream frosting. It wasn't too hard to apply the sprinkles to the bottom tier, but I had a heck of a time getting the sprinkles to stay on the top tier without getting all over EVERYTHING. If anyone has suggestions for working with sprinkles while keeping one's sanity, I'm all ears.

I was originally going to try my hand at making some buttercream flowers for the top, but this particular buttercream seemed a bit grainy and didn't want to cooperate. I guess that's a goal for another day.

When we later cut into the cake, I decided the cake recipe was a definite keeper (kind of dense, with a slight almond flavor, kind of like wedding cake) but I probably won't use the new buttercream recipe again. It tasted fine, but it was too difficult to work with.

Happy birthday, Jenny! Love ya girl!

Graduation Cookies

Quick post: Graduation cookies for my cousin Crystal! She requested red and silver graduation caps, so I used a red base icing and covered the tassel with silver luster dust. If I could go back and do these over, I'd use red to outline the cap as well (instead of white), since the white looks too much like the silver. However, I suppose I'm pleased with how these turned out.

Mickey Mouse Cookies

Quick post: Mickey Mouse birthday cookies! Some of these are from Jack F.'s first birthday last fall, and some are from Matthew F.'s second birthday today.

Orange Creamsicle Ruffle Cake

I have a husband who loves sweets. Anything I make, he is always willing and eager to test out for me. He's had to watch some delicious items leave our house lately without a bite for him, so I wanted to fix him something special today! It didn't hurt that I also wanted to practice a new decorating technique...

This ruffle effect is very similar to the frills on the top tier of my Embrace Grace cake, but these are a little easier and less time-consuming. The cake is a box mix (Orange Supreme), and the frosting is a homemade buttercream with orange zest and a dash of fresh orange juice. So refreshing! Matthew says it tastes like an orange creamsicle. Yum!

Anyway, I'm going to go get a fresh little slice of Orange Creamsicle Ruffle Cake, with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. Hope you're having a great day!

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. Zephaniah 3:17

Embrace Grace Cookies and Cake

Yesterday, I had the unique opportunity to help throw a special baby shower. Embrace Grace is an organization that reaches out and supports young single pregnant girls, and I've been a part of leading the Embrace Grace group at my friend's church for the past few months. Women from all over pitched in to meet the material needs for these girls and we had the best time showering them with gifts at the baby shower!

I knew I wanted to make some cookies for the shower, and I decided to use the opportunity to try out a few new techniques! I've been seeing some tutorials using spray color to add detail, and I knew some cute little blue stripes would look adorable on the baby onesies.

I bought these striped and polka-dot stencils at Hobby Lobby the other day, and I'm excited about how well they worked. I'm telling ya, you can learn anything through YouTube tutorials.

I was also interested in trying to re-create the Embrace Grace logo in cookie form. I'm super-pleased with how these turned out!

I've done several different styles of monograms so far, but the challenge with these was getting the gold color just right. I wanted the gold to shimmer just a bit, so I added some bronze luster dust to the icing.

I had planned to do the cookies from the beginning, but when someone mentioned cake, I jumped at the chance to practice some cake decorating too!

This two-tiered devil's food chocolate cake is covered in homemade buttercream frosting, with candy pearls for accents. The flower on top is made from melted white chocolate and was a seriously tricky thing to do (looking forward to trying this method again and working out some of the issues).
So... I make cakes now! I love cookies, but this was definitely a fun and exciting challenge, and cakes open up a whole new world of decorating techniques. Stay tuned for some upcoming cake shapes and styles!

Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2

Eagle Scout Cookies

I've had the pleasure to teach hundreds of teenagers over the past seven years. It was a delight to get to know my kiddos and figure out their unique personalities. Some were silly, some were serious, some were sweet - but in some students, you could see a deeper maturity growing, a desire for responsibility and a recognition of their potential impact on the world. That's one of the reasons I love the middle school years: they're right in the middle of childhood and young adulthood.

A group of my boys were involved in the Boy Scout troop that was based on our campus. These young men were marked by a higher level of personal responsibility, a willingness to try new things, and a healthy respect for authority. While I only taught them in seventh and eighth grade, our school is a K-12 academy, so I had the opportunity to watch them continue growing and succeeding in high school as well. I was therefore delighted when asked to make some cookies to celebrate four of my guys achieving the honorable rank of Eagle Scout!

Apart from eagle-shaped cookies, I had no idea what the logo for Boy Scouts looked like or what colors I needed to use. Pinterest and Google quickly helped sort that out.

I think the fleur-de-lis cookies are the most detailed cookies I've done so far - I was quite nervous about them at first, but they really came out better than I was expecting! These cookies were to be favors for the Eagle Scout reception, so I offered to individually bag them.

I really enjoyed making these. I'm glad I got to practice making the red stars on the fleur-de-lis cookies, and I love how the blue eye of the eagle ties in with the blue on the other cookies. Congratulations, Eagle Scouts! I'm so proud of all your hard work and dedication!

For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. Psalm 84:11

Roses and Monograms

As I sit on the couch with my husband to my right and my snuggly crazy dog to my left, I'm taking a moment to regroup. It's been a very busy week, filled with hospital visits and baby showers and long days and great people. Tomorrow it will all begin again, but right now... things are quiet.

One of the highlights of my week was getting to make a couple different batches of cookies. The first set was commissioned by Melissa for her daughter's birthday party with a rose garden theme. HOLY COW, go search Pinterest for vintage rose garden cookies and prepare to feel extremely inadequate. I was equally terrified and extremely eager to try these out.

I was short on time (remember, busy week?) and only managed to snap a few pictures before they went in the delivery box.

The monogram cookies above were so much fun to make! I separately piped the little roses onto wax paper and let them dry, then attached them to the cookie with a dab of icing. I had made little roses like this before, but this was my first try making the little green leaves. They actually stand up slightly off the cookie! I also spent some time playing around with the green color and learned a lot about what changes the hue in different ways.

I gotta admit, I was scared to try this large rose method. The trickiest thing about getting your icing to work correctly is the consistency: too watery and all the separate petals run together into a big blob... too thick and the icing won't come out of the piping tip. What I'm not showing you (and I wish I was able to, but I forgot to take a pic) was the five or six additional cookies that I practiced on first. I want to make a point in the future to document the not-quite-pretty cookies and remind myself what I learned through them.

More of the large roses! I'm not extremely pleased with the pink bows, but I think I know how to make them look better for next time.













At the same time I was decorating the rose cookies, Carter's baby shower cookies were in the oven. I knew I wanted a blue, gray, and white color scheme for them, and spent some time planning out the designs.

If you know Carter, you know that she is the monogram queen! Her oldest little boy is always sporting a cute monogram on his outfits, so naturally boy #2 should be heralded into the world with some monograms of his own. I used the online monogram generator over at Mark and Graham to play around with some different styles, settling on this fairly masculine-looking one. I was worried at first that the white lacework around the circumference would make it look feminine, but those strong blue block letters aren't backing down to understated frills.

This was my second time playing with sanding sugar, and I've decided that my trial pack of blue was a great investment. Time for a trip to Michael's or Hobby Lobby to pick up some different colors!

I originally had different design plans for these cute little onesies, but in the end I decided simple was best. Besides, who can resist a baby bowtie?














Well, the hubby's already headed for bed, so it's just me and Crazy Daisy to finish off this post. If there is something you've always wanted to try, or wondered whether or not you could achieve, I want to encourage you to go for it. Take the first steps towards learning a new skill. Research a new topic that interested you. Borrow a book on a fascinating era of history. God has given us this whole world to explore and discover, along with incredible brains to help us make sense of it all.

Have a great day :)

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18