10 extra points to you if you picked up on the RENT reference!

Several months ago, I agreed to make a wedding cake for a friend's friend.

Call it a moment of weakness, lack of judgment, an act of kindness.....

I think I was asked far enough in advance where my mind immediately went to that place of agreement and thinking about it at a closer time.

But as you well know...time moves faster and faster and low and behold that far off weekend arrived.

Don't get me wrong.  I really don't mind decorating cakes, but I know how much wedding cakes mean to brides and I'm just not a fan of that kind of pressure. 

If you read my last blog post, you'll know my husband and I had a rather hectic week. 

I filled you in on the storm on Monday and promised some additional pictures.

Here's a better picture of the lines ripped away from our house. 

But here's the miracle.  Hanging under the overhang from our second floor, you'll see a red hanging  basket.  It's my dead strawberry plant, thanks to a bird's nest we found several weeks ago. 

In it you'll find 3 brand new baby birds....and with all the wind and damage we had...that basket stayed right where it was and those little birdies are safe and sound.

Without further ado....

It's been a little hectic around here this week. 

On Monday, we had a major freak thunderstorm roll through here.  The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado touchdown about 10 miles from my house.  The storm also created a 'microburst' or bursts of wind which hit 80 mph.  In neighborhoods across my county you can see areas where these wind gusts were evident.  There is a diagonal path of damage right through the middle of my neighborhood. 
My yard was in that path.

Luckily my husband was home with our 4 pups when the storm hit.

All things considered, I'm pretty sure an angel sat directly upon my house when that nasty storm rolled through. 

My neighbors tree ended up in my yard.

That sentence doesn't do it justice.  Maybe some pictures will help.

The storm hit around 2:45 on Monday afternoon.  Our power came back on at 11:00 pm on Wednesday night.  We won't get our internet, cable or phone back until Sunday because part of our tree in our backyard also ripped our verizon line out when it ripped our power line.

Here are some pictures.

The tree laying across my driveway in my front yard.



There are few areas in life where you have such a unique opportunity to connect with others around you in similiar situations.  One of those situations is when you realize you will become a mom and your journey up to that point.  There are young moms, old moms, adoptive moms, foster moms, mom's who were super, duper surprised when they found out they were going to be moms, moms who took a long time to become moms and so on.  And of course, you bond in various ways in similiar settings...support groups, lamaze classes, play groups, as room moms, team moms, etc. 

You get the idea.

Sally Mally (names have been changed to protect the innocent!) and I met through happenstance (yes, I really did use that word.)

She began working at my former place of employment after I did.  I left behind an amazing friend (hi, Jaclyn!) at that facility and she would occasionally tell me about this awesome new girl they had hired.

Fast forward several months (or years, I can't remember) and I finally met this 'new girl' at a conference.  We met, chit chated and both found we were in the same general time frame in life.  The married for a few years, no kids setting.  Or, as I refer to it....We were D.I.N.K.s.  An especially unique period in life of having dual incomes and no kids to worry about!

Fast forward a few months (or years) and Sally Mally is due with twin boys. 

I am over the moon excited for her. 

Somewhere along the way a good friend of hers caught wind of my mild cookie obsession and decided to surprise Sally Mally with my cookies at her babyshower. 

Her boy's names will be Carter and Caleb.  Which you know I love because of my obsession with alliteration!

Now for your lesson in photography.

This picture was taken using a flash on an auto setting.

I wanted to show you a sample from each variation just so you can see how much your camera settings can change the quality of your photo.

Well...camera settings and the photographer...I can't do much to help the latter of the two. 

Happy Baby Shower weekend Sally Mally!!!!

and eats beachy cookies!

These cookies are for a wedding reception this weekend.  The couple is heading to Ocracoke for a small wedding in July and are celebrating their nuptials this weekend with people who won't be able to head south.

Their colors are their birthstones...peridot and diamond. 

My customer knew she wanted something more beachy...less weddingy (just made a new word!)

 

I showed her various pictures and she chose the sanddollar, seahorse and starfish. 

Thanks to Sugarbelle's Seahorse Tutorial these cookies involved practically no thinking! 

Sorry to disappoint, but these are not Dr. Suess cookies.

They're onesies.  Would you expect anything different to come out of my kitchen?

Most days, I like simple cookies better.  Sometimes I think they can be more elegant and classy. 

These onesies are all three of those things.  Simple, elegant and classy.

I love this shade of light blue.  I started off with a cornflower blue and lightened it with white. 

I love the baby's name in the white writing too. The customer requested the blue onesies and white writing and I think she was spot on with her request!!

Thank you for your order Cindy!



Somedays, I feel like my sister gives me all my business!  I'm certainly not complaining as she (usually) gives me creative freedom and most importantly, doesn't tell me when she doesn't like it! 

She's so supportive and has been a driving force behind my cookie obsessession.

For this, I am thankful...my husband...not so much ;)

Anyway.

She asked me to make some baby shower cookies (and cupcakes) for the same couple I made the gender reveal football cake and my very first set of gender reveal cookies for. 

My sister requested carriages & onesies, pink & black and she absolutely loved
 Flour Box Bakery's spring carriages and onesies designs.
I pulled some inspiration from Anne's designs which are gorgeous!!

The place card my sister used for the cookies had a toile pattern on it.  I've done damask but haven't had the opportunity to try toile.  My favorite carriage print is the one in the middle because it has the lighter stitched look instead of the heavier black lines. 

On Friday, my mom casually asked for a favor.  If I was baking on Friday night, could throw in a few onesies for her?  A few of the ladies at her school were all pitching in to get another pregnant co-worker a gift before school let out.  If she could, my mom wanted to add some of my cookies to the gift.

Luckily, I was baking on Friday night...and had a free weekend to decorate.

I love these simple cookies because they take so little time.  I already had the icing mixed up which made it even easier.

These aren't gender reveal cookies, because the couple hasn't found out what they're having yet. 

That fun appointment happens tomorrow!

I add a little luster dust for some shine, though it's hard to see in the photos.

Saving time and money is a win-win situation in my book.

I've been cookie decorating for a year and a half now and I'm finally putting into practice some tips I've read about along the way.  For example, I started using Karen's Cookies tip of wrapping your icing in plastic wrap before putting it in your icing bag about 3 months ago.  I'll never go back to putting icing directly in the bags.  Clean up is so much easier and when I run out of a color, I simply drop another plastic wrapped 'bullet' of icing right into the bag. 

But the one thing I've constantly read about and had neglected putting into practice was saving leftover icing and reusing it to mix my next batch of colors.  Mostly, I think this stems from my mild OCD of liking to have absolutely everything cleaned up after my weekly orders are complete.  This is especially true if I go a week or two without any orders. 

But...then one overly busy week...sheer tiredness set in and my icing bags and bottles sat on my KopyKake board for a few days after all my orders had been completed.  Most people think decorating cookies would be the most time consuming, but that just isn't the case.  Now, this is how it is for me; every decorator is different.  Baking cookies usually takes the least amount of time.  I have my recipe memorized, my oven heats up fast, I'm not overly concerned with exact measuring of the thickness of the dough and each tray only takes 9 minutes to bake...which means I can crank out lots of cookies in a short amount of time.  When I decorate cookies I get into a rhythm...with the help of my KopyKake, I can also 'mass produce' cookies at a fairly steady and quick pace.

But what is the most time consuming and dreadfully boring part of this whole cookie thing is clean up time and color mixing time.

During that same exhausting week, this post showed up in my blog roll: Sugarbelle's icing coloring tips.  Something clicked.

Motivated by my laziness (is that an oxymoron?), I decided to take Sugarbelle up on her challenge (though I'm not really sure she meant it to be a challenge). 

Talk about life changing.

Mixing colors, especially true primary colors and deep, dark colors takes lots of time and use lots of gel food coloring.  That gel food coloring is expensive and if you use Americolor (which I do) typically has to be ordered online.  Lots of it will also make your icing start to taste funky...typically it happens with red and black. 

Just stop and think about the amount of time and money you will save if you start the process with pre-colored icing. 

Originally, I had guilt for using 'old' icing.  That feeling quickly disappeared when I stopped and thought about what I use in my royal icing.  Confectioner's Sugar, corn syrup, meringue powder, cream of tartar and a dash of almond extract.  All of those products have an insanely long life span.

Icing doesn't get 'old', it just separates.  By adding some new icing you instantly 'freshen' it up and save yourself (and your arm) from lots and lots of mixing. 

So how does it help with clean up?  I guess it doesn't specifically.  I squeeze all the old icing into clean containers, then wash the tips and couplers as I do anyway.  What it does do however; is allows me cut myself some slack.  Instead of feeling as though I immediately have to wash and clean up everything, I now let the icing to stay exactly where it is until it's time to prepare to decorate my next batch of cookies.  Now...when I'm too tired to instantly clean up, I have a reason to let those bottles and bags sit there.

Here's a picture of what I mean by reusing my icing.

I made these cookies many, many months ago.  In fact, I made them before I even had a KopyKake. 

I printed out an image of the Hungry Caterpillar and traced it onto the cookie via my handy dandy etching tool.  Boy did that take time!!!

Enjoy!



Recently I went through all my photos and came across some I've never blogged.

(This cookie will probably remain one of my favorite fonts pre-kopykake.)

Actually, with the exception of the "Paul and Krista" Wedding Cake cookies....all of these cookies were done pre-KopyKake, which means they were all completed between July and December 2011.