Happy Anniversary, TAGS!

My husband is part of a local board gaming group, called the Tidewater Area Gaming Society, or TAGS for short. This month, they celebrated their 5th Anniversary! He asked me to make some special cookies for their game day last weekend. This is what we came up with...

The "5's" are due to it being their 5th anniversary. The people are actually a type of game piece, called "meeples".

Hope you have a "sweet" day!

Birthday Cookies

I made some birthday cookies this week for a dear friend of my Mom's. They were by far my favorite to decorate, and I love the finished product. The design is not my own, it was taken from my favorite cookie maker, Sweet Sugarbelle. Her creations are AMAZING, and my inspiration to get into cookie decorating.

I have 1 more set of cookies to make this coming week for a friends bachelor party. Then, I am moving away from cookies for a little while. I have a table full of new craft supplies I am dying to dig into!

Bright, Colorful & Cheery!

Mini's

Close-up detail. The pink one on the right is my favorite in the whole batch

Lily's conversation with me- "I not gonna eat 'em? They not for Lily? They for Nanah's friend. I just gonna pretend, Momma!"

Quick Recap

Just a quick post to re-cap the projects I have done the past few weeks. I know this posting is long overdue, but hopefully now that my household is healthy again, I can get back into a routine.

Steelers cookies for my family for the Superbowl

Valentine from Lily...using stamps and her fingerprints



Another handmade Valentine using fingerprints



This Valentine idea is not original by me, but I honestly don't remember where I came across it. It is such a neat idea for loved ones far away. I drew and cut out Lily's handprints and had her stamp on them with acrylic paint/sponges. I cut a piece of ribbon the length of her outstretched arms and attached it to the back of the handprints. Using small circle velcro pieces, I attached the handprints to the paper. I wrote out the saying and attached it using pop dots. (I wish I would have taken the time to type up the saying, but by this point Lily was so done with craft time!) The idea behind the valentine is the person can detach the handprints and wrap them around themselves for a special "Lily hug" from far away. :)

Hope you are all enjoying the day! It's a gorgeous one here in VA, hoping for some outside playtime with the kids on this long holiday weekend.

Sweets for my Sweets

I can't believe it's been almost 2 weeks since my last post! I have had a very sick household. Thankfully, I have managed to avoid most of it. That has been a huge blessing since I have been busy taking care of everyone else! My husband has had a cold for weeks, my daughter has a sinus infection & brochitis and my baby boy has a cold & bad ear infection. It's scary & heartbreaking when little ones are so sick. :(

Needless to say, I haven't had a ton of time to craft. I do have lots of pending projects filling my craft table at the moment. And I'm expecting 2 shipments of goodies by the end of the week! Now if I can only find the time...

For now, check out these Valentine's cookies I made for my sweet family!

I made these mini's for Lily.
They are the perfect size for little kiddos.
But I'll admit, the mini cookies are my favorites to make!

I thought they looked like the Conversation Hearts, so I wanted to give it a try.
Not bad, but needs some tweaking.

Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend! I'm off to attempt handmade Valentine's cards with Lily. If all goes well, I'll post them tomorrow!

C is for Cookie

Right before Christmas this year, I decided I wanted to learn how to make decorated sugar cookies. I have tried my hand at cake decorating a few times, so I already had many of the basic supplies to begin this new hobby. After spending countless hours searching websites for recipes and tips, this was my first attempt at decorated sugar cookies...

I was suprised at how cute they turned  out!

I have made MANY more cookies since this first batch...most of which you will see posted in the near future. I am still in search of my FAVORITE recipes & techniques, but I learn something different with each new batch. So far, I'm pretty sold on the rolled sugar cookie recipe from Glorious Treats. Her cookies are gorgeous, and her website is so helpful for this newbie! I have tried a few other dough recipes but nothing comes close to hers! For this first batch, I also used the Royal Icing recipe posted on her website. It was great to decorate with...easy to make, smooth application, beautiful finish. The only problem with royal icing is that is dries very hard, thus making it difficult to bite into. My personal preference is a softer icing, but if you like royal icing, this one was great!

My favorite part of this little guy was his nose. I actually got it to stand up. Not condusive for packaging, but pretty cute!