Mixer Cookies

So I figured out what my thank you cookies would be for the mixer my wonderfully fantabulous friend gave me, and when it finally hit me, it was the perfect idea - mixer cookies!  Since I am still learning and trying out my skills, I wasn't quite ready to do a mixer shaped cookie and opted instead to do a royal icing transfer of the mixer.  I found an online image and re-sized it to the appropriate size and set to work on Friday night.  This was a well planned execution of the RI transfers because I knew I would be gone all day on Saturday and would therefore not be able to mess with them until they were fully dry!  I did 12 or 13 of the transfers in case I broke any, even though I was only planning to do six of the big cookies with the transfers on them.

I awoke early on Saturday morning and made myself not touch them, although I so wanted to.  Fortunately I was able to restrain myself.  I made my cookies that morning before leaving so that they would have time to fully cool and have any oil work its way out of the cookies before I was ready to ice them that night.  I measured for what size cookie I would need and determined that I would need a 3x3 square for the best fit.  Sure, it could have been a tad smaller, but I haven't the patience for counting the little marking lines between the inches on a ruler.  Speaking of a ruler, I used two of them to cut my square cookies, since I have found it near impossible to locate a square cutter other than small fondant cutters.  When I returned home that night, I outlined and flooded my favorite chocolate cookies from Lila Loa and placed the RI transfers.

They were then looking so cool to me that I got a bit overzealous snapping pics of them lined up and since it was late at night the overhead light was casting shadows all over them so I was having to hold the camera at an odd angle above them.  No sooner than I thought that I'd better be careful, the camera slipped from my hands and went lens first into one of my precious little treasures.

Since it was still wet, I was able to easily scrape away what was there and redo the cookie.  The same cannot be said for my poor camera. The icing was all over the lens but also embedded in the shutters, so every time I'd clean some out, the instant I opened and closed it, there was icing everywhere again. I decided to give it a rest for the night and see if it would clean better after the icing had dried some. NOPE! The shutters were iced closed on Sunday morning. Of course, I forced them open, so then they were stuck open. Have sent it off to the manufacturer for a thorough cleaning and it is looking like it will be covered under the warranty, which blows my mind, but I am very happy about.  So, the rest of the pics have been taken with our older, much less wonderful camera.

On Sunday morning, I added the finishing touches to them and did the companion cookies, which were color coordinated diamond shapes, elephants with the Alabama "A" on them since my friend is a big Alabama fan and some chevrons, since we both hate all of the chevron stuff we're seeing lately!  One of the finishing touches was something I had never done before, which was "painting" on a finish of silver pearl dust on the mixing bowl.

Notice the mixer in the background

I packed them up in little treat bags with red ribbon inside the lovely polka dotted take-out style box shown in the pics above and packed them for shipping.  I know I'm supposed to wrap them a bit better than I did, but I just decided to see how it would go.  Just got a call from my friend who received them.  She LOVED them and said they arrived mostly intact!  The elephants, which had delicate parts - the legs and trunks - didn't fare so well in shipping.  And from looking at the pics she sent, it seems that some of the mixing bowls lost their handles, which is odd because that isn't even the portion of the mixer transfers I'd been concerned about.  I'd been worried about the little foot under the mixing bowls and had even built up white royal icing under a couple of them.  Anyway, here's what they looked like when they arrived.

I am very pleased with them overall and still have 6 mixer transfers remaining!

BTW:  Is this font color hard on the eyes, or is it just me?

UPDATE: Yay!!!  Canon replaced my camera under the warranty!  Got it via Fed Ex today (3-28).