Birthday Butterflies

Got a message from a friend on Sunday asking if it would be possible for me to make some butterfly cookies for his girlfriend's birthday, which is on Saturday.  Problem was that he lives in Iowa and she in Kansas, and I am in Alabama.  I think the world of him and am so happy for him with his new relationship, so I decided that even if it meant staying up late, I would get them done and shipped out in time for her birthday.  I had a lot of fun with these, because he just let me run wild, instead of specifying how they should look.  I had to rein myself in and limit the colors I would use, otherwise I would still be working on these!  lol

He didn't tell me how many he wanted, so I decided to do a dozen butterflies and you cannot have butterflies without flowers, so I did a dozen flowers too.  Actually there were 14 butterflies and 12 flowers. 

I wanted to make sure these did well in shipping, so I bagged the cookies back-to-back in sets of two in little cello bags and for the first time heat sealed the bags.  I had wondered about this and found something online recently about using a curling iron or flat iron to close cello bags, so I went out and bought a new, cheap curling iron and used a med/low setting and it worked like a charm.  I then took the 13 cello bags and wrapped, wrapped and wrapped them some more in plastic wrap. After that I filled in the box with lots of plastic wrap and enclosed the box's contents with tissue paper and wrapped it up with some of my favorite paper I found at Big Lots years ago and bought every single roll they had.  Then I made a big poofy bow for it.  

 

I had planned to ship them through a friend's store who has a volume shipping account with UPS to keep the shipping costs down, but my schedule didn't allow me to get over there, so I had to go to the dreaded UPS retail store.  Have I ever mentioned just how much I dislike the UPS retail store near me?  If not, well, I do - mainly because I am so cheap and it costs an arm and a leg to ship with them.  And since I didn't have my own packing supplies and a shipping box, I had to buy those too.  All total the UPS store charged me $31.47 to ship and pack a 2.0 lb. package.  Fortunately, I am being reimbursed for the shipping cost, but even still, I like to be just as frugal with other people's money as I am my own, so it pained me greatly to pay that much!   

The package is scheduled for delivery today and I'm once again stalking the tracking page!  It is out for delivery, but we all know it could be as late as 7 pm before it is delivered.  I think I am more excited than he is about her getting these.  I even signed up for UPS text messages to alert me when it has been delivered.  I'll update when it has been delivered!

Cookies for Some of Life's Big Events

My mom's first cousin, to whom I've always been close was having her milestone 60th birthday, so for her surprise party, I did a bunch of her favorite butterflies, since I only have a gazillion butterfly cutters, most of which are the same.  I would have loved to do these in a larger variety of colors, but was asked to have them match the party colors of turquoise and white.  That just gives me something else to try later!

As a belated birthday gift, a friend gave me this awesome customized cookie platter.  It even has representations of my Pac-Man and flower cookies on it!  And btw: it is HUGE!

One of my cousins on my dad's side of the family died last weekend after a prolonged battle with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy and I brought these flowers for family eats after her lovely service on a dreary rainy day because they looked happy.  My mother-in-law helped me put together a beautiful flower arrangement for them as well - remember, I've mentioned my MIL before - she's awesome and did a great job on the arrangement.  PTL, you are now healed, dear Suzy.

I did these graduation cookies for the daughter of a long time friend - we actually graduated high school together.  I rushed and scrambled to get them done and in the mail because her party was supposed to be on the 11th, however I had neglected to read an email much earlier in the week from her mom saying that they'd changed it to the 26th because storms were in the forecast for the 11th.  So, dummo me sent far fewer than I'd hoped to do for her and a week before her graduation and a 2 weeks before her party!  But I really like the way the RI transfer of the school (also my alma mater) logo came out, except for the black background seemed to leach through and make the red a little bit speckled.  I've heard from them and they loved them, so mission accomplished.

Albertville High School Graduation Cookies

Here are a few more graduation cookies I did for kids of friends in different schools:

Oxford High School graduation cookies

McAdory High School graduation cookies

More Birthday Cookies and MY Birthday Cake

So I did some more cupcake cookies for a friend's birthday last weekend.  I did them in pink and white and I made sprinkles for them by making tons of tiny straight lines of royal icing on wax paper and then rolling and crushing the sheets after they had dried.

My birthday was Wednesday and my sweet hubby called me on his way to work Tuesday morning to tell me that with all he had going on at work that he wouldn't have a birthday cake for me on my birthday, but that he would get one later in the week.  While most people might be disappointed by such news, I was THRILLED because it meant that I could finally try out my two new 6"x 3" round cake pans my mom gave me as an early birthday gift. I told him not to get one and then started running ideas through my mind.  First you must know that I stink with cakes!  I can never get them to look just how I want - just can't seem to do the base frosting quite smooth enough for my liking.  I've been dying to try this chocolate cage idea from Doughmesstic again, but had a bad experience by not following her warning about white chocolate as a newbie when I tried to do one for Easter with a lavender white chocolate cage, so I talked myself out of doing my birthday cake with a dark chocolate cage.  Instead, I decided to try doing a swirly rose cake.  Sometimes I'm just dumb enough to give anything a try and sometimes I am even pleasantly surprised with the outcome, like  I was with my swirly rose birthday cake.  The cake was four layers (the 6x3's cut into two layers each) and the frosting was chocolate buttercream with a hint of coffee extract in it.  It was sooooo good and like I said, it I thought it turned out pretty cute for a first time effort.

I ran out of my awesome mocha-ish buttercream partway through it, so I had to stop and make more.  I just made a 1/2 recipe to finish off and had ALMOST enough - the swirly roses on the top are kind of thin compared to the rest of the cake, but I was able to finish it off.  Besides, there is so much frosting on this cake that you really didn't miss out on any from the thinnish top.

Of course, we see them everywhere now, but I watched this video and decided I could do this. I believe the original idea of doing cakes this way came from I am Baker, here.

And oh my gosh, I almost forgot to show off all my new cutters I've received as gifts from friends for my birthday!!  I hit the JACKPOT!!!  And I got a lot of great cutters too! ;)

Check out the haul from my friend Missy.  My cat Helen was enthralled by them as well and that was the best I could do photo-wise in terms of getting her to stay out of the picture!  Missy and I have never met in person but became friends through Facebook back in 2009 - I guess we are like modern-day penpals!  lol  Anyway, look at the princess set with a castle, tiara, and shoe; the summer set of a margarita, sunglasses and flip-flop; and the boy set of a car, airplane and train; not to mention all of that luster dust and gel colors.  I was beside myself!  Oh, and I had never had a caramel apple, so she sent me a Colorado Caramel apple and I must say, it was divine!

These were a total surprise from my friend Mary, one of the surprise recipients during "Operation Spread a Little Sunshine."  I was shocked when I found them in my mail and totally overwhelmed when I opened the box and saw what all she'd sent to me!!  There was a kitty set that has lots of kitties in different positions as well as a little mouse; there was a graduation set that contained a cap, gown, diploma, award, apple and owl.  Then some others that she thought I might like - a rooster, a chick, a penguin (which I can totally see using for a boot with a little trimming), a palm tree and a sunburst.

These are from one of my oldest friends - we were best friends in 2nd grade - Christy. She sent me a message the other day asking for my address and it never crossed my mind again that she'd asked for it.  Then on my birthday, I went to my mailbox and found a package from her!  Everyone knows I love kitties (I only have 4 indoors, but tend to almost an entire community of strays!), so she did the great cat face/head and a playful kitty.  Then there's a hen!!!  I was so excited by the hen, because among my strays is a little banty Welsummer hen who chose me last year - she lives in my back yard during the day and sleeps in my camellia beside my front porch at night.  Her name is Chicky Boom and now I can make a Chicky Cookie!  Chicky's pic is my blogger profile pic above and the inspiration for the name of this blog.

The Mother-in-law Lode

So my mother-in-law called me and told me she'd picked up a few cookie cutters for me.  I should have known when she said a few that it meant a lot more than a few.  She doesn't just do anything - she DOES everything and does it big when she does.  She's the best.  Even still I was surprised when I went over to pick up the cookie cutters and found a bag of 27, yes, that's right, twenty-seven, cookie cutters.  And check out those bargain basement prices on them!  As usual, she did a fantastic job.  I'm so excited and will be using many of them this weekend as I make cookies for Easter.

So, there's a set of three patriotic ones including a flag, the outline of the US and a star; two spring sets including butterflies, flowers, a tulip and a heart;  a Wilton comfort grip bunny head; a Wilton comfort grip full bunny body; a Wilton comfort grip egg; a ducky; a four piece birthday set including a cupcake, cake, gift and a party hat; a comfort grip Easter set including a bunny head, an egg, a tulip and a scalloped flower; and another, yet different, Easter set including a bunny head, bunny body, scalloped flower, tulip, an egg and something else I cannot remember.  Wow.  Looks like I'm set for Easter, just wonder if I have enough time between now and then to try some of them all! 

I love when others encourage my madness!! 

UPDATE:  I decided that I was beginning to amass an actual collection of cookie cutters and decided that now would be the time to start an inventory of what I have instead of after my 60 has quadrupled, since I'm already beginning to forget some that I have.  Cristin, of Cristin's Cookies, was kind enough to share her Excel inventory sheet that is divided into categories on box.net, so that I didn't have to reinvent the wheel to get my inventory listing started.  You can find and download her form here.

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).

Overwhelmed with Excitement & In Tears with Gratitude

Granted this is supposed to be my blog about cookies, not my personal stories that go on my personal blog, but this is so cookie related, that I MUST post it here (not sure that there's anyone reading it anyway).  This evening my husband and I were being bad, as we always are, having dinner in the living room watching something on Hulu when I noticed the UPS truck slow down in front of our house, but knew it wasn't stopping here because neither of us had ordered anything. I then heard a door close, so I hopped up off the sofa- I'm a total Gladys Kravitz when I hear noises outside - to look out the front window. I saw the UPS man heading for the front porch with a large box and then heard him say, "UPS," as he quickly knocked and exited the porch, leaving the package. I opened the door and saw a huge box addressed to me directly from a seller of something. I was so confused and swore to my husband that I'd not ordered anything. I nudged the box with one arm and realized it was quite heavy and that I wouldn't be able to get it with my dinner plate in my other hand. The only thing I could think was that I've been repeatedly entering giveaways for a Kitchen-Aid mixer on any and every site I can find for the last few months, but I also knew I'd never received a winning notification from any of them, so I figured that couldn't be it. 

The hubs brought the box in and I grabbed a pair of scissors to cut the tape. After moving the extraneous packaging from the top of the box, what did I find?  You guessed it!!!  That red Kitchen-Aid stand mixer I've had my eyes on for a couple of years now, but have just never been able to justify.  I was beside myself, but still couldn't figure out from where it had come.  Finally I located a packing slip and saw the note that it was a GIFT from my longest-time friend that I'm still in contact with. Prior to the advent of Facebook, we talked a couple of times per year on each other's birthdays and always recalled the many nights we'd spent the night at each other's houses as kids, but rarely saw one another, even though we always easily picked up where we left off. Even though we live several states away from one another now, through Facebook in the last several years we've been able to catch up and have great conversations (and lots of those really catty ones you can only have with certain people).  Even though we've never forgotten each other's birthday since I was in 3rd grade and she in the 4th, we've never given gifts like that to one another, so I was immediately just stunned to tears because I was so touched that she knew how much I wanted that mixer!

I really cannot explain the spectrum of emotions that were drowning me for over an hour, other than to say I was completely overwhelmed.  Of course, I immediately called her and just couldn't say thank you enough times.  Her response was that she knew I'd had a really tough year - my dad died last April and I still can't talk about it without bawling and I've had some scary health things going on in the last 6 months as well (although I think all is well now, but to be told point blank with no care or concern from a doctor that I could be permanently blind as soon as the next morning really did more damage to me than any of the actual problems I was having) - and she just wanted to do something special for me as an early birthday present and that she was so impressed with what she'd seen me do thus far that she thought I absolutely needed it.  Holy cow, I am so excited and touched and just overcome and overwhelmed with emotions!!  (I can't believe I actually just used the phrase "Holy cow!")

So here's where I need help from anyone who might be reading this. Of course, she gets some cookies pronto!  I know I'll do those fabulous chocolate cookies from LilaLoa and some of the best sugar cookies from SugarBelle, but with my limited skill set as of yet, I need ideas for some really great looking thank you cookies that I would be able to pull off and them still look good. I've seen lots of cute things on FB and Pinterest, but would love some other suggestions as well. Thanks for your help!!!!

Off now to go make some icing in my new mixer - once I figure out how to work it!!