Love Letter Cookies

How stinking cute are these love letter cookies? I ordered them from my friend with a cookie biz and they turned out great! Now I can use edible food markers to write sweet notes to my loved ones. I ordered them 3.5"x5" so that I would have enough room to write a whole message. I LOVE how they turned out!

Smart Cookies!

As you know, we are a home school family, BUT we DO have a teacher! A few of them, actually! We belong to Charter Home School Academy, and while today was our first day of school, tomorrow will be the first day I have to go to the school. Grades 2 and up will be taking online assessment tests tomorrow and I'm sure it will be a long day for all of the teachers! I always like to do little teacher treats! I saw this on a blog called eighteen25, and knew I had to do it! Click the link to download the free printable yourself! They used cups from Einstein's Bagels, but I wanted plain cups. I looked online, but you know how that goes with supply stores {minimum orders, high shipping costs}. SO....I checked out Smart & Final and they had the clear plain cups and domes. For about $10 I got a sleeve of 50-16 oz cups, and a sleeve of 100 dome lids. The only dome lids they carry have the hole in the top so I used a scalloped punch and double-sided tape to cover that up.

I printed out the tags and added a hand print paper behind them. I just used papers and ribbon that I had on hand. "With you as my teacher, I'll be one smart cookie"

I made chocolate chip cookies and rolled them into about half the size of normal so that they would fit in the cups.

There are three full time teachers that I know will be there, and of course the secretary needs one too! ;)

Hopefully it will be a good little treat for them! By the way, the caddy is from Wal-Mart, in the canning jar aisle. It fits four quart jars. I plan on using it with jars filled with flowers as a cute centerpiece, or silverware for a bbq! :)

Peace Party! {Red and Turquoise!}

Today I got to set up for the beautiful red and turquoise peace party I've been planning. It turned out beautiful! Take a look...The fabric tablecloth is from Beverly's. Their fabric is SO expensive, but it's BEAUTIFUL! This fabric is what I built the whole party around!

I made the famous Cinnamon Crunch Popcorn and set it up in polka dot cones from Shop Sweet Lulu.

I ordered cookies from the fabulously talented Nandie! She even put red sugar crystals on the peace sign, not sure if you can tell from the pictures. They look PERFECT, as always! I don't know HOW she does it!

I made this sign using my Silhouette software and printing it on my regular printer. I love that feature of the Silhouette!

I think it's really cute to set the birthday girl's cupcake in it's own dome. It makes it extra special!

I made all three cake plates myself, I've had them for awhile. I also created the cupcake toppers using my Silhouette. I bought red and white polka dot cupcake liners from Shop Sweet Lulu. The homemade butter cream is dyed with Wilton's "sky blue" dye.

Here is the candy bar! The treat bags are also from Shop Sweet Lulu. I already had the tray and glass jars. I cut peace signs on my Silhouette from red vinyl and added them to the jars without the chalkboard labels.

I made these little signs too, I think the pennants are SO cute!

I was in Morro Bay this week and picked up some Carousel Salt Water Taffy in strawberry and raspberry! Perfect and delicious!

While at the coast, I also spotted these rock candy sticks! I'm so glad I thought to buy them! They look so cute! The two skinny jars got a pretty matching ribbon.

The big jars wouldn't fit a big wide ribbon so I added twine in both colors and tied a bow around the lids. Yeah....I pretty much never leave "well enough" alone. Ha ha. Everything has to have bows and labels.

The tissue balls also came from Shop Sweet Lulu. Told ya she's my secret weapon!

Hope you like it!

Linking up to Inspiration for Celebration's link party!

Fancy Oreos

I saw a tutorial over at Shindig Parties TO GO on how to make BEAUTIFUL chocolate covered oreos! I figured since I am venturing into party planning for hire, I would invest in the oreo trays and try a couple of sheets to see if it was worth the effort. These can be done in endless pattern and color combinations! I bought my molds from Spinning Leaf. They have some beeeeautiful molds, but I bought the standard ones (two of them) so that the tops would be smooth. They included a free sample mold to try too... a heart cookie mold! I'm sure I'll have fun with that one on Valentine's Day! The transfer sheets I ordered from Fancy Flours. I noticed after ordering them that Hobby Lobby offers a few now, but not even close to the variety you can order online. Here we go! Melt the disks and fill the cavities with about two spoons of chocolate.

Press gently down on the double stuffed oreos.

Spoon a bit more chocolate on top and level with an offset spatula.

The bottoms don't have to be perfect. Put it in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Cut a strip of your transfer sheet. Make sure the rough side is up, and lay it on a piece of parchment, on top of a baking sheet.

Spread a thin layer of candy melts on it. Whatever color you choose will become your background color.

After 5-10 minutes it is firm enough to cut, but not so solid that it will crack. I used a biscuit cutter from my Williams Sonoma set. It's slightly smaller than the oreos. Push hard, and when you lift up, this is what you get. The plastic backing stays on the tray.

Here is the other design I chose.

After 10 minutes in the fridge, pop out your oreos on wax paper. Literally, you just push them out. Look at how smooth and beautiful they are!

Then you simply apply a small amount of the melted candy that you used on the transfer sheet, to the back of your circle, and place it on your oreo. Stick those babies in the fridge again to seal the deal!

I'm so glad I tried these!! They look fake, they're so pretty! I wish my pinks matched, but I had no control over that. There's only one shade of pink candy melts and the pink dots came as-is too.

I can't wait to make these again for another party!!

Chocolate Mint Cookies {WAY better than Girl Scouts!}

Growing up, my family would join with our "best friend family" and spend an entire day making cookies. One year, when they planned to start baking on a school day (they expected us to wait until after school to help! ha!) I stayed home sick from school. When my mom's friend arrived, she had- you guessed it- MY best friend with her who also stayed home sick that day! Imagine that, we didn't even plan it! I think it really must have given us a stomach ache to think of them baking without us! Our siblings had all gone to school, we were the only two who just couldn't fathom being at school. I have the fondest memories of five kids at our (or theirs, depending on the year) dining room table, rolling Russian Teacakes in powdered sugar, or putting sprinkles on sheets of Spritz cookies, or putting the chocolate disk and nut on top of the Santa's Thumbprint cookies when they came out of the oven. Anyway! Back to the matter at hand! One of the many cookies our families made every year were these! They blow the pants off of Girl Scout Thin Mints! Trust me!The most important thing in making these cookies are buying the right ingredients! This chocolate, Mercken's, will completely harden on it's own {no refrigerating required} , and it will look glossy and smooth. The other thing you will need is peppermint oil, NOT extract or flavoring. This is the way it's been done for all of my 28 years and I'm not gonna mess with a good thing! =) The only other ingredient you'll need is a box of Original Ritz crackers, again, no generics here. If you live in Visalia, you can find Mercken's at Sweets N Things or Pacific Treasures.Lay out rows of wax paper on your counter top. Use the double boiler method to melt your chocolate. I used 2 of the one pound bags in this bowl. If you don't know how to do a double boiler, you simply put about an inch or so of water in a pan and nestle in a heat safe bowl, and stir the chocolate while the water boils. Make sure the water isn't so high that it would actually touch the bowl.

After your chocolate is totally smooth and melted, remove from the heat, but keep over the pan of steam. Add about 6 small drops of peppermint oil to this amount of chocolate and stir. You are ready to dip! Drop four Ritz, face down in the chocolate. Don't use broken crackers, you want your chocolate smooth, not full of crumbs. Using two forks, you will use your right hand to flip it once, and the fork in the left hand you will gently press the tines into the top of the cracker so that you can shake off any excess chocolate.

I didn't have an extra set of hands in the house to take a picture of me doing that step, since I need both hands to do it.

Drop on your wax paper and allow to completely dry. Store in an airtight container.

Christmas Cookie Kit

Check out this super cute Christmas Cookie Kit that I got today from my supercalicraftilicious friend Sheri! Is it not the cutest thing ever?! It comes with star and tree cookies, a can of frosting, and two types of sprinkles.

Check out the cute wooden basket packaging! Thanks Sheri! I had to share it with everyone!

Pumpkin Spritz Cookies!

Today I remembered that I have a pumpkin disk for my cookie press! Woo hoo! I whipped up some spritz cookie dough even though I usually only make them at Christmas time, with trees. I must say...these aren't everyone's favorite cookies, but they hold a special place in my heart. I've made spritz cookies since I was old enough to have a memory! They are pretty plain, and in my opinion, need to be eaten when they are COMPLETELY cool...but I love them!

My family recipe: Spritz Cookies

1 cup margarine or butter

1 tsp vanilla

2/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 1/2 cup flour

Mix softened margarine or butter {note: I have always used marg. for this recipe but today I used butter because I don't buy marg. as a rule...everything's better with butter, right? Wrong! I can't believe I'm saying this but they have more flavor when you use margarine} with sugar and vanilla until well combined. Add eggs, mix well. Add flour gradually.

I used Wilton's orange coloring.

Just use a toothpick and put a dollop in the mixer, mix until you get your desired shade.

This is my Pampered Chef cookie press. Actually I think it's my mom's that she brought out in her suitcase one Christmas and she forgot to take home. =)

Here it is fitted with the pumpkin disk.

Here is the set and all of the other disk shapes. This is the best cookie press I've ever used, in all my 28 years! If you've made this type of cookie before, you know that sometimes they can be tempermental.

Use UNgreased cookie sheets (or they won't stick and you will go mad! Mad, I tell you!)

Heat your oven to 400 degrees

Follow the directions for your cookie press, if you're having trouble with the dough, try sticking it in the fridge for a bit.

Top with sprinkles! I must say...as I was pressing these, I couldn't help but think that I was making cookies out of sweet potato baby food, that's exactly what it looked like.

Bake for 8-11 minutes, depending on your oven. The bottoms should be slightly brown. Cool completely before eating. =)