Flash Cookie Giveaway!!! [CLOSED]

I made a small batch of peanut butter peanut butter chip cookies, but I gave up sugar for Lent!  So I’m willing to send these to someone in the US (due to my small budget for shipping).  All you have to do is comment on one of my blog posts this weekend, and I will choose a winner on Sunday and send these off!

Hippy Chick Flowers | The Cookie Architect

I made these cookies one afternoon absolutely on the fly- I was spending the afternoon in some special mom/son time with my oldest, and all he wanted to do was decorate peanut butter cookies.  (Thank goodness he didn’t choose the Sponge Bob Squarepants movie option!!).

Most of the cookies we made were his choice, but we had enough dough for me to try out my shiny new cutters from That’s A Nice Cookie.

That's A Nice Cookie

They came packaged up beautifully- but you’ll have to excuse my terrible picture!

Hippy Chick Cutters

Aren’t they so cute ?!? These Hippy Chick Cutters were designed by my CBFF Kari of Yankee Girl Yummies.  She’s done some great things with these as birds.  She even made an awesome video that my kids and I have watched a couple of time and loved it!!  Check it out on her Facebook page!

When it was my turn to decorate them, I wanted to do something different, so I looked at it and saw flower!  The “real” Cookie Architect would have done a little research to find an actual flower with elements to fill all the feet and beak pieces of the cutter, but since I was sitting there with my son and had minutes to do this thing, I just made something up!!! They aren’t anything special, but they ARE delicous cookies, so I hope someone will come comment so that they can eat  them for me!

Congrats to Cori W. for being the winning comment! Cookies are on their way, enjoy!

Team Cookie: Cookie Con Design Seminar EDIT: CLASS FULL

I can’t tell you how excited and honored I am to be part of the next Cookie Con, taking place in September 2015 in Salt Lake City.  I went last year and couldn’t have had more fun meeting all my cookie friends and checking out the cookie happenings!  Last year, there were only class offerings during the regular Cookie Con schedule, but this time, they have extended the time a bit to allow people to sign up for some more advanced smaller cookie classes!  Myself, I am teaming up with two of my best cookie partners-in-crime, Kari of Yankee Girl Yummies and Melissa of Melissa Joy Custom Cookies, to offer some classes that we really hope that you will be interested in!  Read on to find out all about it.

Cookie Design Seminar

(September 23rd and 24th, 2015)

Have you ever wondered how to get from the beginning of an idea (or no idea!) to a full fledged cookie set?

How to get from the thought of Nantucket Cookies, to the reality of my Nantucket set?

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Or how to go about designing all the details for something like this amazing set by Yankee Girl Yummies?

Yankee Girl Yummies Flower Mandalas

Or how to proceed from the kid-friendly fun of tic-tac-toe to the genius of Melissa Joy’s cookie tic-tac-toe?

Melissa Joy Cookies Tic Tac Toe Cookies

In this two part seminar, our team will show you how we do it!  We will give you pointers and experience in cookie design that will have you pulling together cookies like a pro in no time!  Read on for all of the class details, but first, let me tell you a little bit more about Team Cookie!

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Here we are having a blast at Cookie Con 2014!!  We are so excited to do it all again, and meet even more cookie friends!

You all know about me, The Cookie Architect… I’m the brunette in the middle here. So let me introduce you to my friends!  The lovely lady on the left (my right haha!) is Melissa “Joy” Lacasse.

Melissa has always had a passion for baking just about anything, but something clicked once she received a cookie decorating kit years ago. Her pastime started as holiday cookies for family and friends, but eventually turned into a small business and Melissa Joy Cookies was born. While Melissa enjoys the creative outlet that cookie decorating brings, she finds that sharing with others, whether via bakery box or virtually, is always the most rewarding part of her journey. Her work can be found on Facebook, Instagram, and her blog, melissajoycookies.com.

Melissa is also a member of #teamallboys, with two school age sons. It is something that I share in common with her, and with the gorgeous girl on the right in this picture, Kari Arroyo of Yankee Girl Yummies!

Kari started decorating cookies four years ago, after deciding to take a break from nursing.  She learned the ways of royal icing by reading tutorials and LOTS of trial and error (sound familiar? Me too!!) .  There are links to her many cookie decorating tutorials on her website as well as Facebook. When she’s not decorating cookies, you can find her chasing after her two busy boys! Find her at  www.facebook.com/YankeeGirlYummies and www.yankeegirlyummies.com

These ladies have been with me since the very beginning of my online cookie journey.  Kari was the very first cookie page to “like” my cookie page on Facebook, and Melissa was the very first page to share one of my cookies!  They are the best cheerleaders and sounding board a cookier could ask for, and super sharp cookie designers, so I could not be more excited for the class we are teaming up to do together.

So without further ado, here is what we’ve lined up:

Session I: September 23rd

For the first session of our seminar, join our cookie team and design a cookie set right on the spot. That’s right, this cookie design charrette will have us all working together to create a set of cookie designs with the help of a full array of tools and techniques. We’ll share all the secrets of Pinterest, how to use your KK for more than piping, and how to work within design constraints — like pesky client requests 😉 — while getting and staying creative and inspired.

Come tap in to our years of design and art experience, and learn how to design everything from intricate to simple in your own style!

Cost for session $125 per person, (specify Wednesday Morning or Wednesday Afternoon, 12 person limit per section)

Session II: September 24th

Part Two of our seminar happens the next morning. In this session we will be doing some hands on cookie decorating and you will get a chance to be in a smaller group with each of us as individual instructors. Cookies and materials will be provided, and our two design sections will be joined together, so that you will get a chance to meet even more cookie friends! Each of us will work with you for an hour, on a set that will be designed by us to tie together, and hopefully teach you some fun things. We hope to have a little time at the end where we can answer questions as well, and you’ll leave with a tasting sample of our favorite cookie recipes that you’ve decorated, and a few decorating goodies!

The Thursday group decorating seminar will be for both of the Wednesday groups together. It is optional to go on to do it, but it is open first to participants of the Wednesday design seminars. If there is availability, the class will be opened to others as well, for a maximum of 24 (3 groups of 8). Cost for the decorating class is $150.

Now, Cookie Con tickets  go on sale March 23rd.  The cost of registration is NOT included in the cost of the seminar.  Per the request of the Cookie Con organizers, we will be selling tickets starting March 24th, to ensure that all those who sign up for our class are definitely able to come to the event.

To register please email Kari at yankeegirlyummies@gmail.com and give her your name, Paypal email and which sessions you are interested in, and she will put you on the waiting list.  On March 24th, we will issue you a Paypal invoice. You will have 48 hrs to reserve your spot by paying your invoice.  Then we will move down the list if there are still people waiting!!

REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED! Thank you everyone for your interest in our class!

Payment is due at registration. Cancellation is possible prior to July 15th, all but $15 will be refunded. If you find after July 15th that you are not able to attend, we will refund your payment (minus $15) only if we are able to fill your spot.

If you have any questions- don’t hesitate to ask me or anyone on the team!  

(Click on the blog post title to get to the comment area.)

Valentine’s Day Part 3: Sacred Hearts

These last few red and white cookie sets were all done very spontaneously.  Typically, I draw inspiration from a number of places, and do drawings, and fuss and ponder.  But I had a mountain of icing, and “needed” to try some peanut butter cookies.  So that’s why I’m coming up with these quick, one inspiration photo cookie sets.  This is me “winging it!”  For me planning the heck out of something, see just about every other set of cookies I’ve ever made.

For my last Valentine’s Day set, I’m veering into Mardi Gras territory in terms of the level of luster and sparkly edible paint!  And since tomorrow is Fat Tuesday, the timing is perfect.  My inspiration for these cookies was Mexican Folk Art – Sacred Hearts.

Mexican Folk Art: Sacred Hearts

I was just playing with the motifs and the feel. These were fun to cut out- I used a variety of cutters, and imprinted the hearts with a cutter for easy flooding later.  I’ve included a process pic here.

Sacred Hearts Process | The Cookie Architect

The pristine white piping always makes me wonder if the later painting “ruined them,” but it’s just a different vibe.

Sacred Hearts | The Cookie Architect

Sacred Hearts 1 | The Cookie Architect  Sacred Hearts 2 | The Cookie Architect

 

I had one cookie at the end where I reversed the red and white.  I ended up leaving that unpainted (except for the obligatory luster dust haha!) because it just didn’t fit in the set, and looked great to me just the way it was!

Valentine's Day Heart | The Cookie Architect

To see all my Valentine’s Day Cookies, check out my cookie gallery!

Valentine’s Day Part Two: Flowers, Hearts and Cookies, Check, check and check!

Well, I know that normal people don’t blog twice in the same day, but I’ve got a backlog of cookies, and a new blog, and I meant for this to be a draft, but I haven’t figured out how NOT to publish things and just save the draft, so here is my newbie blogger second post of the day.

For this next set of Valentine’s Day cookies- it all started when my mom asked me to make cookies for her Physics class (and the teacher), and that morphed in to me experimenting with a new royal icing recipe in her class, and everyone decorating cookies. Best.day.ever. for those kids, let me tell you!  There was lots of official sounding discussion of viscosity, by which I mean consistency….  We had piping viscosity and 20 second viscosity, which I even timed with my phone so that it would seem more “sciencey.”  The upshot of this experiment is that I had a mountain of red and white icing when we were done.  And since it was just a few days before Valentine’s Day, I figured I would have to make some more cookies.

For the cookies, I tried out Sweetopia’s Peanut Butter cookie recipe, which came highly recommended, and is quite tasty.

For the inspiration, I went looking in (you guessed it) one of my secret Pinterest boards, and found a few red and white things to inspire my new cookie sets. For this particular set, I started with this picture:

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Magic Petals II By Bella

Now, I didn’t want to just copy this, but do my own cookie spin.  But I loved the looks of this style of flower and definitely wanted to do something along these lines. One thing that I did to make it my own was pair up petals in the flowers so that they were kind of funky heart shapes.  And I also paired up some of the flowers so that they were on heart shaped cookies.  When the time came, I decided to to do some flowers in the reverse color scheme.  All told, I didn’t stray too far from the original inspiration art, which I love!

When I went to cut out the shapes, it seemed like a good idea to notch between the petals, I realized later that I had just seen my good friend Dany’s Cakes do something similar on some flowers, and it must have snuck in to my brain.  This sort of thing happens all the time in creative endeavors: you see things and they crop back up in unexpected ways, or two people do the same thing at the same time, but that is a whole other blog post in the making!

I piped these the way that I did because the icing that I had made was an experimental tweak, and I wanted to see how it held up to the risk of craters.  Filling in all those petals after piping the surrounding color would have been a recipe for crater disaster if the icing wasn’t up for it, but it was great!   I also used my dehydrator, which I’ve found helps minimize craters.  I did get a few shallow dents, but I decided to think of them as texture!  So, without further ado, here are my red and white Valentine’s Day Heart Flower Cookies:

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For all of my Valentine’s Day cookies from this year- check out my cookie gallery!

Valentine’s Day Cookies Part One: You Make Me Quiver

Well, I never really got to make Christmas cookies, and that meant I had a lot of ideas and holiday cookies pent up inside apparently. Because I have made three different sets of Valentine’s Day Cookies (and counting) and it’s V-day today!

For this first set, I had some leftover icing in interesting colors from my Cookie Tile Explosion set, and I wanted to do something for Valentine’s Day.  I solicited opinions on Facebook, and Beth from Love Bug Cakes and Cookies suggested a pin that I had recently pinned to my Christmas Ideas board on Pinterest.   What a great idea!  So good that I told her SHE should do that one, because… that pin had already reminded me of this picture:

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This great art by Rex Ray had been my unused inspiration for Lilaloa’s non-traditional color challenge.  But right next to it was THIS PICTURE.

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And this particular image, also by Rex Ray, is what ended up inspiring the motifs of this set.  And because my inspiration is always a hodge podge of things that I am sifting through- I’m not a big “cutter” girl, and I didn’t have a lot of hearts to choose from, mostly I just had these two old tin hearts with arrows.  So I used those, and I pulled it all together with a cute Valentine quote that I had seen that was arrow related, “You make my heart quiver.”  And there you have it- campy, arty earthy valentines, with a cheeky message.

Campy Arrow Heart Cookies

All

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You can check out all of my latest Valentine’s day cookies in my gallery!

Well well well…..

I never thought I would be doing this, but it looks like I am starting a blog. I needed a place where I can put all of my cookie art pictures, and share them with those who want to see them, without the filter of Facebook or another party. Sometimes I will just post pictures, but other times I will share some of my process and inspiration.  Rarely, there will be a tutorial or something crazy like that, but the focus will be on cookie design, because that’s my thing! If you want to be sure and see my work, sign up for email notifications of new posts here.  And until my first “real” post, check out all of my links and fun things in the sidebar, or click on the “My Cookie Gallery” link on the right to go look at my entire cookie art portfolio!!!