Origami Cookies - With Added Foxiness!

Hey all,

This weeks cookie theme is Origami.

Exciting!

My very best friend recently went up to Wellington and stayed with her friend for the weekend, who is the most amazing Origami artist. To say thank you she asked me for some help in designing and making Origami cookies for him.

What we came up with is actually pretty awesome!

I actually used cookie cutters this week, such a novelty, after trimming and handcutting quite a bit lately. I used a Betty Crocker cat face cutter for the fox and a simple 10-point star for the others.

I did hand cut some cranes. See below.

It's possible I forgot to take a photo of them finished. But in all honesty, they didn't live up to the excitement of the foxes. How could they?

So, first plain sugar cookies. SO boring. Then I drew my lines on, as above.

I piped the lines in the browny-orange, filling the cheek and centre piece in shortly after. If you are hyper-vigilant about colours running, you might want to wait until the piping has dried completely before putting the white in.

Likewise, with the pinwheels I did 2 pieces at a time, and then let this dry completely (overnight), filling in 2 more pieces the next day, and then the last piece when they had completely dried.
If you fill any joining triangles before the other is dry, they all run together, and you just end up with a royal icing puddle.

Looking good.

I must say, in this instance, the black piping over top at the end, really made these.
It worked perfectly with the Origami look, and I just really think they are especially adorable.
Next weeks theme is roller skates, so check back in soon!

Lou

Cookie Theme - Coffee with Love!

This week, I used some inspiration AGAIN from sweetsugarbelle.com, as she is so thorough, and the finishing touches on her cookies are absolutely awesome. One day people, one day!

You can find the original piece she did on these cookies here 

So, this is how i did it!

I actually don't own a coffee cup cutter, so used a baby onesie cutter, and chopped the sleeves and bottom bit off. Inverted, it gave a great angled look to my cookie. 

I did cut in the round on the top by hand, just to give a better definition of the lid once completed, and I must say I am glad I did. 

Above, you can see where I have used a food-safe marker to draw out where I wanted to run each section. This is really useful when you are going to be using multiple colours. 

You can also see above the coffee bean cookies, which I hand cut as I just had nothing that I could see that would work. 

Note to self to stop taking photos on our wooden table. Will move to a white background for better colour I promise. 

On the right you can see where I lined the coffee cup sections, using a tan colour I made using mint green, lemon yellow and super red. 

Next, I flooded the tan sections of the coffee cup in. At this point, I let them set for about an hour, so the colours wouldn't run when I added the white mid-section and top. 

 I just used a straight white for these ones, but in hindsight I would have tracked down some Ivory colour to add to the royal icing, just to offset quite how white this icing is. 

There is really only one shop in our city that sells the Americolor brand gel colours and they carry a limited supply, so everything is ordered online. It just means I have to think ahead and stay on top of colours, which obviously didn't happen this week. 

I piped around the top edge and sides before flooding in the white. 

For the coffee beans above, I used a thicker icing in favour of not lining and then flooding, simply filling one half of the cookie, waiting for it to semi-dry, then filling in the remainder, as you can see here. 

Added in some lovely hearts, lined with white, filled with a icing which was a mix of electric pink & super red. 
These found their way to someone who totally deserved some coffee cookies. 

Check in later this week for this weeks theme. ORIGAMI!

See ya then, 
Lou xoxo

Lego Brick & Lego Man Cookies

It's a rare Sunday that I have time to sit down and catch up on blog and coffee, all by myself. Josh has taken Miss 4 to the movies, and Mr 2 is asleep.
Look at me go!

We are off to a friends birthday party for her own Mr 2 this afternoon, and I wanted to contribute some awesome cookies to the festivities. 

So, Lego Brick cookies!
I got this easy, awesome idea from over at here. I am obsessed with her whole website, and her lego men look a lot more clean than mine, but that's ok, practice makes perfect!

I really like them. Next time, I think I will just suck it up and buy Black 5mm beads instead of doing the eyes myself, and I would bring the eyes down a little. But I think they are pretty cool dudes!

The Lego Bricks came together so easily, and although there are some I like more than others, I am really happy with the presentation of them overall. 

Only one test left, and that's to let them all loose on a 2 year old birthday party. 

Miss 4 was my taste tester this morning, and reckons they are "the bee's knees". 
Mr 2 didn't agree, but he's not my sweet tooth, so I try not to take it to heart. 

The plan is to get my portfolio of cookies bigger & better and to start selling over the next 18 months. 

So, if you are on the hunt for cute, quirky, fun cookies then I am the lady to talk too. 

Got some eyes made up and ready to go for another project later in the week! Keep your eyes peeled!! HAHAAA eyes.. 

Peace out. 
Lou

Mother's Day 2014

A perfectly normal, quiet Mother's Day. What more could I possibly have asked for?

We have had a VERY long week in our house, involving sick kids, MRI's for Mr.1 (scheduled, so no big drama) and general havoc. 

It was so nice to wake up this morning (albeit after a largely sleepless night last night with Mr.1) and have a cup of coffee in bed!

We went out for brunch with family, we caught up with everyone and took the obligatory family photos, we drank more coffee (a staple in any family outing!). I chilled out with my kids and watched a DVD, I took Miss.4 to a birthday party (at Chipmunks, so easy work for me) and I got to have coffee with my best friend. 

It's days like today, so lacking in drama and issues and busy-ness that make me feel blessed and peaceful. 

It's a light at the end of the tunnel, after a long week and not enough sleep, I remember why I do it, and if I can walk away from anything on Mother's Day, I am really glad it is that. 

Today, I feel thankful for happy, generally healthy kiddies, a hard-working husband and a great friends & family network. 

A very Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there, young & old, new & more weathered, you are all awesome and do what you can, and I think you are swell. 

Purchase of the week (pre-wedding #2)

So, this week has been all about wedding prep.

Figuring out what I need to figure out is really hard work. So its nice that in between all that, I get to buy cool things and play with them. It makes it all seem awesomely worth it, makes all the stress and busy-ness seem totally justifiable. There is method to my madness after all.

So, my favourite web store of the week:

www.poprocparties.co.nz

Picked up the gear I needed to get my goody bags under way this week, and I could have spent soooo much more money than I did.

 These bags were a really affordable option for the goody bags. At only 0.35c a pop, I didn't break any budgets buying about 70 of them.

You can see here my special treat of the week. I bought a full stamp set of the alphabet, in upper and lower case. In the photo above, you can see we have stamped each envelope with names. They are even more adorable on the bags than I thought they would be. And yes, the bags did come pre-stamped. So handy.

You can see a little taster of the washi tape I bought too. It's a mint floral washi tape, and it was worth all of the $5.00 it cost me, to liven up my little bags just enough.

We had the fantastic idea of rolling out a little paint, and making labels (3 for each person), which will go inside the little goody bags. As we are having a BYO wedding, we wanted a way for people to be able to label their drinks. Yay for sticker sheets, cute alphabet stamps and paint!


The magic of using the paint with the labels is that even once the alcohol or drinks get chucked in the chilly bin, the paint wont run everywhere and make a horrible mess. It is also a cost effective way to make 180 labels, so that always makes me happy!

So, busy week all round. I am slowly working my way through these one by one, putting together these very cute little bags and counting the days till I get to give them out. I know everyone will see the effort put in and appreciate that we are doing what we can to make a cheap wedding, still awesome and cute, and very much suited to us as people.

YAY! General celebration excitement!!

Lou xoxo

Bakerella Red Velvet & Wilton 2d cupcakes

I am a massive fan of the Bakerella recipe for Red Velvet cake.

A few weeks ago, I was planning my wedding cupcakes (an alternative to a wedding cake), and went immediately back to this awesome recipe. 

This is a favourite for me, because it consistenly makes a beautifully flavoured, well cooked, moist cake. My general rule of thumb is that pretty much any cake recipe can be turned into cupcakes, but not all cupcake recipes can be turned into cake (in fact, not many at all). 

This was the first time I had made this recipe in cupcake form though, and man it was good. These were just as beautifully flavoured, moist and well cooked as the full cake version. 

This is definitely a flavour I want within my wedding cake. Not so long ago ( a few weeks), the plan was that I would make my own wedding cake/cupcakes, due to our tiny budget. However, I am very lucky, and my dad has offered to pay for a proper cake now, so I don't have to stress over it. YAY! One less thing to worry about is totally ok in my book.

As I was doing this for a wedding trial run, I invested (I use the term invested very lightly here, because it cost me $5.00) in a Wilton 2d icing tip. I have always really loved the rosette piped cupcakes created by this icing tip and wanted to recreate this tip at home. 

I did my usual thing and watched about 18 Youtube videos on the subject (how all the greats learned, I am sure) and then gave it a go myself.

Wow! This is so easy, like I am pretty sure I could have gotten Josh to do it, and he could have rocked it (no offence to him is meant here, he just really isn't a baker, especially not a cupcake decorator).
This icing tip may be my new favourite icing tip, and I do not say this lightly.

How cute are these?

Please excuse the poor lighting, this was a night time venture, and my photography skills are severely limited. Whenever possible I use my mums partners camera, but usually I have my silly smart phone, and that's it. 
I will totally accept sponsorship from a camera company, and make you proud, but until then, this is all you get. 

I dusted the top edges with gold lustre dust, and it just finished them off perfectly. For a first attempt, I am stoked with how these came out, I will be coming back to this one again and again.

The frosting is the cream cheese frosting that comes along with the Bakerella recipe. 

DO IT. 

Bakerella Red Velvet Cake

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 Tablespoon cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 Tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Red food colouring

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Or 350 degrees F.
2. Grease and flour 2 x 20cm cake pans (8-inch). If making cupcakes, prepare 2 x 12-hole muffin pans with papers.
3. Lightly stir eggs in a medium bowl with a wire whisk. Add remaining liquid ingredients and stir together with whisk until blended. Set aside.
4. Place all the dry ingredients in your mixing bowl and stir together really well, with another wire whisk.
5. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix on medium-high for about a minute or until completely combined.
6. Pour cake batter into prepared cake pans or muffin pans.
7. Bang muffin pans on benchtop to get any air bubbles out and to the surface.
8. Bake for 30 minutes for cake, or 18 minutes for cupcakes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
9. After about ten minutes, remove cakes from pans or muffin pans and cool completely on a wire rack. 
10. Make the frosting!

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

8 oz. cream cheese (240gm), room temperature

1 cup (226g) butter, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla

6 cups icing sugar

1. Sift sugar and set aside.
2. Beat cream cheese and butter on high until creamy. Add vanilla.
3. Then, add the sugar in batches. Scrape down the sides in between each addition.
4. Frost away!!

Lou xoxo

Pre-wedding #1

Hello!
How I have missed you.

This week has marked the 3 month mark for wedding, and now with officially less than 3 months to go, I have gone into crafty overdrive and general wedding prep.

We bought Lily's flower girl dress fabric and I bought a pattern. I bought her some super cute shoes too in the Pumpkin Patch sale online! Only $13!

These have been my big excitement lately! We have been quietly making these little beauties for a while now. Basically, a flower made from an old book page, felt leaves and a brooch backing. 
Upon arrival at the wedding, each of our guests will receive one of these little babies. It's definitely taking time to put it all together, but god they make me proud and happy. They just look so cute. 

They have been so cute to put together, and I promise a tutorial will be on the way!

This is the pretty little bag that the brooch's will come in, along with another couple of awesome pieces, details on the way!

We have a tiny, tiny budget for our wedding (about $2500), we are having a potluck dinner, small numbers (as it is at my mums house) and its BYO. But that doesn't mean that with what little money I do have, we can put together a really beautiful day, filled with little bits of Josh and I everywhere you look. 
These little bags that I am putting together are a perfect way to show everyone how appreciative we are that they are there for our special day. It's definitely a "its the thought that counts" situation, and I am going all out to DIY as much as possible, putting my personality into everything I can. 

I am so excited to share with you all as I put this day together from scratch, saving money where I can and I am just so excited that we will be married at the end of it, YAY! At the end of the day, that's what truly matters, everything else is just extra.

Lou xoxo