A Proverbs 31 Kind of Day

These are baseball cookies and bats that were ordered for a baby shower. I know I've said it before; I just L.O.V.E. decorated sugar cookies. I'm not sure that there's anything better! This is one of my favorite sugar cookie recipes because it's so stinking easy! I was going to post a link to the blog where you could find the recipe . . . then discovered that I had never posted the recipe! That's unbelievable! Whether you make a plain cookie and frost it with store bought frosting, or you whip up some royal icing and make a masterpiece, you won't be disappointed with this cookie! Vanilla Sugar Cookies 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour 1 cup butter, chilled, cut into small pieces 1 cup powdered sugar 2 egg yolks 2 tsp. vanilla Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the flour in a food processor and add the butter.  Pulse the mixture until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Add the sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla and process until you have a...

My girl cherub has an auction at school today. Parents have been asked to donate items. My cherub begged me to make sugar cookies. She thinks that everyone will LOVE cookies! So I made 3 different pumpkin cookies and 2 spider cookies. I like the spider cookies the best. My cherub is so excited -- she wants to bid on the cookies. But guess what! My cherub is home sick today -- she has strep throat! She's not going to school OR bidding at the auction! Guess what I did! I left one of the cookies at home for her to have! That's a nice momma -- don't you think?

On the first day of school my girl cherub delivered cookies to her teacher. The classroom theme is "Franjac Ranch."  So what better to fit the theme than cowboy sugar cookies. You'll have to excuse the poor pictures.  I already had them wrapped and we were headed out the door when I remembered I hadn't taken any pictures of the cookies! So I did a quick snap and gathered them back up and ran to meet the teacher! My cherub picked the colors to use on the cookies:  black, white, and 2 shades of pink (that lean to the red side!).  We made hats, boots, and bandana squares.  This time we used the royal icing to decorate the cookies.

Celebrating the 49th birthday of a friend with bright cupcake sugar cookies!

I made the sugar cookies. I made the icing plan -- sketching out on paper what I thought would be cute. I have to do this.  When I sketch it out, it helps me to know which frosting to put on first; what areas I'll have to let dry before I put another color on; when to put on the sprinkles, etc, etc, etc! I made two mistakes this time. I'll show them to you.  Mistakes aren't bad; they help me do better next time.  Thankfully, mistakes taste the same as successes. First mistake:  I over baked my cookies.  I did a little change to my cookie dough.  Why?  I have no idea!  I have a great recipe.  Lesson learned:  don't mess with the dough! Second mistake:  I tried to decorate when there was too much going on at home.  "Mom!"  "Mom!"  "Mom!"  Even though I had a plan, I didn't pay enough attention to the fact that it really wasn't working! Here are the goods!  USA, he...

I've been teaching in Vacation Bible School this week. It's been a wild week. It's been a good week. I've done Vacation Bible School for a lot of years and I do believe that this team of ladies that I worked with has been the best yet. To show my appreciation to them, I made them "Wild Thank You" sugar cookies last night. I hope there's an extra one . . .I think I want a treat too! *This is my favorite sugar cookie recipe with the cookie icing that's not royal icing.  It did take all night for them to dry -- but they were ready to be bagged this morning!  Yeah!

It's Charlotte's Web day at school. It's a fun way to finish a great book and celebrate the end of school. Several moms brought special "Charlotte's Web" snacks: pigs in a blankets lemonade spider web cookies I signed up for spider web cookies.  Because when I did that there wasn't anything on my calendar! They're smart like that at the beginning of school! I didn't take very great pictures . . .but didn't realize that until just now.  Of course, it's too late to do anything about that now.  Because not only are they already at school, but they're consumed too! Oh well!  It's the thought! Happy Charlotte's Web Day!

Not because I think I did a good job these-- but because I want the memory so that next year I can improve!

I'm still playing with the "cookie icing" from the other day. Here are some Easter Egg cookies that a friend ordered.   My girl cherub said, "oh, that's creative!" My boy cherub said, "that's so retro!" My Mr. said, "how'd you do that?" These are Easter treats I'm sharing with my friends from my Bible Study group.

Easter is still a week away and I've finished the first of the decorated Easter sugar cookies! Yeah, me! Today's post has the remaining goodies. Here's the deal -- I changed my type of icing for these!  That's a big deal! I normally use royal icing -- but this is a royal-ish type-ish of icing-ish!  I'm sure there's a real name for it, but I don't know it right now.  If I find out, I'll tell you.  For now I'm calling it cooking icing. That's because it's past my bed-time and I'm not very creative when I'm tired! This icing is quicker to mix up, takes color very well, and tastes much better! For my first time, I'd go with an "ok" for experience.  I'm definitely willing to try again and to work on improving my ability with it!  I didn't do enough with it to "layer" the details which is so easy to do with royal icing -- by the point I got to these cookies, I was ready to slap some icing on th...

I love making decorated sugar cookies.  They're cute.  Not mine, I mean other people's sugar cookies are cute-- so I think I can do it too! They taste good.  I do like my sugar cookies.  They're yummy! It takes a lot of time to make decorated sugar cookies --  and it helps to be art-sy; which I'm not, which is where the problem lies! In the end, who cares what they look like -- you're just going to gobble them up!  So taste is really what matters, right? Here's 2 of my "Easter Cookies!"  By the time Easter celebration gets here, I might have them all done! Some of these I kinda like . . .other's I really like!  But you don't know what you really like until you try all of your options-- that's why I'm showing you the good, the bad, and the ugly!  Our favorite little lamb.    I used white sparkling sugar crystals instead of the nonpareils as above.  See the crack?  That means I had to eat it! ...

I'm almost embarrassed to show you this project .  . . but as I say that, I realized that I am posting it -- and only I am in control of that -- so the embarrassment factor must be relatively low!  What I should say is, I see room for improvement! The color of the picture is a bit distorted -- but the idea was there!  Can you tell what these are?  If you said, "Some type of tool" then you are right!  They are saws! It's "Tool Time with Dad" today at school and I thought I'd make this as a treat.  Sounds easy enough -- but then the trouble begin! I don't have a tool cookie cutter. I looked at all of the places by me -- you know, the convenient places.  They don't have anything.  Really, did I think they would?  The answer to that is, "Yes!  I did!"  But, they didn't! I finally found a place that carried tool cookie cutters.  They weren't that expensive -- and that's the point.  I really didn't want to drive AL...

So, here it is, VALENTINE'S Day!  Whew!  I've made it through waking the kids up singing a happy love song, giving them their little Valentine's treat AND a school party!  It's been a rather un-eventful day!  HA!  These were the darling cookies that I baked earlier last week and froze so that I could have them all cooled when it was time to frost!  I spent hours yesterday in the kitchen making frosting and tinting frosting and cleaning up my mess . . .well, sort of!  More hours of putting a layer of frosting on . . . waiting.  Another layer of frosting . . . waiting!  Another . . .well, you get the picture!  I saw this idea on a couple of other site!  It's kind of like giving out thank you's -- as soon as you start, there is someone that you leave out!  I'm not trying to short-change any of the creative minds, but if I got this idea from you -- Thanks!  I know I saw it on Sugar Sweet Belle's site!  For the pictu...

I've been baking up a storm . . . make that a snow storm!  Unfortunately, none of it is for my family!  Well, maybe that is a fortunate thing; but none-the-less!  My kids are happy when a sugar cookie breaks, that means they get a sample! I have several sugar cookie recipes that I like, but 2 are my favorite!  I will share one with you now.  It stirs together in a food processor!  How easy is that!  From there you can roll out and cut or if you prefer to do a "drop and bake" that's good too! Don't be afraid of sugar cookies -- especially the decorated kind!  Go simple and smear some canned frosting on the top and sprinkle some colored sugar or shake some non-pariels over the frosting.  If time allows and you're a little adventurous -- whip up some royal icing or glaze and let your cookie become your art canvas.  I have found that it doesn't really matter what it looks like; people just love a decorated sugar cookie! Vanilla ...

Don't you just love sugar cookies?  Especially the decorated kind?  For a back-to-school treat for our 3rd grade teacher, I decided to make pencil sugar cookies!  Of course, I don't have a cookie cutter for such -- so a ruler, pizza cutter, and an "eyeball" -- we got the look!  Little hands in the kitchen always make for the most interesting times and my little princess chef in training helped to roll out the dough!  When she decided to make a puppy . . . WITHOUT a cookie cutter, I thought to myself, "she may have some natural ability!"    Enjoy a fresh cookie today! Best Ever Butter Cookies 1 cup butter, room temperature 1cup sugar 1 egg 2 1/2 cups flour 2 TBSP orange juice 1 TBSP vanilla 1 tsp baking powder. Combine butter, sugar and egg in large mixing bowl.  Beat at medium speed until creamy.  Reduce speed to low and add flour, juice, vanilla and baking powder.  Beat until well mixed.  Divide dough in...