CookieCon 2014 Sugar Art Show Entries

I don't have time to write all about CookieCon (but I will do that later).  I am just home yesterday afternoon and have much catching up to do and about 400 photos to look at.

However, I did want to go ahead and post photos of the two cookies I entered in the Sugar Art Show.  I worked hard on them and I'm kind of proud of how far I've come in the last couple of years.  Sadly, after sitting in the extremely dry air for 3 days in Salt Lake City, my first cookie cracked and crumbled when I picked it up to bring it home.  They both ended up in the trash because I knew they couldn't be eaten and so pffft...off they went into the garbage.

Glad I photographed them.  Not a winner - but that is absolutely okay.  You should see the cookies that won!  I'll try to get together some of the photos I took of cookies before long.  However, I must get back to real life and that means I have to step away from the blog while I do that!

Here are the two entries!

Entry for "Home Sweet Home" Category
Stylistic representation of the beautiful beach and ocean,
sand castles, and our beloved Sea Turtle, Inc. hatchling releases.

Entry in the "Anything Goes" Category
I had never tried an ombre anything, so I tried the
technique with a flower.  I added two separate
leaf cookies as accents, and embellished them
with piped veins, edible marker veins and dry-brushed
lustre dust.  I painted the accent dots on the flower
with lustre dust dissolved in vodka. The hundreds of
individually piped beads on the flowers was very labor
intensive.  I may never do that again, but I can now say
"I did it"!
 

All cookies were made with my favorite Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookie dough, rolled 3/8" thick, and decorated with vanilla royal icing.  If they hadn't sat around un-covered for 10 days, they would likely have tasted quite yummy!

Thanks for joining me today...more on CookieCon coming up as soon as my life settles down.

Bon Appetit, Y'all!

The Luck of the Irish!

I must have Irish in me somewhere - my father always said so...quite a melting pot in my blood stream!  I do have freckles and always have a reddish tint to my hair when I'm in the sun for long...and very pale skin.  I always hoped my freckles would tan together when I was a teen ...now, I slather with sunscreen so they won't!

Despite the supposed bit of Irish blood, I realized I've never done cookies for Saint Patrick's Day.  Who knows why not?  Certainly not me.  My son saw a shamrock cutter I had sitting out and wondered if I would be making cookies that he might could eat.  I assured him I would, if he would just let me get some photos before devouring them.  He's moving off to live in a dorm in another city and I know he is going to miss my cookies (and hopefully me a little bit).  I see care packages in his future.

I didn't get very many photos - I only made a dozen cookies for St. Paddy's Day - but I had leftover icing and a big cookie so I played around with an green and orange theme with the extra.  The family ate four cookies before I could get them photographed.  They were darn tasty.  I haven't eaten one of my cookies in over a month - and it's always good to check on the quality!

I think I'll pack up the last few cookies for my boy to take with him...oh wait, I see there are only four left now!  Heck, there will be none left come Monday morning!!!

I used my Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookie recipe and decorated with royal icing as usual.  I tried to stencil a little butterfly on one of the shamrocks and it ended up looking a bit "camo". LOL! 

I really loved the Celtic Knot stencils I purchased from Designer Stencils last year (and never used).  They make such wonderful culinary stencils.  I enjoy stencils a lot in my decorating.  I'm going to try to work on my airbrush skills - so you may see some of those in upcoming posts.  I usually manage to ruin a few cookies in the process.  I suspect I should practice on paper first!  For today, however, the thicker royal icing was carefully smeared over the Celtic Knot stencils, the butterfly stencil, and a concentric circles stencil I got from SalsaSweets.  Fun with icing!

Here's my favorite Irish blessing...

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

You guys have a great St. Patrick's Day!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!!!

Where Has the Time Gone???

A celtic knot work in progress

I just realized I had not posted anything on my blog for an entire MONTH.  I don't know where the time has gone.  A lot has been going on in my life...and I've only baked things that I've already posted about or that didn't turn out well and weren't deserving of a post.  (hanging head after a big sigh)

I am in the process of baking and decorating some pieces for the CookieCon 2014 Sugar Art Show.  Since I'm a hobby decorator, I'm shaking in my flip flops.  All those professionals and artists...oh, the anxiety! 

I am also finishing up a sparse few cookies for St. Patrick's Day because my son is looking at me with sad puppy dog eyes, asking "can I eat any of these" when I had a couple of art show cookies drying.  I snapped NO and then realized how snappish I sounded.  I told him I'd make some St. Paddy's Day cookies and he could eat all of them...as soon as I photographed them.  Then, I caved and gave him two, my husband one, and I ate one to ensure quality control (yeah, I'll keep telling myself that).

My house looks like something blew up in it.  My youngest son is finally going to take a leap from the nest and will be moving into a dorm...we are taking that opportunity to repaint and declutter his room...so he is packing stuff for storage and stuff to take with him.  It is all scattered over the entire house.  I'd take a picture, but I'm afraid it would look like an unpleasant Hoarder's episode.  I've done 15 loads of laundry in the past week.  Washing new clothes, washing clothes that haven't seen the light of day in a while (you'd be surprised how many lost socks turned up)  It looks all blowed up, but it's actually been quite organized.  We broke it down into daily tasks...we're only 3 days behind on the list.  It's been a 3-week long endeavor and he moves on Monday.  Oh double yikes...that's just 2 1/2 days away....breathe, breathe.  We can do this!

On Wednesday I fly off to CookieCon with my friend, Diana.  We are both so excited we can hardly stand it.  450 cookie artists, with associated vendors, speakers, and instructors will descend upon Salt Lake City for the 2014 Cookie Art Convention and Show.  I'm truly giddy with excitement.

I'll be gone for a week, so if I get the St. Patrick's Day cookies finished and photographed, I'll try to do another post.  In the meantime, all I have for you is a peek of some things I'm working on.  The one at the top and the one at the bottom (nothing is finished yet, did I mention anxiety?).

Ta ta for now!

I piped hundreds of dots on a cookie and then I dropped
the lid off a piping tip right in the middle.  I nearly cried!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!!!