Willow & Paisley

Cookie Decorating Party - Valentine's Day Theme

 

Hey Everyone.  Yesterday I had a cookie decorating party for my crafty friends.  I wasn't sure I was going to blog it but we had so much fun I wanted to share.  This is not going to be one of those blog posts with the fancy dancy paper striped straws or perfect Ball jar drinking glasses.  Those are perfectly portrayed parties but this was just a perfectly FUN party. 

 

I started out by baking 9.5 dozen cookies a couple of days earlier.  I loved this part.  Rolling out and cutting the cookies was very enjoyable for me.  And I got to put to good use some of those cookie cutters I hoard from the thrift stores!  Yep, justifying my hoarding hobby.  Go me.    

 

The cookie recipe I used was Sugarbelles Basic Cookie Recipe.  So easy and so yummy!  It's a winner recipe for sure.  I also used her Royal Icing Recipe but it didn't turn into a meringue texture like her tutorial says.  I don't know what went wrong but it worked out in the end (thanks to my awesomest friend Brenda for fixing the consistency for me) and it tasted SO good that it didn't matter.  Definitely add the Almond extract!  Yummy.  Oh, to make 9.5 dozen cookies I made 3 of her cookie batches and the double icing recipe.  

 

 

 

I decorated some spots at the dining room table but everyone moved over to the kitchen island which ended up working out great.  I printed some cookie pics for cookie inspiration.  That's a vintage twin bed sheet I used for the table cloth.   (iPhone pic....sorry)

 

 

Paper doilies from the Dollar store on the kitchen doors and windows. 

 

 

Cookie cutters under the glass cloches.  

 

 

We drank.  Red wine Sangria and white wine Sangria.  It was yummy.  All we did was add a bottle of wine to the pitcher and 3 cans of Fresca plus whatever fruit I had on hand.  I had seen this idea on Pinterest and it links back to Eddie Ross.  So good!

 

 

We ate.  Have you seen this Peanut Butter Cream Cheese ball on Pinterest?  Steph made it and um, yeah, it is soooooo good.  There was not much left of this baby let me tell you. 

 

We decorated.  My friend Brenda saved the day by colouring and thinning my weird icing.  That girl has a pretty sweet cake shop and knows her icing.  We were able to pipe and flood immediately.  It was perfect!

 

 

I've been collecting supplies for a while preparing for this.  Sprinkles, bottles, tips, bags etc.  I think we all agreed that we preferred using the icing bags over the bottles though.  I have enough icing left over in the bottles and bags that I'm going to make a batch of cookies to take to my sisters next weekend and decorate with my nieces.  They are age 4 & 5 and they will love this!  The icing will last for several weeks. 

 

This is Wendy.  My bestest friend for the last 18 years. XO. 

 

 

Look at her go.  I called this her Charlie Brown design cookie.  

 

 

 We had a couple of 14 year olds here and boy did they take to this project.  Those girls blew us out of the water.  They were uber talented and so focused. 

 

 

I'm not kidding.  This is Libby's tray of cookies.  Wow, right? 

 

 

This is Joely's tray (with some of her mom's, Wendy's, cookies).  Can you believe these are first time ever cookie decorators?  We were so impressed.  

 

 

Here is Steph.  She's my partner in crime for everything.  For work. For thrifting.  For paper crafting and now for cookie decorating.  She made more than what is on this tray and less than 24 hours later she reported to me that her cookie monster husband and son ate them all.  Less temptation for her that way.  Haha. 

 

 

These are Tami's cookies  So sweet!!  She's a fan of Hello Kitty so I'd love to get my hands on a Hello Kitty cookie cutter. 

 

 

Here is Brenda's cookies.  Love.  I am still chuckling picturing her eating that large sprinkled heart cookie on the drive home last night.  Too funny.  

 

 

Here is some of my cookies.  I totally copied Libby's X & O with the silver balls on it.  

 

 

 

This is also my cookie.  The girls voted it the Ugliest Cookie award.  Nice friends, hey? 

 

My island is 10' x 4' and believe me we used up ever square inch of it.  I'm so glad the girls took to this and we hope to do it a few times a year.  

 

 

When everyone was done their own they all made Mike his own tray of cookies.  What guy wouldn't love that?    

 

 

Everyone brought a cookie sheet to transport their cookies home.  We had trays of gorgeous coloured cookies everywhere!

 

There ya go!  A look into our fun Valentine's themed day.  I highly recommend a Cookie Decorating day for you and your friends or kiddos.  Next time.....Spring Themed.  Think tulips, bees and green grass.  Thanks for visiting!

 

 

 

Random Stuff To Share

 

 

 

On Friday I blogged the card in this post for the Embellish Magazine challenge  (thanks for all the love it received on SCS's Facebook page and here on my blog.....love that!) but I must confess it was actually card number 2.  The card above is the first one I made for the challenge but I realized it wasn't cutting it when it came to the required colors....light blue, bright blue, light yellow, dark yellow.  I used patterned paper from Cosmo Cricket to make those rolled flowers and you can sorta kinda see (ok not at all) how I was hoping it worked for the colors.  Yeah, not so much. 

But I still love it so I wanted to share.  The rolled flowers are so much fun to make and what a great way to use up some smaller pieces of patterned paper you've been keeping.  I highly recommend the die which is the rolled rose from My Favorite Things stamp company.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up.  A couple of weeks ago I went to Kimberley BC with a couple of friends to enjoy a mountain getaway at a rented condo.  Good food, cocktails and great friends.  You'd think it couldn't get any better than that but it did.....there was a private hot tub on the deck which I loved. 

One of my friends is super crafty and one is not but I thought it would be fun to have a little project for all of us to do.  I put together a kit to make these cute little button tags one night.  I die cut a bunch of tags, took a huge container of buttons, embroidery threads, fabric, inks, stamps and adhesives.  {{Glue Dots really are your best friend when it comes to making these}}.  I think the girls really enjoyed it and here are the ones I made.   Aren't they fun? 

 

 

 

This one was my favorite.  I truly love this stamp set and dies.  I feel like Papertrey made it just for me.

 

 

 

This past weekend it was Mike's birthday and I made him a 2 layer white cake with chocolate buttercream icing.  I'm not a big fan of cake mixes (unless it's Angel food cake or brownie mix .....which BTW I swear the Walmart no name Good Value brand brownie mix is the best)and this white cake recipe was super easy.  The recipe called for Almond Extract and that was SO GOOD!  I will make this again for sure.  Yumm-o!

 

 

 

 

Last but not least I wanted to share a couple of Easter cards from a shoe box swap I did with some other girlfriends about a month ago.  {Does anyone else do shoebox swaps too?}  Anywho....my super duper creative and genius friend Brenda designed these cards for us to make.  OMG the cuteness is killing me so I just had to share.  I don't think I'll ever part with these and I'm pretty sure they will be used for Easter decor each year.  Not that I really decorate for Easter but I might now!

 

This weekend my nieces were visiting and I got out the oval punches and we made each one of them a bunny.  My 3 yr old niece actually hugged hers when it was done.  So cute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well there you have it....just a few things I wanted to share with you all.

 

 

 

 

Loonie Stampers Challenge

OH MY WORD!  Is anyone else having a panic attack?  There is only 7 days left until Christmas!!!  It's just hit me and I feel like I have so much to do! EEK.  Why am I so last minute and do this to myself every year??  I best hurry up and share my card so I can get checking off my to-do list.

ETA:  Please watch for this card in Holiday Cards & More V5.

Dee chose "No colours" this week but rather had us create a Christmas card with non traditional colours. I went with Orange Zest and Aqua Mist.  Can't get much more non traditional that that but I LOVE these colours together!!

Check the girls!

Dee    Jewels    Regan    Maria    Wendy

Oh and LOOK....Christmas came early to my house!!  It's the Kiwi colour I have been in love with for a long time.  Looks like I made it on the nice rather than naughty list!

Yep...I've definitely been nice!

(Wendy....don't freak out....lol)

 
 
 
  

Pickles and Buttons

Thanks so much to everyone who commented about the buttons and salsa.  I see there are many people with the same mind set as me.....that you can never have too many buttons (and we all love salsa..haha).  One day I will show you all my buttons.  And my craft room for that matter.... if I ever clean it up.

I asked Mike to pick 2 numbers between 1 and 34.  He chose #8 and #28.  Well Regan is already going to be getting some when I see her in Delaware next week so he picked another.....#11. 

#8  Sandy Kay said...

That's a lot of salsa - looks yummy! I made some this year, but not that much! I also made some dill pickled beans! I would LOVE to have some buttons - never can have too many!

#28 - REGAN---Girlfriend your's are being hand delivered by yours truly.....and no I am not bringing jars of salsa on the flight...haha.

#11 Angela R. said...

those buttons look almost as yummy as that salsa!!! mmmm!!! i've love me some buttons ~ those are ADORABLE!!!!

Congrats Ladies.  I will send you emails for your addresses (or you can email me if you see this first) and I will send you a cups worth of button goodness!

To further update you on our "canning" adventures........Steph and I made dill pickles and dilled beans on Sunday.  We won't know how they taste or turn out for approx 4-6 weeks but just like the salsa we enjoyed the process.   In total we made 16 one litre jars of pickles and 6 pints of green/yellow beans.  We put a hot red peppers in 6 jars of cukes just for an experiment.  I love how it looks in the jar and hopefully we will get some spicy dill pickles.   

                 

For anyone who's interested in the Salsa recipe that we used the other day...here it is.  I do recommend that you use this just as a base and add to your taste.  I got the recipe from my MIL's friend Wendy (Thank you Wendy).   I really like it but I think I made a mistake using sweet onions instead of regular cooking onions or red onions.  It doesn't have much zing but it is still so fresh and so good!  I would add more jalapeno's next time also.   Also, Thank you so much to Michelle LL for emailing me your Salsa recipes.  That is a must try on our next batch me thinks!

Salsa

20 med. tomatoes

4 garlic cloves minced

3 large onions chopped

2 tbsp pickling salt  ( used Kosher)

1 large green pepper chopped

2-3 jalapeno peppers chopped

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp oregano

2/3 cup vinegar

3 tbsp cornstarch

2 cans tomato paste

To prepare tomatoes----boil water, plunge tomatoes in water till skins begin to crack.  About 1-2 mins.  Drain, put in sink in cold water and remove and discard skins.  Chop tomatoes and put in large pot with everything else.  Cook for 15-20min (we brought it to a boil and that's it).  Be sure to stay and stir the mixture.  Fill jars and process for 20-25 mins.  Good Luck.  Note: we made 3 batches which filled 24 pints.