Belated Mothers Day...

I am a procrastinator. I never do anything today that I can put off till tomorrow. Mom was here Saturday for a visit, I finished her gift bouquet on Monday.  Maybe someday I'll get it right.

 

Last year we built this silly little bird house.  No plans, no directions; we just whacked it together. And these beautiful blue birds came to build their nest in it. They had four babies!  We felt blessed.  That was my inspiration for my Mothers Day Cookie Bouquet.

I here is a peak at my Mom's gift. The birds and house are cookies. Birds were cut with cookie cutters and I used template to cut out the house.  I frosted all three with royal icing.  I was trying to get a rustic look for the roof, but my idea failed.  I will try something different next time.

The flowers and ivy on the birdhouse are blossom-fondant.  I always add about a quarter cup of white chocolate marshmallow fondant to the recipe when I make it.

 I found the tulips here.  Mine aren't quite as nice, but I think they are pretty.  I had problems with dipping the cake pops in the chocolate. I don't know why.  I tried thinning it with paramount crystals, but then the chocolate coating ended up cracking as they set up. Need to do some research.

By the way...that pretty young lady at the top of the page; she's my Mom.  That picture was taken on her 90th birthday.  So that's it, my Mothers Day Sentiment..  Happy Mothers Day Mom (a little late).

Party Animals!

I was looking through several sites for cookie cutters when I happened to notice a  Balloon Animal Cookie Cutter .  I thought it might be fun to make some balloon animal cookies so I did a Google search and found a picture of one I liked and fashioned myself a cutter.

 I marked the sections of the first cookie to have an idea of how I would apply the frosting.  Using 20 second icing I filled each outline separately allowing time for each section to dry before adding any more.

I didn't think about highlighting in the beginning.  Then when I did try it, I wasn't sure how to accomplish the result I wanted. As I studied my finished product, it became obvious to me that I need to  use some shading along with highlights in the next batch.

One of the little details I missed was in the shaping of the frosting.  The sections need to look more like stretched and twisted balloon parts, rather than just blobs.

Decorating my cookies turned out to be more fun than I had expected.  I still need practice and have a lot to learn about technique but I was happy with my results.