Halloween Sugar Cookies 2011

 Here are the cookies I made for Halloween.  Skulls, Zombie, Skeleton, Coffins, Ghosts, Jack-o-lanterns, and Gravestones.  I am still pretty new to decorating sugar cookies with royal icing this is my first attempt at Halloween designs. 

I am pretty happy with what I came up with.  It usually takes me three batches to refine my designs.  I get my 'inspiration' from other cookie decorators on-line, I don't think there is anything truly original but I put my little changes in my cookies, I don't like to outright copy other peoples work.

My absolute favorite site for all things Royal Icing is Sweetopia, amazing site with so much great information! Marian is amazing and she has a wonderful talent for explaining techniques and methods.  She has some insane talent, won't ever be close to her level but her site and her videos have helped me a lot.  So check out her site!

 I love the Mexican Holiday "Dia de los Muertos" I love the art work and the colors and the traditions associated with it.  These are my first attempt at doing some Skulls in that style.  They still have a long way to go. There are some cookies designers out there that have done amazing work!

 

 Here are some of the varieties I settled on for this year.  Each cookie design evolved a lot over the weeks before Halloween.

 

I made cookies to ship friends and family, this is one of the several batches I made. My dining room table was covered with cookies.  It was torture on my son's.  They'd want to dig in and have cookies but they couldn't until I filled the orders. They did get to eat most of my practice cookies.

I hope you like my cookies, if you have any questions or comments feel free to post, I don't have any secrets since others have given me tips and tricks a long the way I feel I need to share also.  If you seen something I could improve please let me know, that is the only way we get better!  I don't really aspire to be a professional I do it because I enjoy it and it seems to make friends and family happy!

Happy Halloween! 

John

Cookies from Valentines Day 2011

Here is an assortment of Valentine cookies I came up with for Valentine's Day 2011. I am selling these cookies to family and friends and perhaps will expand to general sales on the Internet in the near future. I posted some pictures of my initial cookie designs on Facebook and here on my blog, and many of my friends have encouraged me to try to sell them. I have really enjoyed making these and hope you enjoy my pictures. I will in the near future give some instruction on how I made these.

Above is a box of assorted Valentine cookies. There are both regular sugar cookies and chocolate cookies. They are decorated with royal icing.

This is one of my favorite pictures, taken by my friend and owner of Redbean Photography in Salt Lake City, Utah. If you get a chance check our her site she has some wonderful pictures and has some very interesting blogs. This is one of her children holding one of my Ladybug flower cookies. I love his little hands on the cookie. Thanks for the great picture.

Here is one of the heart cookies with the center cut out in a heart shape. Hearts in royal icing in different shades of pink decorate this cookie.

Here is one of my favorite designs, a white heart with a border of pink hearts in different shades and polka dots in the middle. This is a chocolate cookie.

Here are some of the smaller heart cookies with polka dots. Pink, white and lavender.

A variety of the cookies.

Sugar cookie with white heart background and a heart border.

Here is a heart cookie decorated with several ladybugs. The border got messed up, but I was pretty happy with the way the ladybugs turned out.

Flowers with Ladybugs. I really think the Ladybugs turned out pretty cool.

Broken Hearts. :-(