Cookie Jewelry Icing Transfers - Part 2

Another royal icing jewelry transfer post. In this one I start out with crowns, bows, stars and some simple flower jewels at the top, and at the bottom of the post some cabochon type jewels. I make these as transfers for two reasons. The first being I can make them ahead of time as long as I seal them to keep air from tarnishing the dragees. The second is that where I live the dragees are to be used for non-edible decorations only, so I use just a dot of icing to attach them so they are easily removed before eating.
To help keep my sanity, especially when outlining with tiny pearls, I now use what I call a bead vacuum to place all those "cookie beads". It makes the job so much faster, and no more chasing those slippery spheres with tweezers. I will be talking more about this in my next post when I update my cookie tools.

Crowns, bows, stars, and flower type jewelry transfers.

Below I'll show a few basics for the crowns and bows.

This is my crown printout that I started with. I lay acetate or waxed paper over it and ice away.

Close up of two crown variations. I usually start with the lower edge following the shape with an icing line and adding sugar pearls or dragees as I go.

Then I add the larger colored pearls and fill in with smaller ones all while trying to keep within the outline.

 (Oops, looks like my paper shifted during the photo shoot)

    I first outline small areas around the shape with a line of icing and place tiny dragees or sprinkles adding more icing and sprinkles until the whole shape is outlined. Let these dry a bit (you don't want the lines to shift) before flooding with icing. Once flooded these need to dry overnight before using.

These can also be done by just outlining with icing, and flooding, but I wanted a beaded edge.

Cabochon type cookie bling!!!

The green and white diamonds with the gold beading in the second row are done with edible gold food coloring over white tiny sugar pearls. Not as shiny as dragees. They look more like old gold.

See the next photo for the basics. 

 To make the cabochons I start out with my ever present printout of whatever shape I'm doing covered in waxed paper or acetate.

I place icing around the outlined shape and add sugar pearls.

In between the pearls I add small dragees and let this dry a bit so the shape doesn't shift when I do the next step.

When the pearls have had time to set I flood the middle with icing and add a single sugar pearl or dragee, or a smaller shaped jewel like the diamond above. I make the smaller jewels a day or two ahead to give them time to dry so they can be added to the larger ones.

These larger jewels take a lot longer to dry and set up because of the icing thickness in the middle. They may seem dry on the top, but underneath they could still be wet.

 If your icing tends to sink as it's drying, do the flooding in layers, letting each layer set up before adding the next one.

♥ Happy Decorating ♥

Graduation Tassel Cookies - Tutorial

I recently updated the graduation tassel cookie I designed 4 years ago (seen here), and sent the design to Ecrandal cookie cutter company to have Eric make a cutter for me. You can now find it (here).

Eric makes and sells quite a few of my designs, and when I can I will link to the actual cutter on his site.
Gorgeous doesn't even begin to describe the heirloom quality of these cookie cutters, and over time I will be featuring step by step tutorials of my designs that Ecrandal offers in cookie cutter form.
Thank you Jamie and Eric!!!

What starts out as a simple line drawing on my end Eric meticulously transforms into a beautiful yet sturdy cookie cutter.

Because of the depth of the cookie cutter, and the angle of the camera, the cutter might give the illusion of being larger than the drawing, but Eric has always been very precise when making my cookie cutters, and it actually matches my drawing perfectly. And the best part.....no more hand cutting these. Yeah!!!

After rolling and cutting out my cookie dough I use a soda straw to to punch a hole for the ribbon I plan to add later.

Once the cookies are baked and cooled I flood the cookie in sections (left photo) allowing them to dry about 15 or 20 minutes before adding the the next sections. (right photo)

This isn't necessary, but it gives me a pattern to follow later, and adds more dimension.

 I leave the neck section untouched for now, and let the whole thing dry completely before moving on to the next step.

With outline consistency icing, I begin to add the strings of the tassel using the neck section as my starting point letting the lines flow to the bottom. I also add lines to the top. I leave enough space between the strings so they aren't touching as I don't want them to run together. After letting the first set of strings dry for about 10 minutes, I place additional strings until I'm happy with the overall look. 

I cut away the jagged icing edges near the neck, and flood this section with icing and let it set for a few minutes before adding the year numbers. I want them to lay on top of the icing without sinking into it too far. 

 This cookie shows the numbers I've added to the wet icing.

The numbers were made ahead as icing transfers and gilded while they were still attached to the acetate. It was easier for me to do them this way as the numbers are small and I wanted them as uniform as possible. I'll let this dry overnight before packaging them up.
Note: The numbers can be piped directly onto the cookie for all of you with mad piping skills and steadier hands.

All tied up, bagged and tagged.
I made the simple hang tag using black card stock and stickers.



♥ Happy Decorating ♥

Handmade Ornaments - Candyland Christmas Tree

I'm pretty sure I've been voted off the Island by now. Cookie Island that is.  I haven't done any creative cookie baking for almost a year. Too many other projects, not really blog worthy, took precedence. Hopefully next year I can get into my cookie groove again.

Recently, like millions of others, I did manage to get into Christmas decorating mode. While in the process of getting out the decorations this year I decided I finally wanted to start the design process for a candyland themed tree. Having collected numerous sweet themed ornaments over the years, I finally felt I had enough to start putting together a small tabletop version.

In an attempt to keep my creative juices flowing I made a few handmade sweet treats to add to my store bought ones. As usual I seem to have more projects I want to do than time to do them.

A work in progress.

 I'm not completely happy with this one yet. 

It's way too jumbled and needs a lot more tweaking or editing, but I think it's off to a good start.

Below are a few of the ornaments I made to add to the ones I already had.

These simple, easy to make gumdrops will be used to fill in and add sparkle.

These were made by rolling and flattening styrofoam balls into gumdrop shapes, then painting and gluing on transparent glitter. I think I'll use smaller sizes and make them into either sprays or garland next time.

I absolutely fell in love with the fake rock candy sugar sticks I saw at the Breakfast 4 Dinner blog and knew I had I found my next project. Instead of  beads, I used what was labeled as "pirate jewels" found in the party section of Hobby Lobby. They look like those mini ice rock table scatters used for weddings.
I just followed Loraine's instructions found (here). They look pretty darn real don't you think?
Unfortunately there were only 4 colors in my bag of "jewels", so I'll need to check wedding supplies for more colors next year because I like the sparkle these add to the tree.

These fake brownie bites fooled my husband, a die hard chocoholic. I thought he'd cry when I told him they weren't real. I found the instructions for these (here) from Mark being Mark on youtube when I went searching for fake candy and cake tutorials. I decided not to add the flowers or the plate to the ones on my tree. I have some boxed candy truffles in the works, but they may have to wait until next year.


♥ Happy Decorating ♥