Emily

Sweet Emily such a cute girl with a contagious smile. You got to love her dimples! I was 18 years old when she we born. I love that just this past year she was so surprised when I told her I was 39 years old. She said that in her mind I was only 29. Keep thinking that way Emily, keep thinking that way! 

Emily is the 4th child of my oldest brother Matt. She is now 21, going to college and she seems to have her head attached just right. She is quite the performer, her and her sisters all did dance and after high school Emily continued dancing with a group called Kalamity while she attended college at Dixie State College. Here is a spot where they blogged about her.

I have been told by some people from my home town that Emily reminds them a lot of me. I am not quite sure if that is a compliment. But I think the traits we have in common is our ability to be independent, can be bossy and in charge, and don't really take attitude from others. But Emily has many more good traits than me too and the one I love the most is her ability to love. I love the way she love my parents, her Grandparents. She is lucky to have been able to grow up in the same town with them. She is so cute to them, she calls them or visits them just for the heck of it and I think that is great. I think it is awesome that she has a close relationship with them which is something I never had with my Grandparents.

 So when I thought of a theme for Emily I thought of Dance...... ballet shoes, tutus, NO. The group, Kalamity, that Emily was a part of did hip hop and their dance shoes were Converse. I tried my best to recreate a Converse shoe but soon realized that if I need to do a lot of details I need to have a bigger cookie. Oh well at least I tried.

Did the double decker cookie for the letter again.

I made some of these cookies a year ago and they were one of my favorites. I think the dresses are so cute. For some reason the icing kept forming divots in it.  I have no idea why. I use both royal icing or glaze but lately have just been using the glaze. I am no expert so not sure why the divots.

Yellow is Emily's favorite color and she loves the color theme of yellow, white, gray. I chose to do black since I already had black mixed up.

Emily now is going to BYU and she was attending a friends wedding yesterday so she stopped by on her way home. She did it so we would not have to make a special trip down to her and she also took her cousins Terence's cookies to him since they live in the same city. See she is so sweet! Thanks Emily and Happy Birthday to you!!

Oh and the red "D" is for Dixie State College. She just finished there in December and still is a little homesick for the warmth of St. George!

BYU's Big T

Big T is what a lot of people like to call my nephew Terence. The reason why, well the BYU 2011 Football Roster list him as 6'4" and 318 pounds (but most of the time these numbers are exaggerated). That just might be what some call big.

Terence is the oldest son of my older brother Robert, he is a big guy but also a very nice guy. My brother and his family moved out to South Carolina at least 16 years and so we did not get to see his family very often. But in 2000/2001 I moved out to Columbia SC to attend a Esthetics school. There is more to that story but it's is not necessary to share. Anyway I got to visit the Southern Brown's quite often while I lived out there and it was fun to be able to hang out with my n/n out there.

Terence impressed me when he was a young man. The "adults" would be chatting and Terence would come in the room and join right in. He wanted to chat and it surprised me that a teenager would even care about what the "adults" were talking about and that he actually added to the conversation. Seems like most teenagers think their parents or adults are lame and don't really care to hang out with them.

In the South Football is a BIG deal and most scouting happens at a very young age. Terence played High School Football in Summerville SC for the nations most winningest High School Football coach. (John McKissick) I don't know all the details exactly but Terence was actually sought out by a few colleges and he chose BYU.

He has played for BYU as an offensive lineman. This last year was his last year and I believe he has made himself available for the NFL draft, it will be exciting to see what happens in April.
Well Terence I hope that you had a very happy birthday and I hope that you like your BYU football themed cookies even though you don't play for them anymore! :)


I was pretty happy with the "Y's" that I got on the helmets.


And I was very sad that my navy blue bleed into the white. Should have done the blue first and let it dry then did the white. At least I hope that will work better next time. Also thought I would do a double decker cookie so that the letters could have a back drop. I was told that Terence's favorite color is blue. Well BYU is blue so we just kept on with the blue theme.


My favorite part of the jersey is the Nike swoop. Cute.


All boxed up and ready to go, I love these boxes, it's fun that there is a window to see the sweet treats inside.

V-day

Made some quick mini's yesterday for my son to take to his valentines pre-school party today (not pictured).

But these are the portion that I did for my students in the night class I teach. I am a night instructor at a Esthetics school.

I have now twice made them treats and have forgotten to take them with me. Pretty sure that the loss of my brain cells is due to being a Mom.

I have boxed these up and actually put them in my car so that they would actually make it there this time. :)



I am not an excellent photographer so excuse me for that.

Happy Valentines Day!!

Valentines 2012

I have had a lot of people tell me I should sell my cookies so this Valentines I tried it out.

I now understand why other people charge so much per cookie. It takes a lot of time. Who knows if I will continue I did not have as many orders I thought but it was fun to do these cookies (my children would disagree) and I am please with how they turned out.

Below is a couple of shots of how I did the puzzle hearts.

First I drew exactly where I wanted the puzzle shape with Americolor Food Markers. Then I filled in one half with white. Let them dry for about 20-30 minutes.

Then filled the other half with the pink. It's just as simple as that.

I forgot to take a picture of all the orders boxed up but they looked cute and now maybe I will just make some simple valentine cookies for my son's preschool party.

John's Birthday

So I am an Aunt 37 times and even a Great Aunt 12 times (I think) but John made me an Aunt for the first time when I was 8 years old. I can still remember vividly telling the the other kids in my primary class at church that I was an Aunt and I was really excited to share that news with them.

John is a great guy so talented and seriously a genuine nice guy. In the past he used to do dry wall for his job and this last summer he and his wife and little boy sacrificed a few of their Saturday's to come up to our house and install drywall and mud an tape a new wall and closet so that our son could have his own room.

I seriously can not express how grateful I am for his talents and kindness.

Currently he works for an electrical wholesale supply company and that is why I did the theme I did. I know it is cheesy and I really do apologize to John for not coming up with something a little more original. But I hope he knows that I appreciate and love him.

I purchased some cookie boxes from BRP Box Shop, they are great!

So there are 5 n/n's this month and 5 next month. Can't wait till April, should be able to take a little break then. :)

I did not have a light bulb cookie cutter so the pictures below show how I used my ring cookie cutter and converted it into a bulb cookie.

First Customer Cake

So a few weeks ago I got a message on FB from Jen. Jen myself and our husbands were in the same Bradley Method Birthing class a little over 5 years ago.

So fun were the weekly nights of learning how to focus, making low noises and watching live births on tape!! Mikko and I did not finish our class since our son decided to come a month early but what we learned in that class was great and we used the methods again when our daughter was born.

Ok well let's come back to the present. I get a message from Jen saying she really likes the pictures of all the cookies and cakes I have posted on my Facebook page and asks me if I am interested in making her daughters birthday cake.

I was a little surprised as cakes our not really a strong point for me but said I would give it a shot.

Her daughter, Paris wanted a dog and cat cake and after I realized she did not want a cut out cake but a cat and dog made of fondant, I told her I did not know how to do that.

A day later I thought well maybe I should try to do it. I mean hey I have watched plenty of cake decorating shows where they make things out of fondant, so that means I could do it right? :)

Well I Googled a dog fondant tutorial and found this. I watched a few times then did a practice run. I then just looked at a picture of a cat made from fondant and then made the cat.

This picture is the original cat and dog that I did.

I sent the pics to Jen and she liked it and so I was "hired" to make the cake.

Paris picked all the colors for the cake including the dog and cat. She also wanted a Vanilla cake with lemon filling and lemon frosting.

I think it turned out pretty good. What do you think!

I love the little tails, so I had to take this shot.

I hope that they enjoyed the cake. Happy Birthday to Paris.