School's out for Summer!

It's the last day of school around here!   I made a couple of sets of cookies for a customer to share with those special people who help care for her child.   I have been wanting to make the adorable school bus cookies I saw on Loren Ebert's the Baking Sheet blog for a long time . . . when Denise asked for cookies for the school bus drivers and aides that help her child get to school safely, I knew it was the time!  These were a lot of fun to make - I made a few extra for my own kids' bus driver too!  I would love to make these again in the fall, they would be perfect for back to school celebrations (but we aren't thinking about those now - it's the last day of school!!)

Denise also asked me to make cookies for her child to take to an end-of-school class celebration!  Here's a whole class of students and their teachers!

 

Last but not least, Denise saw the puzzle cookies I have made several times for Matthews Meerkats team for the Autism Society of Central Virginia 5k run.   She wanted some of them for her child's autism classroom teachers . . . perfect excuse to use my favorite little Dollar Store jars!  She sent me this cute picture of the jars with the teacher cookies - what fun presentation!

 

Thank you for your donation Denise!  And have a great summer everyone!

Graduation, round 2!

 

 

This past week was a big one for high school graduations!   I made several sets for graduates - I love all the different colors and variations on the theme!

 

The first set (above) was for Chase, who graduated from Robinson High in Fairfax.   He's headed to my alma mater, William & Mary, this fall on a baseball scholarship.   It was so fun putting the college logo on the baseballs for his platters.   Congratulations, Chase!  Thank you for the donation, Amy!

 



 

 

This platter was for Lauren, who graduated from Battlefield High School in Haymarket.  Congratulations, Lauren!  Thank you for the donation, Cathy & Don!

 

Here's another Battlefield platter (boys wore purple, girls wore white!).  Congratulations, Tyler - and thank you for the donation, Karen!

Finally, I made this platter for James Austin, who is in the first class to graduate from Patriot High School in Nokesville.   Congratulations James Austin, and thank you for the donation, Tracy!

A different kind of Girl Scout cookies!

 

It's that time of year . . . graduations, promotion ceremonies, team parties, and celebrations of all kinds!      One of these celebrations is one I fondly remember from my own childhood:  bridging from Brownie to Junior and Junior to Cadette in Girl Scouts.  As the mom of three boys, I don't get to experience these things with my own kids, so I was thrilled to be asked by parents from two different troops to make cookies to help their girls mark the achievement!



 

As you can see in the top picture, the cookies for that troop were personalized for each girl!  The troop leader sent me hair details and eye color for each of them . . . I happen to know a few of these sweet girls too, so I hope I captured a bit of their personalities in their cookies.  Thank you for the donation, Kristine!

 

This troop of Girl Scouts included girls bridging to Junior and to Cadette.  I had a lot of fun researching the sashes for each and making them as detailed as I could (considering I was working with a two-inch royal icing sash!)   I heard the girls enjoyed eating them almost as much I as I enjoyed making them!    Thank you for the donation, Tammy!

Update:  Look at these awesome pictures I got from some of the girls' moms!   This is the absolute best part of decorating cookies:  seeing the smiles they bring!     I love seeing Hailey and Meghan holding their "mini-me" cookies!

Wildflower wedding

These are a few of the cookies I made for a friend of my mom's to take to a bride's breakfast next weekend!   The wedding is at a B&B in Oregon, and is going to have lots of wildflowers.   This was such a fun assortment of cookies to make!

While I usually don't ship cookies, I am doing it this time since it's for my mom's friend.   I carefully packed them up in bubble wrap and they are off to Nevada first, then they will be hand-carried on to Oregon.  My fingers are crossed they make it safely!   Shipping cookies makes me nervous!!

Thank you for your donation, Sandy!

Baseball Cookies

I can't believe my twin nephews are turning TWELVE this week!  They are fun boys, and they LOVE baseball!   They each have their favorite team, Phillies for Austin and Yankees for Logan.   I made each of them their own box of cookies to wish them a happy birthday.  

Happy birthday boys!  Hope you like your cookies!

Bookworm Cookies!

I loved having the opportunity to make these little bookworm cookies twice in the past week!   I made the set above for a school librarian who is taking some time off from her job for the next year.    The other set (shown below) was for my sister-in-law, who is an elementary school librarian.  She asked me to make some cookies she could give her parent volunteers to thank them for all of their help this year.

I used this excellent tutorial from one of my favorite cookie artists, Sugarbelle!   As always, her clear directions and photos made it easy to turn out beautiful cookies!

Thank you for the donations, Lynette and Kristy!

Musical Thank You cookies

The music teacher at my kids' elementary school asked me to make some cookies for her to give the fourth and fifth grade teachers to thank them for their help and time in getting all of their classes through recorder lessons!  As the parent of a fourth grader, I heard my share of recorder practice from only one child - those teachers were brave souls to have to listen to an entire class full of them!

I squished two cutters together to make this "musical" thank you cookie - I'm pretty happy with how they turned out!

Thank you for the donation, Jess . . . and thank you for being such a great teacher for my boys!