Saturday was a simply amazing day. I thought it would be hard to top Friday, BUT when I looked through my photos for you all, I realized I had been so busy that I forgot to take pictures of EVERYTHING! Hopefully my fellow CookieCon correspondents snapped a pic or two of the things I missed.
To start, Saturday was open decorating day, a time when everyone was welcome to wander around the ballroom trying out all of the wonderful techniques that they learned on Friday. Helpers were on hand at each of the stations. (I was at the SugarVeil table for several hours.) Even Anne York of Flour Box Bakery, a past CookieCon instructor, was in the airbrush booth for a few hours.
Here was Mallory of ButterWinks at the piping station.
Monica, aka Cookie Cowgirl, was assisting with the painting station, demonstrating how she does the chalkboard technique.
While open decorating was going on (all day!), there were two sessions of Decorator Face-Off - a new event hosted by Liz Adams, aka Arty McGoo, and her husband, aka Mr. John.
The general premise was that two random decorators were selected from a bowl (willing participants had entered their names), and they were given 45 minutes to create a themed set of cookies. Each decorator was allowed to choose a helper from the crowd, or have a random helper drawn from the bowl. Nouns, themes, and color schemes were shouted out from the crowd, all of which needed to be incorporated into the set.
The session I watched ended up with Easter sets featuring the colors pink and purple and a frog. Each team had identical tools and cookie shapes. My hats off to the creativity of the decorators. They operated under such a time crunch with overhead cameras so we could see their every move! Here are the two sets that were created during the second session.
The day continued with demonstrations from vendors including Hillary of The Cookie Countess, showing us more about airbrushing and stenciling.
John Adams also led a talk about copyright. He said that the topic might be boring, but his room was packed! Colors of sports teams can be taboo, as can certain shapes (think of the mouse we all know and love) and many other things! He encouraged us to all use our creative brains to become unique artists ourselves.
So much more happened on Saturday, including a full vendor hall, additional demonstrations, a tasting event, and a mystery shape to decorate . . . but I was so busy that I did not even decorate one . . . As for the folks who did, well, their work was AMAZING!
Soon it was time for the closing dinner where all of the big winners would be announced. There had been chances to win in a raffle (see Jen's earlier post about her secret strategies for winning), some vendor prizes, and then, of course, the Sugar Show!
The ballroom was buzzing! Finally, some dinner after two days of non-stop cookies! [EDITOR'S NOTE: Yikes, I hope you didn't skip dinner the day before! Cookies can only go so far, people! 
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Karen and Mike Summers, the CookieCon organizers, had encouraged us ALL to enter the Show . . . And we all voted . . . And the winner was . . .
Drum roll, please . . .
ME! I won an amazing set of PME tips! Okay, so I was just one of the randomly drawn Show winners - as in, if you entered. you had at least a chance of winning. Considering my Sugar Show cookies were FedExed by my husband (see my earlier post), and many arrived in pieces, I kind of ditched my hopes of "real" victory in the Show and just sort of just winged it so that I could enter SOMETHING.
Then they announced all of the real winners, the ones with the true talent, who really thought outside of the cookie cutter and demonstrated skill. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Stay tuned for Barb Florin's upcoming post with a recap of the Show winners; it will likely post later today, Monday, or Tuesday.]
The dinner ended, and I spoke with the AMAZING Mike and Karen who organized the entire event. They were tired, but happy that everyone seemed to have had a great CookieCon.
I headed off to my room, then dressed in my PJs to attend yet another cookie event! Cookie karaoke or cookie-oke, which is exactly what it sounds like . . . a bunch of overtired, slightly sugar-buzzed cookie artists singing their way though popular music songs. But wait there is MORE . . . Arty McGoo, dressed in the white panda PJs (below), and Mr. John, in the green dinosaur outfit, made up cookie lyrics to many of the songs! Is there anything that girl can't do?
I left the party after a bit, since I had an early flight to catch the next day. As I wandered down to the lobby to ask about the shuttle bus schedule on Sunday, I came across an amazing sight - Comic-Con and CookieCon were in Salt Lake City at the same time! Here Dotty of Sugar Dot Cookies (in blue in the middle) poses with some cookie friends and comic superheroes!
Well, how do you top that?!
I had such fun, met some amazing people, and managed to get home . . . this time WITH my luggage (greatly expanded from too much shopping).
Jennifer Wallace, aka jennibakes4u, is a Certified Wilton Method Instructor and has been decorating cakes for over 25 years. A few years ago, she started decorating cookies, and she now ships her edible works of art nationwide. Her kitchen is registered and inspected by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. "Most of the cookies I make are gingerbread, as I love the texture and taste when paired with royal icing," adds Jennifer.
While at CookieCon, Jennifer is going to give video interviews with Mike, Karen, and instructors a go, but if the video part doesn't work out, she'll convey all the same great content in blog posts with photos! Jennifer also aims to interview others on the subject of the business of cookies.
Photo credit: Jennifer Wallace
Note: This article expresses the views of the author, and not necessarily those of this site, its owners, its administrators, or its employees. To read more CookieCon 2015 updates from our special Cookie Connection Correspondents Team, click here, and for CookieCon event photos, click here. Also, to read all of our previous interviews with CookieCon instructors, click here!
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