Blog

Aha! I'm back for the second Spotlight in two weeks! That must be a recent record! I wish I could say things have settled down, but as soon as my new site launched, I kicked into high gear with video production for my new stencil-cutter-video kits (coming in mid-September) and prep for the debut of Challenge #51 in our new Watch-Learn-Create series hosted by Manu. Speaking of that challenge, it...

Hi, cookie friends! Yes, the day is here for my new site reveal, and it's surely been a long time coming! Migrating 12 years of content from my dated site to a much more powerful and complex platform proved to be a daunting task all by itself. But then that content needed freshening up with the two year's worth of photos, product announcements, and other paraphernalia that I had never found time to post. And let's not forget that...

Hey, all! Thanks for your patience as you've waited for the next Close-up. I've had a rough couple of weeks with helping to pack up my mom's house to ready it for showings. She'll be moving nearer to me here in St. Louis, hopefully by year end, and the real estate agent who's listing her house was adamant that...

You asked, and we answered! Check out this post to see the video replay from Julia's July 7th live Q&A with guest and judge Sandie Beltran...

Over the last two months, the hills around our house have transitioned from a lively green to a sad brown to a lovely gold. Summer has definitely arrived. When my children were younger, this time of year we would always visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The aquarium never...

If you've been following this year's cookie art competition, I'm sure you know about the prizes by now. I mean, they're so big (collectively, $19,000 and growing) that they're pretty darn hard to miss! This figure has surpassed last year's number by $5,000 already! Wow! That being said...

This month, we reunite with Ryoko Hayashi (aka Ryoko ~Cookie Ave.), our March 2022 site artist and longtime contributor to Cookie Connection and our Practice Bakes Perfect challenges. Ryoko, who hails from Fukuoka, Japan, joined Cookie Connection in June 2015 and, since then, has...

Hi, everyone! As you may know, Julia M. Usher recently offered me the opportunity to be the host of the new Watch-Learn-Create Cookie Connection challenges. How could I possibly say no to her and miss this opportunity? In each of these new bimonthly (six per year) challenges, I will...

Hi! By now, you’ve probably heard that registration for the 2022 Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™ is now open - and, because it's virtual, anyone anywhere in the world (if 13 years old or older) can enter. Woo hoo! But even if you've...

Hi, all! First, thanks for bearing with me as I've been slogging my way through a load of website work. After weeks of combing through my new site on multiple devices in all sorts of viewing modes, encountering bugs, and eradicating them, I am pleased to report that...

Woo hoo! Registration for the second virtual edition of Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™ is now open, and almost anyone anywhere can enter! But . . . before you hop on over to the competition's registration page on Eventbrite, please read ALL of the information in this post...

Yes, mark your calendars, cookie competitors! The BIG day is almost here - registration opens next week for the 2022 virtual edition of my cookie art competition. And, wow...