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As tough as the coronavirus has been, there have been some silver linings to being home with more than the usual time on my hands! One of the biggest pluses has been...

Hi, all! Another update on some site changes . . . As you hopefully know by now, our last site upgrade was the Reactions Release, which, about two months ago, replaced our liking feature for clips, blog posts, and other content with many, many more options for reacting. I love the...

As you may know from my recent forum post , I was as surprised as you all by yesterday's site upgrade. (Somehow the advance notices about it never made it to my inbox, or I would have warned you.) Anywho . . . since the upgrade, I've been running around, testing the various changes and figuring out which ones most impact you, so I could give you this update. In short, lots of small (and a few big) things changed, but essentially only two changes really impact you. They are: 1. Reactions...

This cookie swing project has been sitting in my mind for a long time, mostly because I was looking for a way to make it completely food-safe, if not edible. I imagined it as a centerpiece or a cake topper. But I couldn't come up with an easy way to make an edible crossbar and swing chains, so I ultimately resorted to...

Happy New Year! Perhaps (wink, wink), your New Year's resolutions include improving your cookie game by entering more Practice Bakes Perfect Challenges in 2020. In fact, on the Cookie Connection calendar, I believe 2020 is the Year of the Healthy Risk!...

Seeing as this is my last Spotlight before Christmas (more on the Cookie Connection holiday schedule below), I'm just going to say this now in case I miss you on the 25th: MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! May you have a...

Oh my! We went from seasonal ambiguity to full-on Christmas cheer all in one week! Half of the honored cookies on this week's hot list are clearly working double time to get us all in the Christmas spirit, and, I must say, they are succeeding! The other half is...

This month's tutorial is all about royal icing transfers, which are decorations piped on parchment paper or acetate and then attached to cookies once they are dry . . . but we are not using cookies! Although I like the idea of decorated cookies as place cards, I like less the idea of...

We seem to be plagued by SCD (Seasonal Confusion Disorder) on the site this week! Some of you have cookied the transition from summer to fall; others are fully into fall; and still others (in the Southern Hemisphere) are celebrating the arrival of spring! No matter what...

Happy weekend, everyone! My apologies in advance for being terse, but it's been a whirlwind couple of weeks, and I'm exhausted. When my 3-D competition filming wrapped on July 14, I had one day to pack my bags and hit the road again. Since then, I've been to...

Frangipani, pomelia, and plumeria are all different ways to name the same beautiful flowers. I like the contrast of their white color against their dark green foliage and brown branches. Under each frangipani tree, you can...

During these lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, I usually like to do a longer running and more relaxed challenge. And after our last 3-D cookie challenge, Practice Bakes Perfect #34, I think we could all use a bit of a breather, no?! So, for this challenge, I would like to...

Unbelievable. That is the only word to describe the entries we received for Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge #34 - Inside the Box. Cookie creations that are 3-D take an extra level of planning, an extra level of skill, an extra level of patience, and, yes, an extra level of luck to pull off. Despite...

The internet is such a treasure trove of cookie design material. Across all of the different social media platforms, we have an unending stream of art right at our fingertips. Years ago, while scrolling through some images on Pinterest, I came across these beauties...

In the last few years that I lived in Italy, tiny wooden boxes of strawberries made their appearance in the grocery store by the middle of February. They were imported, as it was too early for strawberries in Italy. They were so colorful and so neatly arranged in their wooden boxes...

When I used to sell my cookies, practicality was my worst enemy. It was an infuriating little voice in my head whispering sad truths: “too fragile”, “ too big”, “too sticky”. Every design had to live in a little bag without risk of breaking, smudging, or becoming stale on its path to the customer’s event. Now...

As I am nearly on my way out the door for a week of vacation, I decided to bring you this week's Spotlight a day early! And, as turkey day is nearly upon us all (here in the US, that is), there's no more fitting subject matter for this Spotlight than Thanksgiving...

I've got another cookie platter! Why?! Just because I like to design them, especially when they can be customized to the season, holiday, or occasion! I also like stenciled effects...

When I first posted this "Crystal Clear" challenge, I knew that it would be a doozy. Believe me, I know that sugar and isomalt are not the easiest materials to work with and that mastery of these materials requires practice, practice, practice. But I also know...

Fall, autumn, autunno . . . whatever you call it, it's one of my favourite seasons. I designed this project at the end of August, so to get the feeling of autumn, I looked at some old pictures of my yard in Italy. I love the...

Today at CookieCon, I took one all-day class from Shirlyn Leong (aka Cookies Art by Shirlyn), and we decorated one cookie! In the morning, she taught us...

I bet you're thinking, "EEK! How is it possible we're already talking about Halloween cookies?! Wasn't it just January?!" Yes, fall cookie deadlines are definitely creeping up on us, but please put aside any fear...

Last month was Cookie Connection's fifth birthday, believe it or not! (My, how time flies!) We've grown by leaps and bounds since our inception, thanks, in no small part, to all of you and your wonderful contributions. What's more, there's no sign that...

The sun is shining; the birds are singing; it’s a warm, wonderful spring that's quickly turning into summer. It's a time for new beginnings! I’ve missed all things cookie while I’ve been away, and so it’s with great pleasure that I...

Well, judging from this hot list, you folks have clearly had a more productive cookie week than me! After all these years of cookie decorating, you'd think I'd have the basics figured out. But...

The last several months leading up to this release have been a lot like the road trip my family took each summer to get to our vacation spot in Maine. Every few minutes, a chorus of kids would ring out from the back seat, asking my Dad, "Are we there yet?!"...

It will be Mother’s Day next month, and, while thinking recently about project tutorials, my mind went back many years ago to when I was a mom-to-be. After having embroidered way too many baby bibs...

Too often in recent weeks, I've been posting our Saturday Spotlights on Sundays and using the "better late than never" excuse. Well, not this week! (Let me pause while everyone breathes a big sigh of relief . . .) Thanks to my husband...

I just love doing these Cookier Close-ups – they give me such a wonderful excuse to pry into people’s lives and ask them all sorts of curious questions. Seriously though, I work in a near-vacuum sequestered in my basement kitchen, decorating day in and day out, with nary a visitor...

As so many of you know, @Ryoko ~Cookie Ave., aka Ryoko Hayashi, has been a longstanding member of Cookie Connection, a fearless and faithful contributor to our Practice Bakes Perfect challenges, and an artist who consistently delights us with her cookie "storytelling" abilities...

Ooooh, it's another one of those eclectically beautiful times, when we're fresh off one holiday and not yet ready for the next, and we find our cookies taking on wide-ranging themes that often defy our own imaginations. Admittedly, a few people...

What could be more simple than a circle? Nothing, unless, of course, you are trying to pipe one! Few skills have proven more universally elusive to cookiers than the ability to pipe a perfectly round circle...

Phew! Time never stands still in cookie decorating land! With the New Year now squarely behind us (for all of five days), you folks have moved full speed ahead into Valentine's Day...

Hi, Cookie Connection members! I wanted to put the holiday rush aside for a moment to thank you all for your wonderful contributions to Cookie Connection in 2017. Without your posts, comments, likes, and advice to fellow members...

Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la la la la! 'Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la la la la! Okay, okay, so it's not yet Halloween in your neck of the woods, but it's already Christmas in stencil-designing land...

Yay, I can safely say we've left summer and launched the best time of year! There's now a distinct crispness to the morning air; fading flowers are being replaced with glimpses of fiery colors on neighboring trees; and I'm already planning my annual family Thanksgiving gathering up in Maine...

Time flies? Well, I'd rather say it rushes along at light-speed! My little nephew was just born yesterday, and now his first day of school is already around the corner! And what else could his cookie-crazy aunt give him but...

The inspiration for this challenge was none other than a stroll down to my local beach on the shores of Lake Michigan, where the milkweed is in abundance this time of year and monarch butterflies glide through the warm summer breeze...

My husband served a couple of years in the Navy as a young man, and what remains of that experience is his love for everything maritime and nautical. Our house is littered with little boats, shells, beach pictures, lighthouses, and so on and so forth...

I'm going to keep it snappy this week, as I'm in the throes of prepping for two cookie decorating classes and an upcoming video shoot - but, more importantly, because this week's hot list* truly speaks for itself...

Man, dads always seem to get the short end of the stick when it comes to cookie decorating and gifting. While Mothers' Day cookies started posting here in March and April, and were even spotted as late as last week...

It seems we've officially entered that in-between time of year, when spring is turning into summer in some parts of the world, and Mother's Day will soon come and go, leaving no big holiday looming imminently on the horizon...

After two weekends off from the Spotlight (thanks for your patience with my absence, BTW), I have little choice but to hop-skip-and-jump from the last holiday directly onto Mothers' Day! Once again, in what seemed like the blink of an eye...

Great news! With this post, I’m launching the first in a series of in-depth Close-ups with CookieCon 2017 instructors! Over the next several months, in between Close-ups with our monthly site artists, of course, I’ll be interviewing all those teachers who haven’t been featured here before...

By the time you all read this, I will hopefully be lying on a beach, cerveza in hand, but at this moment, as I write this Spotlight, I can see and think of nothing but lace! As ever, I am extremely impressed...

Yes, it's mid-March (my, how time flies!) and once again the occasion for the grand reveal of my latest Prettier Plaques stencils. If you haven't yet heard about my new line, introduced at the end of 2016 and designed in partnership with Stencil Ease, you can read all about it here...

As you probably gathered from the title, this edition of Toolbox Talk is all about vanilla flavouring - the various forms of it, and specifically the most common forms and brands used in cookie dough...