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As a cookier who has spent hundreds of hours piping thousands of lines, it was only inevitable that a Practice Bakes Perfect stringwork challenge would eventually happen. This challenge is all about...

With winter now in full effect, I've been thrilled to catch a rare glimpse of snow on the far hills across the valley. Snow angels are an iconic and joyful celebration of the winter season. I imagine happy children thrashing in...

Fall and its vibrant colors are a joy for the heart and a great source of inspiration to me. Mums, pumpkins, and wagons surely have been my favorite things to “cookie” in past years...

Easter has been one of my favorite holidays since I was a child. I remember how my sisters and I would spend hours drawing designs on cooked eggs with crayons before carefully dipping them into little cups of dye. Once we had amassed dozens of brightly colored eggs, the treasure hunts would begin. We’d...

The chalkboard shelf is a popular item among cookie decorators. It is used to display cookies at farmers' markets, during pop-up sales at home, during birthday parties, and so on. Here are a couple of pictures of a real display shelf with cookies, kindly shared with us by...

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...

Hi, all! Hoop.la (my site tech team) recently upgraded the site, making changes primarily in the areas of forums and member avatars. The forum changes are designed to make it easier to find hot (aka trending) forum topics and to search the forums. HOWEVER, I have NOT...

First, my apologies (especially to Timea) for getting seriously behind on these Close-ups! My 3-D cookie competition planning and some personal distractions (mostly my home renovation) have left me with little time for anything else! But onward – this interview with...

I'm up in Maine this weekend, checking on my long-distance home renovation, and it's as if I've been transported back in time by a month or two. When I left my house in St. Louis on Friday, it was a balmy 60°F, I'd shed my winter coat in favor of a light jacket, and I was giving happy nods to my daffodils and hellebores as I...

I love to take inspiration for my cookie designs from nature. There’s an imperfect quality to organic objects that I find very forgiving; things don’t have to be perfectly straight, smooth, or symmetrical. So I try to...

I have always loved those funny little Nordic gnomes that pop up all over the place - in illustrations, as felt toys, as holiday cookies . . . Normally they're long and tall, with high hats and flowing beards. However, I ship most of my cookies, and try to avoid long thin shapes for fear of breakage. But I can't...

Ooh, I just love this time of year on the site, don't you? I mean, who needs visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads when there are so many glorious Christmas cookies dancing across our screens?! Tonight, I'm featuring this week's top ten cookies, but it should come as no surprise that...

When my kids were little, they loved advent calendars, especially ones with hidden chocolates. They’d start hounding me to buy them in the beginning of October, long before I wanted to think about the winter holiday frenzy. I assumed it was the (subpar) chocolate that appealed to them. But...

I'm back from Japan - and from the associated jet lag (I think)! Thanks, everyone, for granting me a little reprieve from Spotlights as I tended to my cookie courses. While the classes and whole experience were magical, it is nice to once again feel home turf underfoot and to be...

It's "cookie kryptonite" time again here in Practice Bakes Perfect land! Since it is either spring or fall for you, depending on your hemisphere, now is the perfect time to wrestle with the ever-changing temperature and humidity conditions that play such a critical role in executing wet-on-wet cookie designs...

I love the idea of stained glass cookies; the shine and transparency are so striking and delicate. I’m not too crazy about any of the mediums I’ve used for the effect, however. I tried...

I like sunflowers. I remember, as a little kid, asking my parents to "kidnap" a huge sunflower that I had seen for a while towering strong, wild, and lonely along a road near a sunflower field. They finally said "yes", so we transplanted the sunflower in a large vase to our terrace, and I took care of it...

As you may know, I recently launched a live chat series with CookieCon 2018 instructors, which debuted with cookie and pie phenom Chris Taylor on May 18. Well, I’m extending that chat series into our Cookier Close-ups with in-depth interviews with these same folks. Today, we’re back with Chris Taylor...

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...

Many years ago (almost thirty), a friend of mine and his girlfriend found a way to make some money by selling framed sailing knots. The knots, each labelled with its name, were glued onto a nautical chart together with other embellishments like mini anchors and ship wheels...

In real life, my tastes verge on plain. I’m a no makeup, jeans-and-t-shirt sort of girl. Naturally, my wedding ring is a simple gold band, and that’s exactly how I like it. Despite these tendencies...

This project is halfway between a cookie platter and a 3-D cookie project. It is once again intended to be a treat to share with friends, with the 3-D mug offering a new and different way to arrange and serve cookies...

I don’t know about you, but I’ve enjoyed coming to this site more than ever this month. There’s something about the color palette of the banner and backdrop that just sings “snowy winter”, and the sleeping fawn is beyond-words adorable...

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...

The initial idea for this project came while sketching Christmas trees on paper. The triangular shapes soon became a pyramid, which reminded me of the playing card towers I used to build as a child...

The recent Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge #21 about lace was the source of my inspiration for this project. Each challenge is a wonderful experience because it focuses participants...

Well, I thought spring had sprung here in St. Louis . . . As recently as yesterday, the thermometer was hovering around 70 degrees, and the daffodils and magnolias, so weighty with blooms, were straining their branches and stems...

After deliberating and deliberating and then deliberating some more, our esteemed panel of judges has finally reached a verdict in our 2016 Cookiers' Choice Awards! Before I reveal the winners, let me just say...

A new movie is in theaters, which is getting lots of Oscar buzz: La La Land. Have you watched it? It's the story of a pianist and an aspiring actress who fall in love (and dance, sing, and dream) in Los Angeles, the city of stars...

Once again, we've hopped-skipped-and-jumped straight from Halloween and onto Christmas! Aside: I've never understood why Thanksgiving gets the short end of the cookie-stick each year, but I've got some new Thanksgiving...

I was inspired to create these cookies by this odd little thing (below). Doesn't look like much, does it? But it's the most exciting thing I've seen in my garden for years! It's a tiny flower bud on my wisteria...

This Saturday Spotlight may be late, but it's super sweet! Yes, it's the long-awaited announcement of the 2015 Cookiers' Choice Awards winners!

Cream of tartar is one of the more mysterious yet most common ingredients in baking. It can also be one of the more elusive ones to find in some countries!

Next up in our site artists series is Marie Elgaard of Lille Kage Hus in Randers, Denmark. Marie, as you may recall, won top honors in Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge #13 for the banner and backdrop she designed for the month of February, which are now beautifying our site.

This is my very first tutorial, and I am the worst photographer in the world, so please excuse the bad pictures. I hope you will still be able to follow. I tried to find a tutorial for gumpaste lavender and could only find two in total.

I'm definitely detecting a hint of end-of-summer in the air. Sunny days, but cool air; morning mists that quickly clear; and greens in the garden that are starting to glow brightly, with just a few delicate edges of burnt orange...

I love summer. And I love flowers too. One of my all-time favourite flowers is the daisy. We call them margaritas in Argentina. (Yes! Exactly like that refreshing drink.) Daisies have been adopted as a symbol of...

There is something about painting on a cookie that I can't resist. People say it's a great stress release and outlet for self-expression and creativity. For me, painting is not only a very accessible and enjoyable...

You've heard the mantra before. It echoes the thought that a structure's location is the most important factor in its value, both now and in the future. And while there is absolute truth to this thought, along my journey I realized...

Seeing as it was a 60-degree (Fahrenheit) day here in St. Louis, and we're on the verge of springing forward tonight in the US, I thought I'd get us all in the mood of the imminent season by spotlighting the week's most popular spring creations....

  Well, in case you hadn't noticed, it's 2015, and that means I've almost completed a year's worth of these tutorials! So to celebrate, I'm going to do things a little differently today. You might notice there aren't many photos . . . that's...

I hope that those of you who celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah had a wonderful time off last week, enjoying family and friends. (I sure did!)   But celebration time isn't over yet! Nuh, uh. No sooner than those holidays pass, we're kicking into...

Hands down, teaching is the thing I like most about cookie decorating. Not only do I get a huge kick from seeing students’ eyes light up when they master my projects or a new technique, but I also learn a ton from everyone attending –...

I have been asked how I make some of my more elaborate cookie sets. You know, those sets with all the flowers? Wait. You’re right. Pretty much ALL of my cookie sets have flowers . . . but you guys don't mind, right?   So, a set like this....

Hello, I’m back with the next interview in our ongoing Cookie’sCool instructor series – Francesca Belfiore of Dolcimaterieprime ! An architect who “likes to turn everything into sweets,” Francesca often works in mixed...

It's been a while (May, to be exact) since this itinerant cookie decorator hit the streets. But last week I satisfied my growing cookie wanderlust by trekking to São  Paulo, Brazil and back for the  1º Encontro de Designers de...

Wow, it's been another great week of cookie photos here on Cookie Connection ! Many clips have been sporting rust, teal, and peacock blue in keeping with the ongoing Practice Bakes Perfect color challenge . (BTW, if you haven't yet entered, there's...