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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...

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...

With the frenzied prep for my next video shoot (next weekend) coming to a close, it's nice to finally be able to relax for more than a sec and to really savor what's on this week's hot list. And savor I have - this week's roundup is...

From time to time, it's healthy to suspend all disbelief and immerse yourself in your own private fantasy land. Everyone needs occasional respite from the work-a-day world, to replenish energy and to feed the soul. Not so sure? Well, I'm...

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...

What could be more basic than water? On one level, water is so essential that no life would exist without it. And yet, on the other hand, few things are as complex as water. It can be...

While many of us are great when we're behind a piping bag (or under the light of a projector), we struggle when it comes to taking photos of our work. Customers often buy with their eyes first, so it's important that we...

Welcome to Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge #36! I don't know about you, but with this cooler fall weather (at least here in the Great Lakes region), I am fired up to get my oven fired up to bake some cookies! And since it is also back-to-school season, I am ready to learn a new thing or two! As many of you know, I...

Judging by the number of entries we had for this Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge, I would say that many of you spent more time in your kitchens than at the beach this summer! We had a whopping 55 (!!!!) entries for this challenge...

I really love these Cookier Close-ups, because they give me an excuse to get to know some very interesting and talented decorators in a way that I probably couldn’t otherwise. (Of course, there’s no rule that says people need to answer my every probing question, but, lucky me, most do!) This month, we’re super fortunate to be joined 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...

I know that I often tell you guys that I want you to think "outside the box" when it comes to participating in these challenges. But this time around, I have a bit of a twist. I want you to think inside the box. In fact...

Upcoming Mother’s Day and orchids are the inspiration for this month's tutorial design. It couldn’t be any other flower, as I am currently living in Thailand where orchids are everywhere, in every color and in every shape. In fact...

Easter is just around the corner, so I thought I’d make a chocolate Easter bunny cookie (or an egg with a pair of ears, in actuality)! This project is super easy, as it's done simply by combining basic cookie cutter shapes and decorating techniques. We'll use egg cutters to make the bunny's face and ears, and then we'll...

Top o' the morning to you! You must have found a four-leaf clover, because you just stumbled upon a huge pot of gold! This Spotlight is a veritable treasure trove of St. Patrick's Day ideas, about half of which are brand new to the site. The other photos...

Hello, my intrepid cookie peeps! Welcome to Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge #33. This challenge comes to you thanks to a suggestion by the winner of our last Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge - Talia! Inspired by Sonja Galmad's entry to Challenge #32, Talia suggested that we...

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...

Thank you all for participating in the first-ever survey of Sugar Dot Surveys! I wanted to find out what (if anything) you use to speed-dry your icing, and how you use those tools and why. You sure did come through. Those who participated range from...

Years ago, I received two mini hot water bottles from my sister. They had plain knitted covers. One of them was red with a white heart on the front, and the other had the same knitted cover with the colors inverted. (They were too cute together for my sister to buy only one of them!) This memory...

I’m back with our second-to-last Close-up with CookieCon 2018 instructors. (I know, it’s hard to believe, but by January, I’ll be moving on to the 2019 instructors!) Here, we’re catching up in more detail with Andrea Walters of Andy Kay’s Cookies, with whom we first chatted back on October 6, here. We learned then that...

For those of you who haven’t been around Cookie Connection that long, you might not know that this is our second (yes, second!) Cookier Close-up with Anne Yorks of Flour Box Bakery fame. We last spoke with Anne back in 2014 when she was...

Summer has finally slipped well into autumn here in England, but it's still gorgeous weather, sunny and bright with just a slight chill. So while the season is getting into full swing with its riot of colour and spices and warming treats, I felt like...

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...

Hurricane Florence tried to scare my CookieCon travel companion and me into staying home. No way was she going to stop us! We stocked our pantries and left instructions for our families before we hit the road for our 10-hour drive...

Because I so much liked using the wet-on-wet technique to make the sunflower in my last tutorial, I decided to use the same technique to make a poppy this month. Poppies are wild; their stalks are irregular; and their petals are always messy. In other words, they're ideal...

It's the height of summer, and we're experiencing a record-breaking heat wave here in England. All the grass has turned brown, the ground is dry, and those of us who can't take the heat are...

Your kids may still be lolling about and enjoying their summer leisure, but, soon enough, they'll be stocking up on school supplies, and you'll be struggling to roust them out of bed to get to the bus stop on time! I'd also wager that you'll be...

Phew! We're definitely experiencing the dog days of summer here with temperatures topping 100°F for the last few days! I managed to get in my morning walk without expiring...

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...

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?!"...

My April stencil release is here, and, as I promised last month, it takes the cake! But don't get me wrong . . . I don't mean this in any self-congratulatory kind of way - I mean this quite literally...

Hey, all! I've got a fun treat for you that came about thanks to two people: (1) Kathy Andersen, who recently started a forum post about different methods for transferring images onto cookies, and (2) Peter Moeykens, author of the Camera Lucida iOS app...

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...

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...

Wow, just as I thought we were hurtling full-throttle toward Valentine's Day, you guys threw me for a loop! The artists behind this week's ten top-trending cookies seem a little divided about whether...

This Toolbox Talk tackles an ingredient that is so fundamental to rolled cookie recipes that maybe it should have been the first in this series. I'm talking about flour, people! Even an ingredient as common as flour has its differences around the world, which impact baking results...

We're still three weeks away from trick-or-treaters descending on Webster Groves (my little Midwest suburb), and only a few of my neighbors' homes have taken on their usual spooky garb for Halloween, but you Cookie Connection cookiers are no slackers...

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...

It's that time once again when I settle into my comfy living room couch with a glass of wine and computer in hand and proceed to be astounded by the gorgeous cookies gracing our hot list...

Phew! I must say it's a relief to settle into a normal, somewhat more leisurely routine after a week of madly dashing through airports and setting and re-setting for cookie classes...

Wow, maybe I'm just more tuned into the passing of time now that I have monthly stencil announcements to make, but doesn't it just feel like this year is going CRAZY-FAST?! Whoosh - before you know it...

My parents recently moved, and while I was packing some of their boxes, an old Fathers' Day card, made by myself about 40 years ago, popped out from a drawer. I remember drawing that card at my elementary school like it was yesterday...

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...

Hi, folks! Apologies in advance for my brevity this week, but it's been a working holiday of sorts for me. When not enjoying my home-away-from-home here in Maine, I've been combing through 15 years' worth of belongings...

I don’t know about you, but Mother’s Day is one of my favorite days of the year. Because my mom is just the best, honestly! I love giving her a treat on any day of the year (and I certainly do so), but on that special day, I love giving even more...

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...

Spring is in the air! Can you feel it? Flowers and trees are coming to life again, and everywhere you look the colors are changing from brown to bright green...