As you sit poolside sipping a summer cocktail and basking in the sun, fall may not be calling you just yet. But, I assure you, with the way time flies, it will be soon! So, to get you geared up for that active autumn cookie season, I've got a charming fall-themed stencil design to help make easy work of those upcoming orders. It features...
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...
Hi, all! Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic and associated health worries, event cancellations, and general world chaos have thrown a number of our lives out of whack. My March, April, and May went from...
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...
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...
Top o' the evening to you! It's your lucky night, because our "Top 10" hot list* is a veritable pot of gold, loaded to the brim with delicious St. Patrick's Day cookie ideas. (Sorry, I just couldn't pass up the obvious St. Patty's Day metaphors!)...
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...
From time to time, I like to provide Cookie Connection members with more thorough introductions to our site contributors – after all, they give so generously of their talents here, it’s the very least I can do! And – surprise – now is one of those times...
As you hopefully know by now, I had a small contest running in tandem with our recently launched flour survey, which accompanies Liesbet's upcoming Toolbox Talk about flour in the making of cookies...
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...
The cookie world never ceases to amaze me. Just when I think it's not possible to find more cookie friends, I find them - and in the farmost corners of the worlds (at least from St. Louis, that is)...
My dear friend Raquel knows me very well. She knows I absolutely love cute little things - charming, but casual at the same time...
Food coloring is arguably the second most important element in cookie decorating after the royal icing itself. The art of choosing colors and/or mixing the exact shade are the subjects of many blog posts...
Can you feel it? The sense that winter is past its midpoint, and spring is just around the corner (or at least, here in Chicago, that the risk of days in the single digits is behind us).
It's about that time, folks, and so naturally we've been inundated with sp-ookies this past week. (BTW, "sp-ookies" is short for spooky cookies, a term conjured up after imbibing too much witches' brew when writing this post. ) While...
My first days of school seem like only yesterday. Every August of my childhood as I was about to begin my next year of primary school, it was always the same story: like clockwork, my mum would take me to shop for new dresses...
Ho, ho, ho! I know many of you are wearing shorts, swimsuits, and sunnies, but here in the Practice Bakes Perfect kitchen, it is Christmastime! Well . . . sort of. You see, for this latest challenge, you will be asked to repurpose your...
What mom doesn't love sugar and spice, and everything nice? Cookies would make the perfect Mothers' Day gift then, right?! Well, I think so judging from the top 10 posts on this week's hot list*. Clearly, they're all cookies, so they've got the...
[EDITOR'S NOTE: It is with hugely mixed feelings that I announce that this post will be the last in our beloved Dear Yankee Girl series. I'm sad, because Kari is just about the best tutorial writer I could have ever imagined, so she will be greatly missed! (A gross understatement.) But I am happy, because Kari wanted to clear the decks to pursue some new and different things - which, knowing Kari, can only be great stuff. I'm looking forward to seeing where she takes her cookie...
This edition of "How Would You Cookie This?" is being brought to you by Dana (aka Dana’s Daydreaming Cookies on Cookie Connection )! Just a little background info for all of you who are new to my blog – this fun segment is...
First, my apologies if I'm advancing the seasons too rapidly for you! But EEK! I spotted my first pumpkin cookie of the year about two weeks ago, so I'm afraid that Halloween cookies might already be past due! Without further delay, let me...
Happy Saturday! It's that special time again when we celebrate the week's finest decorated cookies. And, boy, are they ever fine! In an effort to disrupt another cookie rut (this time, it's the thousands of dots I'm laying on cookie jewelry boxes...
High on spice yet relatively delicate in texture, this dough is perfect for 2-D cookies and small-scale 3-D construction projects, like my sandwiched baskets and Fabergé egg cookies shown in the attachments. It also spreads less than my...
Almost every cookie decorator I know loves to sit back and browse through the thousands of great cookie photos online. Whether you are checking out pages on Facebook, looking at favorite cookie blogs, or visiting Cookie Connection, it is all about...
I've found that the best way to keep the creative juices flowing is to be consistent with your baking and decorating. While you're creating one thing, other ideas will keep coming. And so...
I believe I implied in my last Saturday Spotlight that I had my act together for the new year. Well, that early assessment has proven not to be so...
It feels incredibly appropriate that we are wrapping up October with a great big boo-tiful hot list. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist the pun. I have just been so...
Fall is finally in full bloom in my neighborhood. The temperatures have cooled. Mums are in pots. Pumpkins are on porches. And witches, monsters, and ghosts are...
Scandinavian-style Christmas trees! I’m back with another early Christmas gift – my third stencil-cutter-video kit in my new Kitchen Club Collection, designed in partnership with Confection Couture Stencils! I dare say that this kit might just be my favorite so far. It’s super easy to stencil; the stencils look great with a minimum of colors; and...
I love flowers of all kinds, but I have a special fondness for flowers that look a little unique. The coneflower, with its spiky, vibrantly colored seed cone and skirt of purple petals, definitely fits the bill. Apparently, bees are just as partial to them as I am, so...
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...
The internet is a vast and strange place full of endless inspirational imagery and ridiculous tripe. Every once in a rare while, I find something that is somehow both at the same time. The other day I came across...
I have been so looking forward to autumn and its colors that this month you will get more colorful leaves! They are...
The fruit tart is an iconic summer dessert. A barely sweet, buttery crust filled with silky smooth pastry cream and topped with an abundance of perfectly ripe berries - it’s everything I want on a hot summer’s day (or any day really). This miniature version is...
When I was in kindergarten, one of my “assignments” was to draw a Valentine’s Day card for my mom. We worked on it in class for days, adding...
If you can remember as far back as July (my bad for getting behind on these Close-ups), the wonderful Cookies Fantastique, aka Carol Mattison, was our featured site artist, wowing us with a rather spectacular Fourth of July set! In her site artist forum intro published around that time, Carol mentioned that...
Do you have some extra time on your hands? Are you a perfectionist with the patience of a saint? Do your friends marvel at your love of tedious projects?...
My past November tutorials have always been about 3-D Christmas trees. To refresh your memory, below is a small gallery of those projects and their variations, which include...
If there’s one thing my current trip to my childhood home in Connecticut is teaching me, it’s that I’m way too overreliant on high-speed wifi! I can’t upload photos to my video team without it; I can’t review videos or post them without it; and, worst of all, I can’t post Saturday Spotlights without it...
Evidently, both Manu and I have had beach cabanas on the brain! While her recent cabana cookies were inspired by modern neon-colored huts in a beachfront area of Dubai, mine take after the small time-worn boathouses and lobstering shacks that...
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...
Thank you all for participating in the most recent questionnaire in my Sugar Dot Surveys series. In this one, I asked you a bunch of simple, quick-fire questions that covered a whole host of mini topics. The primary aim was to...
Hi, everyone! I apologize for another gap in Cookier Close-ups, but at least this time the gap was much shorter than my last! To make up for my silence, I have an ultra-special interview this month. I usually focus on cookie artists, but, today, I’m departing from that norm by interviewing a product innovator who...
Hello! Welcome back to Practice Bakes Perfect! I feel like I may be starting to sound like a broken record, but I was really wowed by the entries to our Lambeth-inspired challenge. I was afraid that maybe, just maybe, I had overreached with this challenge...
It used to be, back when I was growing up, that moms memorialized their love of their kids in painstakingly traced and cut black silhouettes. Today (sadly), the immediacy of cell phone pics seems to have replaced that wonderful ritual of portrait-posing and the art itself...
Greetings from Chiberia! In case you are wondering what Chiberia looks like, it pretty much looks like...
OMG, folks! It's almost that time again - the time for the cookie phenom of the year, CookieCon 2018, taking place in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA on September 12-15, 2018! Unfortunately, I'm once again going to miss this convocation of crazy cookiers...
I LOVE challenges that create what I call a "circle of learning." Originally, my intent with this challenge was to introduce more people to all of the wonderful tutorials available (for free!) here on Cookie Connection, and thereby provide people with new cookie decorating techniques and skills. However, through the course of the challenge...
Wow! We're almost to the end of another wonderful year on Cookie Connection. Imagine me cracking open a bottle of bubbly and giving you all a virtual toast, because that's exactly what I'm doing...
It's easy to forget the treasure trove of videos that get posted to this site, as our home page photo feeds are oh-so-captivating and often all-consuming. That being said, I decided to mix up this week's Spotlight by gifting you with...
