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...
My husband’s birthday is coming up, and I know exactly what he wants. He’d love for us to take scuba diving lessons together. I can understand the appeal. Who doesn’t enjoy underwater landscapes and interesting sea creatures? There’s only one problem...
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...
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...
Following a particularly wet winter, California is officially drought-free! I think any native Californian meets this news with both gratitude as well as a little skepticism. I’ve lived here most of my life, and I can’t remember a time when we weren’t experiencing some degree of drought...
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...
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...
Even though I am now living in Thailand where it is currently 85°F (29°C), I haven't forgotten the cold of winter, which many of you are now experiencing. So, I thought, what better way to get cozy than with felt warmers on hot cocoa (cookie) mugs?!...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Ah, summer. When my kids were in grade school, those first few weeks of summer vacation were like paradise. Sleeping in, staying up late, slumber parties, and lazy days - summer was everything they thought they wanted. As the days passed, however, they’d always reach a point when...
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...
While this Easter cookie box may look complex, it is actually quite easy to decorate and assemble, and a very manageable project for beginners. Imagine each side built as a fence with two vertical planks nailed onto two parallel horizontal planks. In this case...
