I may have missed the Saturday Spotlight, but I promise you this Sunday Spotlight is just as good and sure to impress! (I was traveling yesterday and got to my destination much later than planned, so I needed a little recovery time before settling into writing this post.) Congrats to all...

It may be very late on Saturday (or maybe it's Sunday already?), but I'm baaaacck, nearly on time, with another wonderful hot list full of festive fall vibes. (Say that three times fast!) As with last week, tonight's roundup features everything autumn...

Hey, gang! This week, we've got a great assortment of top-trending fall cookies as well as Watch-Learn-Create Challenge #51 entries in our Spotlight. Speaking of the challenge...

Join me in my kitchen! Yes, at long last, it’s here – my debut stencil-cutter-video kit in my brand-new Kitchen Club Collection, designed in partnership with Confection Couture Stencils and just in time for Halloween! Now, in each big release (five times a year), I provide...

Hi, everyone! This week's Spotlight is testament to the fact that cookies can have a lot of staying power here on Cookie Connection. (Hint: So keep on posting! Posting means long-term visibility, not just in this community but amongst the broader world of visitors, tens of thousands of whom make their way to this site each week.) As it turns out...

First, my apologies to our featured artist, Bożena Aleksandrow, who has the patience of Job. I featured her fabulous Easter cookies back in April and, due to various work disturbances, I am just getting to her Cookier Close-up interview now. On the bright side...

First, one of the important updates! In case you didn't catch last week's post, the entry submission deadline for this year's competition has moved to October 15, 2022. I've had some unforeseen...

It's that nebulous cookie season between summer and autumn when we don't know quite which cookies we should be making! Doubt me? Read on to see this week's hot list, where the cookies range from summery sea scenes to babies bundled in fall swaddling clothes, with every theme in between...

Hi, entrants and soon-to-be entrants! Just a very quick, but VERY IMPORTANT update! Due to some unforeseen - but not serious - personal issues that will prevent me from overseeing the judging process at the original time, I have extended the competition due date by one month to October 15, 2022 (5 pm CDT)...

You may still be lingering poolside, or perhaps just starting the summer wind-down and prep for back to school, but the internet is telling us it's already time for Halloween cookies! Say it isn't so?! Just take a look at...

If you were involved with Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™ last year, then these faces will be very familiar to you. Yes, my 2021 judging team will remain intact for 2022 for the very simple reason that my judges are experts in what they do and the judging process. Plus, I trust them implicitly with doing your entries justice - I know in my heart of hearts that they will deliver the most thorough and fair evaluations imaginable! If you're not familiar with these folks, it is...

Hi, all! I'm still in Maine on vacation, tending to some stonework that's being done for me, and also working on digital design boards to help visualize renovated rooms in need of furnishings. In between all of this designing, I took a...

Still hesitating to register? Take it from Claudia Prati, the 2021 2-D Cookie winner and first-ever Kerry Vincent Best in Show Award winner: Don't...

Hello, all! I'm on vacation this week through next Sunday, so I'm going to keep this post short and sweet - and I mean that! Without further ado (I told you so), I present the cookies that topped our hot list this week. They include...

First, thanks to everyone who watched judge Laura Saporiti and me live on Facebook on July 25! You all had some great questions about my cookie art competition. If you missed the live, don't fret! You can . . .

Hi, everyone! As you may know, I chatted with my lovely and talented judge You Can Call Me Sweetie (Sandie Beltran) in early July about my annual cookie art competition, aka Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™. We focused on...

Still on the fence about whether to enter Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™? Well, you shouldn’t be! In these videos, one in English and another in Spanish, we hear from last year’s winner in the 3-D Cookie category and Gold Sponsor, Beatriz Muller of Cakes by Beatriz and Gingerneers. She explains why competing is...

Aha! I'm back for the second Spotlight in two weeks! That must be a recent record! I wish I could say things have settled down, but as soon as my new site launched, I kicked into high gear with video production for my new stencil-cutter-video kits (coming in mid-September) and prep for the debut of Challenge #51 in our new Watch-Learn-Create series hosted by Manu. Speaking of that challenge, it...

Hi, cookie friends! Yes, the day is here for my new site reveal, and it's surely been a long time coming! Migrating 12 years of content from my dated site to a much more powerful and complex platform proved to be a daunting task all by itself. But then that content needed freshening up with the two year's worth of photos, product announcements, and other paraphernalia that I had never found time to post. And let's not forget that...

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...

You asked, and we answered! Check out this post to see the video replay from Julia's July 7th live Q&A with guest and judge Sandie Beltran...

If you've been following this year's cookie art competition, I'm sure you know about the prizes by now. I mean, they're so big (collectively, $19,000 and growing) that they're pretty darn hard to miss! This figure has surpassed last year's number by $5,000 already! Wow! That being said...

This month, we reunite with Ryoko Hayashi (aka Ryoko ~Cookie Ave.), our March 2022 site artist and longtime contributor to Cookie Connection and our Practice Bakes Perfect challenges. Ryoko, who hails from Fukuoka, Japan, joined Cookie Connection in June 2015 and, since then, has...