What a delightful way to ring in the New Year! Isn't this month's site art (directly below) completely enchanting?!
The original cookie rendering by @Annelise (Le bois meslé), aka Annelise Binois, is perfectly darling, and then Site Art Stylist @Icingsugarkeks (aka Gabi) added the animated breathing tummy that made the contribution so extra! Here's what the full background looks like, after some layout tweaks by Gabi:
As you know, I love to feature every site artist in both a forum intro (like this one) and a Cookier Close-up interview, and the plan is to start the latter for Annelise once I finish the interview with December site artist @Ewa Kiszowara MOJE PIERNIKI. (As I write, Ewa is graciously working on answering my questions AND translating those answers back to English. The translation adds another huge step, and I am so grateful for her willingness to go that extra mile.) In the meantime, let's learn more about Annelise by way of her bio below. In paragraph three, you'll see she's got a great sense of humor in addition to fierce cookie decorating skills! 
Annelise Binois, of Le Bois Meslé cookies, is a French hobbyist cookie decorator living in the Paris area with her six-year-old daughter and quite a few pets. A professor of archaeology at a university by day, she turns into a keen decorator in between term times, which makes for rather irregular cookie production. Annelise has dabbled in all types of crafting since she was a young child, but it was only in late 2017 that she discovered cookie decorating while researching cake ideas for a friend's PhD defense. She was hooked at once, and quickly began experimenting with new techniques and making ever more elaborate cookies.
A little more than a year later, an unexpected windfall allowed her to cross the Atlantic and attend CookieCon in Reno, where she had the time of her life meeting and learning from other cookie decorators, and left with no less than three prizes in the decorating competition.
Annelise enjoys making time-consuming sets of a few small, often detailed and precisely finished cookies, and has no desire to sell her cookies. Her next project is to combine her love of teaching and her love of cookies by giving decorating classes, even though her first endeavours to do so have not been met with success, either because there is not much market for the activity in France or because she really sucks at social media. You can nonetheless follow her on Instagram @boismesle_cookies! [EDITOR'S NOTE: See what I mean now about that self-deprecating sense of humor?!]
All cookies and photos above by Annelise (Le bois meslé).
Thanks again to Annelise and Gabi for this wonderful start to 2021! And, once more, please stay tuned for the Cookier Close-up that's on the way for December site artist @Ewa Kiszowara MOJE PIERNIKI.
Last but not least, for those of you who are wondering how to get featured, it's easy! Simply read these posts here and here. Remember: Site artists not only get their work featured prominently for a full month, but they also get profiled in a forum post and in an in-depth Cookier Close-up interview. All considered, it's a lot of great free PR in exchange for photo sharing! When preparing your site art, please bear in mind that I already have artwork through June 2021 and also for September 2021, so I am specifically looking for art for July, August, October, November, and December 2021. Please also remember that @Icingsugarkeks, our Site Art Stylist, is available to help you get your photos in the right format, so do not hesitate to contact her if you need assistance! You can send her a PM right here on Cookie Connection by clicking on her name (in pink) above.
Thanks in advance for considering a contribution to the site!
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