Posts Tagged ‘black’

  1. 3D Zombie Graveyard Cookies

    October 12, 2012 by Mike

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    I’m just going to throw this fact out there… I love going to Michaels. As a kid, every time there was a school project that required getting art supplies I always looked forward to taking a trip to Michaels to pick up what I needed. I love combing through the aisles getting inspiration– especially now, when all the seasonal holiday craft supplies are out.

    On a recent trip there, I found this awesome cookie cutter set from Wilton. It has every shape you would need to make a 3D graveyard scene– a ghost, a dead tree, a tombstone, and a grass platform to rest everything on. I bought the set and (with a 40% off coupon) it came to be about three bucks.

    When I opened up the box and stared at the shapes, I wasn’t really feeling the dead tree/ghost cutters. Although, I was still digging the graveyard idea. (see what I did there? digging… graveyard… ) Anyways, I thought maybe I could take this graveyard concept to the next level and make it my own somehow.

    I’ve been on this weird zombie kick lately. And with Halloween approaching it’s amplified. Plus, ads for the new season of Walking Dead can be seen everywhere you go. (starts this Sunday. squeal!) I also spend way too much time trying to finish off a few levels of Plants vs. Zombies. Continuing to feed my zombie fascination, I decided on building a zombie graveyard cookie.

    Let me show you how. I started with these pieces…

    [Continue Reading...]

    Category: Cookies, Holidays
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    27 Comments

  2. Vintage Letter Cookies

    August 4, 2012 by Mike

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    In the last post, I mentioned the Muppets were only part one of JT’s birthday batch. Well time to show part two! I wanted to somehow personalize his cookie batch. JT goes by his initials (obviously) and I thought maybe I could do something creative with his name.

    One night, I was flipping through a Pottery Barn catalog (which, btw, turns any bad day into a good one when it arrives in the mail). I found my inspiration — this picture.

    The Portland Desk. It’s a good looking desk but pay attention to what’s on the wall. Around the desk were framed prints of letters in various, ornate typefaces.  Here’s a better closeup of what I’m talking about…

    I really liked the typeface of the letter C above the desk. I loved the vintage look of it and was determined to find that font and make it into a cookie!

    Now, have you guys heard of FontSpace? Sugarbelle has mentioned it before being a useful resource here and here. It’s a searchable database of free fonts you can download for personal use. To find the font I was looking for I had to be a little creative with my search keywords.  Typing in “ornate” and “carnival” did the trick! The font used in that PB catalog turned out to be Ringmaster.

    So I downloaded the font, typed out JT’s name and age, enlarged them to the size I wanted, printed them out, and the used the printout as a template for a few cookies.  I was able to use the leftover black and white icing from the Muppets cookies for this set.

    I really love how these letter cookies came out.  They are beautiful, stand-alone pieces (and I think worthy of a separate blog post).  Actually, now that I mentioned it, I think they would look great standing alone on a cupcake or as a cake topper.

    Happy birthday, JT!  Here’s to another 50 years.

    Category: Cookies, Decorating Tips
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    13 Comments

  3. Black and White Muppet Cookies

    August 2, 2012 by Mike

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    My friend, JT, is turning the big 5-0 this month. I had to come up with a special cookie batch that I knew he would love. With the Jim Henson Company being in the news recently, and the fact that JT has a Kermit phone cover for his iPhone, I knew the Muppets would be a batch that JT would appreciate.

    Character cookies are usually the hardest for me to make. One small mistake on the piping and the resemblance of what the character is supposed to look like is ruined. However, as far as character cookies go, the Muppets have pretty simple lines to replicate. The struggle with the Muppets is the amount colors! Each one seems to have a unique color set from the next. Miss Piggy is pink, Kermit is green, Animal is red, Fozzie is brown, Gonzo is blue… the list goes on. I would have had to mix maybe 20 colors with 2 types of icing consistencies per color.

    If I had the time I would have totally made a Muppet batch in full color, but time seemed limited to me this week. I still wanted to do the Muppets for JT so I came up with a plan B—make them in black and white! (Well, technically monochromatic gray.)

    I mixed up 3 shades of gray, plus black and white, and I was able to do four Muppets. (I would have done more but, again, I was pressed for time.) Now, there may not be a Rainbow Connection (ha!), but I think even with the limited colors you still get a sense of the depth of color in this batch.

    This happens to be just part one of the batch I did for JT. Stay tuned for part two in an upcoming post!

    ;

    Category: Cookies, Movie Themed
    Tags: , , ,
    8 Comments

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