Penguin Christmas Sugar Cookies

This year I have gone with a penguin theme for my holiday cookies because my son's birthday party is going to have a penguin theme. He loves them! I am putting these on my blog so you can use the ideas if you'd like. If you would like to make your own, you can go to Sweetopia and get her great recipe for royal icing! It is really great, although, I have found that using the 10 second rule she uses makes the icing a little too tight for the fine details I create on these cookies. I add a little more water and use a 5 second rule. It just works better for the tiny tips I use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cookie Decorating 2012

Last night I decided to decorate cookies which I had baked a few days ago.  This time when I made my icing, I used Sweetopia's recipe for royal icing and I LOVED it!  You really have to try this recipe!  It does takes some planning ahead because you need meringue powder and cream of tartar, but it is so worth it.  The only problem I had was bubbles forming in a few of the cookies, but otherwise, it flowed nicely from the tip and hardened at a nice rate.  Slowly enough so I could decorate the whole cookie, but fast enough that I could add layers.

Here's the sweetness that I created.  There were others, but these were my favorites. Especially my snowbirds!

Free Christmas and Winter Cupcake Wrappers

Ho Ho Ho!  Ack... okay, it is only October, but I promised myself that I would get some things done early this year.  I have really wanted to make cupcakes that match my Christmas decorations, but every year I get tooo busy with birthday parties, shopping, decorating, etc.  So, this year I did it EARLY!  I hope you enjoy these too.  I also made a pretty brown and green and blue set for winter themes that may not include Christmas.  Enjoy!

For directions showing how to use these wrappers, go HERE!

If you would like to see how the vintage blue and red cupcake wrappers above fit into my Christmas decor, Check out THIS link!  I ♥ Christmas!

Kid's Hot Cocoa Birthday Party

My son's 9th birthday happens to fall right before Christmas, so this year we moved his party ahead and celebrated early.  Why didn't I do this before?  It gave me a lot of time to prepare and we had a blast getting ready instead of putting this on top of present wrapping and Christmas parties & dinners.

I decorate mostly in red, white and light blue for Christmas, so I decided to go with those colors for his party too.  I am sure the pictures speak for themselves.  Everyone had a good time and the cocoas (especially the Nutella cocoa) were yummy!

I found a lot of these ideas on the internet by searching for hot cocoa party!

These cups are made using those GIANT marshmallows!

The table is wrapped with wrapping paper.

Did I mention that my son has a large personality?

The cake is a Mario Power-UP mushroom.  I just baked a cake in a large metal mixing bowl, put it on top of a cake stand, covered it with chocolate icing, rolled fondant and painted eyes on the bottom of the cake stand with chocolate.

Happy birthday, to my little one!