Moore babies: baking

Saturday, December 17, 2011

4th type of cookie complete... {plus a cookie storage tip}

I am way BEHIND previous years in my Christmas cookie making... and I don't think I'm going to catch up.

I love to make Christmas cookies so I can put together cookie trays for the neighbors, childcare/Sunday School teachers at church, child care at the gym, AND for our annual Christmas Cocktail party!

In past years I have made about 7 different types of cookies...

Previous years cookie tray from Annual Cocktail Party

... this year I have only made 4 {tear}! Although I am making my Swedish Spritz Cookie dough tonight so it will be ready to be baked tomorrow (when I have time).

Reece's Cookie Cups, Andy's Buttons, Grandma's Sugars, Brownie Cutouts (not pictured)

Cookie Storage Tip
On a side note - mom passed down a clever way to store our oh-so-fragile Grandma's Sugar Cookies using coffee filters! Put 5 or so cookies in one filter...

... and then make as many stacks as will fit into your container.

Works every time!!

Monday, September 26, 2011

Cupcake Party ::. Jillie's 1st Birthday

My baby girl is ONE! I can't believe it, I really don't know where the time went (tear). But anyway, enough babbling... onto the decorations.

I think I kinda went overboard on this one and if I keep trying to outdo my last party I'm in trouble! Eventually I'm going to either run out of time or out of sanity... not sure which one will come first.

Starting off, we have the front door...

Simple. Boring dollar store cupcakes and balloon (iparty).

Then in the entryway (in case you weren't sure why you were here...)

Moving on a little bit we have the "Shrine of Jillie"

On the mantle we have her month by month banner (using the paper accordion fan thingys as a background that I can not possibly recall where I saw instead of the circle that I used for Charlotte's 1st birthday month by month banner)

and NOW onto the CUPCAKE (and dessert) TABLE!

Click to enlarge (and I am really proud of this so go ahead and click!)
PS - I made the table cloth too... and love the doilies scattered around

The breakdown of the dessert table:

Sugar cookies AND... my first time rolling out cookie dough and using cookie cutters. As you can see I only
have 4 "shapes".... I got bored with rolling out the dough and did the rest in flattened balls of dough. Sue me.

Vanilla cupcakes, Grandma's wedding icing, edges rolled in sprinkles.

Chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes from My Baking Addiction with Grandma's
Wedding icing and cupcake tags made by me in photoshop

Orange cupcakes with orange and white swirled Grandma wedding icing...
with same cupcake tags made in photoshop

These were the favor boxes so each guest could bring home a cupcake. These are actually leftover from my wedding...
I just made a tag (in photoshop) large enough to cover the "Eric & Stevie" that were printed on them 5 years ago.

If the cupcakes weren't enough... I made a LARGE cupcake for the centerpiece.
PS - Do you see that orange cupcake to the left... that's sitting on an upside down
margarita glass as a display; I did the same for the Chocolate cookie cupcakes too on the right.

and LASTLY I tried my hand at marshmallow pops (seen EVERYWHERE, but designed to match these) held up by skittles. Not gonna lie... the skittles didn't work at all. Maybe I didn't have enough. These were actually the biggest hit with the kiddos.

And since I didn't catch it in the picture of the table (dummy), here is the wreath that was hanging above the table

This WAS inspired by someone here in blogland... someone I follow but for the life of me I can't find the stinkin blog post to link it to. She found pink and green bows in the dollar section and added a number of the birthday. So if that was YOU... let me know and I will totally post your link!!

And NOW for the party...