Fall!

The weather has turned here in DC, starting last week when the air nipped at my ankles while letting the dog out one morning.  The evenings are darker, but the weather is perfect -- I love when it's actually tolerable to wear jeans again during the day.

I am having fun with mini-cookie cutters lately and snapped up a fall set a few weeks back.  After whipping up a batch last week, I was so happy with the way they turned out that I hurriedly baked another before heading out to dinner on Friday night.  Thanks to SweetSugarBelle for the inspiration (as always!):

Needless to say, we ended up with a LOT of mini cookies in our house.  I've been giving them away left and right, and they were a great dessert for a dinner party last night.  I think Maury will hope we host a dinner party weekly, since my cookie staging area (also known as our dining room table) had to be cleaned off for company!

Happy Birthday, Jacob!

I jumped at the chance to make birthday cookies for a very special 2 year old boy in Chicago.  If I'm being honest, I always jump at the chance to make cookies, but I feel better about myself if I'm not the one eating them all.

Anyway, Jacob's Aunt Katie ordered up a batch of birthday cookies, and told me he loves airplanes.  I'm not terribly artistic, so for a new cookie cutter or design I usually search around other cookie blogs or google images, and I felt ready to decorate some airplanes:

Because I am not great at freehand drawing, I tend to pick simple designs and I love the way these turned out.  The bright colors seemed perfect for a little boy's birthday.

I added a few balloons:

And a special message from Jacob's Aunt Katie....:

...and sent the whole lot off to Chicago.:

Most of them arrived intact and were enjoyed by the birthday boy, among others.  Thanks for the idea, Aunt Katie!







This Week In Cookies 9/21/12

In addition to the other cookies I worked on this week, I had fun making some fancier fleurs de lis:

I also did a last-minute plate for a co-worker's birthday -- anytime I have leftover dough I make a few balloons and circles and stick 'em in the freezer.  It is a great timesaver and means that even with short notice I can contribute something homemade to a party.  Circles are versatile but I'm not great with freehand design, so I love having the balloons to make it more festive:

The star design is courtesy of SweetSugarBelle, who has a great tutorial here.  I love her cookies and ideas!

Football

We made a trip to Michigan for a fall weekend and a football game.  The weather couldn't have been better....unfortunately, the football couldn't have been worse.

Before heading out of town, I made some MSU football cookies to eat and share with other Spartan fans.

Still smiling -- before the game!

Shower Favors

My friend Jill is getting married in October, and over the weekend we threw her a beach-themed wedding shower.  I jumped at the chance to make cookie favors -- wedding cakes and teal starfish.

I think I may have had even more fun packaging them -- with inspiration from the fabulous blog Glorious Treats, and cute stickers from Etsy shop sweetsanity.

Baseball Birthday Cookies

A few months ago when I had just started making cookies, I brought very simple ones to a crawfish boil (believe it or not, I do actually eat crawfish....preferrably if I don't have to peel them myself).  A friend's nephew told her that I "HAD to make cookies like that again" sometime...so when his birthday rolled around I tried to step it up a notch.

Birthday Cookies

It was a busy week leading up to Labor Day weekend (where did summer go??), and here at Cookie District we were exhausted just thinking about it.

Before heading out of town I made a batch of cookies for Maury's birthday -- in the nephews' favorite colors, orange and purple. 

And no trip to New Orleans, or batch of birthday cookies for someone from Louisiana, would be complete without a few gold fleurs de lis.