Cookies & Cards

We had so much fun getting ready for Valentine's day this year!

Making Cards:

The kids made home-made valentines for a few family and friends. For Sadie's school party, I decided to keep it simple. We bought valentine granola bars and I printed labels that said: "Happy Valentine's Day, Love Sadie". We sat on her bed together and put the stickers onto the granola bars and she loved it!

Making Cookies:

I've never had great luck with cut-out sugar cookies. I did a little on-line looking and found a new recipe to try. I thought it worked very well!

I also read this tip: Roll out your dough on the cookie sheet (use parchment for best results), cut out your cookies and then remove excess dough. It worked well!

I fixed the kids each a plate of cookies, bowl of frosting, and some sprinkles and they decorated their own. This gave me some time to work on my cookies without extra help.

I think Kinnick ate most of his bowl of frosting before putting any on his cookies!

Sadie did pretty well on her own!

I decided to do some experimenting with icing this year... I've never tried decorating with icing--I always use butter cream frosting and sprinkles to decorate. I used this website to learn some tips including the "10 second rule" that I found very helpful! I loved trying this and am so excited to keep learning and practicing. I need to invest in some more supplies, but I can't wait to try some Easter cookies this year!! (I can't do too much practicing because that means too much eating!)

Here is my first attempt at iced cookies:

(My red icing wasn't as good of a consistency as my white and pink and I didn't make enough icing for all my cookies. I also had too many interruptions during decorating and my icing started to get too hard.)

And my traditional frosting with sprinkles...