My baby sister is graduating from high school!  It kind of makes me feel old, but I’m so proud of her that I had to make her these cookies to celebrate.  Ever since I got into decorating sugar cookies I have wanted to make a collection like this.  I finally have an excuse!  

I had planned on making these cookies a few months ago.  I was so proud of myself being so organized and all.  So I visited my favorite online cookie cutter shops and was having a hard time finding this graduation cap cookie cutter; it was out of stock!  Maybe I wasn’t as organized as some other cookie decorators.  When I finally found one in stock I was so excited that I ordered two: one for me, and one for you (if you are feeling lucky).

No graduation would be complete without a diploma!  I really like how these turned out.  I recently purchased some pricey PME piping tips and these were the first cookies I’ve them on.  I was hoping I wouldn’t like the tips since they are quite a splurge, but they are amazing!  I am finally able to pipe nice borders and small details!  The black outline I piped on these and all the other cookies in this collection were done using my size 2 PME tip.  I love how nicely the black border makes these cookies POP!

I’ve been noticing a lot of chalkboard cookies around lately and decided to try my hand at it.  There are a few ways to make them, but I used Ali Bee’s tutorial with a slight modification.  Before carefully painting the words on with white gel paste food color, I used a large paintbrush and brushed some confectioners sugar onto the dried black royal icing to give the cookies the “just erased” authentic chalkboard look.

Congratulations to my sister Emily, and the graduating class of 2012!  You did it!  Hip hip hooray!  Happy days are here again!

GIVEAWAY CLOSED!

Now for the exciting GIVEAWAY!  Do you want to decorate your own graduation cookies? One lucky winner will receive these two graduation cookies cutters!

To win these graduation cap and diploma cookie cutters simply leave a comment on this post; what fun things are you doing this summer?

One winner will be chosen at random by 11am eastern on Monday June 11, 2012.

This contest is sponsored by me; good luck!

Congratulations Eliana!  I can’t wait to see how your cookies turn out!

I thought these cookies would be the perfect treat to post before Mother’s Day.  Instead of buying your mom regular boring flowers, why not bake her some beautiful flower cookie pops!  They make a great centerpiece and a great dessert for your Mother’s Day brunch.

Lately I have become obsessed with brush embroidery (here is my first attempt).  I was trying to come up with more ways to use this fun technique and decided to try it to decorate flower cookie pops.

I love how they came out!  I used my favorite sugar cookie dough to bake flower shaped cookies.  Right before baking, I placed a lollipop stick under each flower.  The cookie bakes right onto the stick!

Once the cookies were baked and cooled, I used royal icing tinted turquoise, purple, and pink to ice each cookie.  The icing needs to dry overnight before piping on the white details. While the cookies were drying, I piped white royal icing dots onto parchment paper.  While the dots were wet, I sprinkled white non-pareils on them, making sure to cover the entire dot. Once dry, these become the flower centers.

The next day I piped some stiff white royal icing around each petal.  Then with a damp paintbrush I pulled the design in toward the center.  Once I finished the outer design I repeated it closer to the center.

To finish the cookies, I popped the dried flower centers off the parchment paper and attached them to the center of each flower.  Easy and beautiful!  To display my cookie pops, I poured some edible sugar pearls into flute glasses and stuck the cookies inside.  The sugar pearls kept them in place; how easy is that?!

Now for the moment you have been waiting for–THE GIVEAWAY!

GIVEAWAY CLOSED!

Just leave a comment on this post; what is your favorite cookie?  And you could win these nested cookie cutters!  These are perfect for making your own flower cookie pops!  One winner will be chosen at random by 11am eastern on Friday May 11, 2012.

This contest is sponsored by me; good luck!

Congratulations Shelley Summers!  Your cookie cutters are on their way!