Icing FAIL

I'm just going to count it all as practice. It was either that or break all the cookies and eat them. I wanted to make cookies for my niece who is turning 21 on Wednesday. Well I made them and sent them but they are definitely not what I was hoping for. I just could NOT get the icing to cooperate. Each time I have made cookies now the icing has been different. You'd think I would be getting better at it but that isn't happening yet. Sort of keeping it real here. Just sort of. I'm not showing you the full assortment because I was so unhappy with them.


I would love to be able to do the fancy lace work with the royal icing so I practiced a bit.


I had some sunshine streaming into my sewing room window so I thought I would try a better picture of the Bliss baby quilt.


Praise - Praise, Praise, Praise! My friend from church who was diagnosed with bone cancer heard from her doctor today that they believe she is going to go into remission much sooner than expected!!!!

Prayers - for my friend, that she is much more optimistic now. Prayers for the treatments that she still has to endure.

Fruit of the Spirit

The church I attend had their women's retreat this past weekend and the theme was the Fruit of the Spirit. I decided to surprise the gals with a dessert based on the theme. I got LOTS of help from Cookie Crazie's blog and flickr account as well as Callye from The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle's blog. They both have links to recipes, videos, FAQs and so on.

I was taking most of the pictures at night so the lighting isn't the greatest - story of my life lately. This was a fun project although it took me longer than I expected. I think I underestimated the time it takes to make and tint all the icing the most. Once that was all done the decorating actually went pretty quickly. Considering I decorated 76 cookies! Lots of colors, two different icing consistencies for each color. Hubby was a verrrry smart man on Thursday offering to bring home some dinner.










The ladies loved them. I learned a few things and I know I need more practice.

Praise - for a fun new hobby that I can use to bless others. For the newest baby to join our church family - born Friday. Her name is Daisy!

Prayers - for the young family with the new baby, that they would raise her to love and fear the Lord.

More of January

Just a few more things I wanted to share with you about January before it is a distant memory for all of us.

I knew what I wanted for a Christmas ornament in 2010 once the tree was up but I didn't spend any time looking for it until after Christmas. I found dearjes on Etsy and fell in love with her little nests. We had a few conversations via Etsy messages and she was able to personalize an empty nest just for me! It has a great clip on the bottom so it can be attached to the tree.
Isn't it adorable? An empty nest to commemorate that my children are both off to college.

One of the things on my list of goals - learn to decorate sugar cookies. With some of the money that I received for Christmas I have been buying some supplies to help with that goal. Here is my first attempt.

I was pretty pleased with how it went. I shipped the majority of these off to the kids. They were really excited about them. I love that about my kids.

Here was my second attempt. Uhhhhh, not as nice. I had leftover icing and so I made up another batch of cookies to practice. I brought the refrigerated icing to room temperature and boy, oh boy! It was all I could do to keep it on the cookies! So different from the first experience. Hubby has the job of eating all of these. I know they aren't pretty, just keeping it real!


To go along with College Girl's cookies I made this Mug Rug for her. I have seen these all around blog land, wasn't really sure of them then something clicked and I wanted to make one. I played with my design for awhile, on the back of envelopes and on some scratch paper. I got all of the pieces cut out and applied to the background and then I just stalled. I was afraid of messing it up with the free motion quilting to outline the figures. I finally decided to go with the same color thread on each piece rather than a black/charcoal sketchy look. I was pretty sure my stitching would be such a mess and that I would hate the dark thread.


I even surprised myself by 'coloring outside the lines' and making the bird's little top knot.


I actually liked creating the tree bark effect. The little clumps of snow were the hardest since they were so small.


I even liked how the back looked! But I did cover it with a piece of the blue w/snowflakes like the front just to keep those stitches protected.


With a mug to give you an idea of the size. I used a tutorial I found at That girl... That quilt for applying the binding by machine. Thanks, Jennifer! What a time saver that was! I cut the binding at 2" wide so there wouldn't be so much overlap on such a small project.

I'm linking up to the Quiltstory blog for Fabric Tuesday. Their button is on the right at the top if you want to link up too!

I did also do some reading this month. Two non-fiction books. One of them called HOME by Julie Andrews. It didn't thrill me at all. Slow, too many details that didn't interest me at all. Sorry, Julie. You sing pretty though!

The other was a fantastic page turner called In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer by Irene Opdyke. Just incredible what she went through. I can't imagine doing any of the things she did, it takes a certain kind of courage for sure. I highly recommend this book.

For January I also memorized two verses of scripture. Psalm 65:11 to start the year off and then Psalm 46:1.

No scrapbooking, not a lot of exercise, the eating was healthier than December!

Okay, bring on February!

Praise - for the family that God has given me, individuals who love and appreciate one another and the things we do for each other.

Prayers - for Joanne of The Simple Wife, Sandi of my online scrapping friends, and Katy from church, who all need continued prayer for the health struggles they are facing.

Before the month of LOVE is gone

I thought I'd better get these Valentine photos blogged. LOTS OF PICTURES DES!!! :D Des likes lots of pictures.

So I had two families of 5 (our very dear friends) coming to visit for Valentine's weekend (also known as President's Weekend) and my college girl was hitching a ride home with one of the families! Now I always make frosted sugar cookies for Vday for my family, and it is the one time that I don't let the kids help me with the process. It is my Valentine to them. I usually wait until they are in bed to bake and decorate the cookies. Side note - This gets harder to do as they get older and stay up later. Some of the guests were to arrive on Thursday. I needed to get my act in gear since everything had to be done and put out of sight before they arrived.

* * *

This is what I made. A LOT of cookies. More than I usually make. The cutting out and baking is the easy part. I also made a big batch of cake balls on a stick and got those in the freezer.

Oh yeah....did I mention that I was trying to make the Happy Zombie's Pennie Pockets for everyone? Yeah, call me crazy. These are 'supposed' to be embellished and bejeweled. I tried to make a yo-yo and it was more like OY-OY! I knew that was going to be TOO time consuming and I should have started in October. I gave up that dream and just got them all sewn up. I had a few different prints but the other picture did not turn out. I filled these with foil wrapped candies and conversation hearts and hung them on each chair.

I got a reprieve.

The guests that were to arrive on Thursday had a change of plans and would not arrive until Friday. Whew! More time to frost the cookies. (should read - more time to procrastinate on the frosting of the cookies). My plan all along was to use decorating tips and frost each name on a cookie. That did NOT happen. Each person did get a LARGE cookie on a doily, on a plate at their place for breakfast.

* * *

Now if I had started back in AUGUST, I could have made a cute table runner, but I did not. I used my new, clearanced after Christmas at WM, RED place mats and called it good.

I needed two tables so I called this one the kid's table, although there were kids at the 'red' table as well. I see I should have ironed that tablecloth!

Now mind you, ALL of this was set up and set out AFTER my guests had all arrived (some at 11:30pm) and they had all gone to bed! Oh yeah, that was at about 1:30 A.M.! I was going back and forth as quietly as I could, dining room to the garage, as I had the cookies in a big tin in the garage, the cake balls in an ice chest in the garage and the pennie pockets in a box in my closet. I put window cling hearts on the dining room windows too.

* * *

Here is a close-up of the cake ball bouquets. I wish I would have had some shredded, crinkled red paper to fill in at the base of these, but I didn't.

Edited to add link to cake ball recipe/directions. Hey, if you get lost on this site, don't blame ME!

Bakerella is so creative and talented. Go see for yourself.

As I slipped into bed about 2:30 (after I took pictures!), I prayed that neither guest family would let their dog out of their room during the night. That would have made me cry.

* * *

Everyone was so surprised in the morning that the Valentine fairy had visited during the night. I got lots of hugs and kisses and requests for yearly Valentine Day visits. :D

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Prayers - for a friend's mother who is not doing well at all. The family has been gathered around her and are wondering how long they have with her.

Praise - College girl has made it through an especially stresssful week and has registered for the new quarter, getting all the classes that she NEEDS. My son is doing well in school, staying on top of things. Hubby is enjoying his new adventure.