Graduation Galore!

So a few more graduations.  First Katie and Nathan are cousins having a party together, so I wanted the trays to sort of mirror each other with the appropriate colors.  Nathan graduated from Arkansas and Katie is headed to college at Memphis.

And then Christie is heading to Vanderbilt.  This child we have known since perhaps kindergarten.  My, time does indeed fly!  Good luck graduates!

Happy Birthday Cookies!

Happy 16th Birthday!

 So my friend asked me a couple of weeks ago if I would make her non-cake eating son, cookies for his birthday.  I said of course (he is a fan, and we need to keep them well fed), but I asked her to wait until after Spring Fling for Cookiers in case I learned something really cool.  A few days before I left, I spotted a birthday bag leaving Stienmart and told my sister I liked those pennants on that bag.

I spotted this bag a few weeks back and knew pennants would make a cute tray of cookies.

Spring Fling was great fun, and I learned how to do brush embroidery, really the only new technique, but it energized me to adapt better.  So based on the talk by Callye I learned to think outside the box, and I went back and bought that bag and used it as inspiration for these cookies.  I have always used Karen's method of the bullets inside the disposable decorating bags.  I was pretty surprised how many women weren't doing this.  Clean up is a cinch, and all my bags hang with my aprons.

I dry my bags here since I use the magic bullets in them!

I thought about what Mary Ann said about varying sizes and colors to make a platter.  Now mine are not overflowing like hers do, I only had 2 dozen, but I needed those pennants to lay out for the message.  I think it worked out fine.  Then, I took some photos for my blog and thought about Glory and her wise words of open shade.  And they aren't too awful either.  I have a lot to learn with my camera for sure!

So I must say it was fun to get back into decorating mode after Louisville.  I also took a few photos of my work space.  There has been a little discussion about clean vs. neat.  I am pretty neat.

I sketched and planned a little more than usual.

Tips, couplers and color...

That W means it is watered down.

I also shot my box of Americolor gels, and you can see a few have a W written on the color dot on the lid.  This lets me know I couldn't squeeze out another drop, so I added water to use up all that liquid gold.  Another blogger had this on her site this week, and I sort of kicked myself, as I have been doing this for years! The first time I rinsed out one of those bottle to toss in recycling I watched all that color go down the drain and thought, "Hey, wait a sec here!"

So Happy 16th Mckenzie...and here's to the non-cake eaters out there!  Sugar cookiers rejoice!  So, what are you waiting for?  Get in there and bake!