The Best Accidental Cookies, Ever

This cookie has been transported across state lines to prove its deliciousness. It is requested by out of state visitors. It doesn't last more than three days before it disappears. And to think this cookie almost never existed.

Last year, right around the holidays I tried out a gingerbread cupcake recipe. I didn't blog about it because the holidays were crazy for me and I wasn't super enthusiastic about the end result.

After making the cupcakes, I ended up with a whole lot of left over ginger cream cheese frosting. I hate to throw out left overs. In fact, right at this very moment I am pretty sure I have two piping bags full of frosting in my fridge, because I am pretending I will use them.

What's a girl to do with that much extra ginger cream cheese frosting? The holidays were looming overhead and I thought "gingerbread cookies!" I made the cookies and slapped the frosting in the middle, as a Holiday cookie sandwich. Then, I fed them to my visiting friends. That's how I knew I'd hit the jackpot.

Truth be told, no matter how much I love a recipe it just doesn't seem like a real hit until someone else craves the dessert as much as I do.

This past weekend some of my closest girlfriends came into town. I knew I was going to be baking cupcakes, but I had been craving these cookies since the holidays. They were on the "to-bake" list for the holidays, but time ran short and I got tired.

And this time, I managed to take a picture before the cookies were all eaten up. So, there you go.

Best Accidental Cookie. Ever.

Finally!

Michelles Diaper Cake
Originally uploaded by Cup O'Cake Designs

Back on January 3, I promised to reveal a secret project in a week. Here we are, a month later, and I am finally revealing the project.

Due to my camera issues, I wasn't able to get photos of the first diaper cake I put together (on January 3) which is what caused the delay on this post.

I have made a diaper cake before, but this time when I was looking for toys I had a hard time finding things that fit with the theme I was using. For the first cake (in January), I was going with a Rock & Roll theme- the parents met while in a band together and are expecting a boy. I found some interesting toys on Etsy, but I didn't have enough time to order them and await their arrival.

For Christmas, my husband got me the book One Yard Wonders. It's got 101 patterns for projects (ranging from home decor to accessories to clothing) that use only one yard of fabric. I flipped through the book and saw patterns for baby booties and bibs. I was sold immediately. If you can't find what you want at the store, why not make it?

Using the patterns as a springboard, I then decided to make two rattles from scratch to go with the cake. For the original cake I made two electric guitar shaped rattles.

The cake pictured above was for a baby shower last night. She and her husband do not know the sex of the baby (what a fun surprise!) and have painted the nursery in sage green and cream. She is my husband's coworker so I was able to find out the nursery colors as well as the fact that she had many elephant toys and stuffed animals as a child.

The booties and bib were made using One Yard Wonders. I cross stitched "Wild about Mommy" onto the bib, and handmade the elephant and corn cob shaped rattle toys. The elephant actually is not a rattle, but has a squeaker inside. (The corn cob is an inside joke between my husband and his coworker).

You can see more photos of this diaper cake on my flickr account.

Many thanks to M. Mulligan for the photo of the January diaper cake.

Curse Your Sudden but Inevitable Betrayal

firefly
Originally uploaded by Cup O'Cake Designs

Finally, one of the long promised Holiday gifts!

Before I get into the details of the gift, let me start by saying that I lost my battery charger for my camera. I have two camera batteries, but losing the charger means that when they ran out, I couldn't take pictures. I borrowed a friend's charger and now have two full batteries, but I'm not sure how long that will last. I promise to show you the secret things I was working on a few weeks ago later this week.

Back to the subject at hand.

A good friend of mine got me into the show Firefly. If you've never seen it and you enjoy sci fi and comedy, you should check it out. Space cowboys. That's all I'll say.

She loves the show, and I thought this was a perfect way to give her a handmade piece to display in her home. The quote is directly from Firefly. Wash (one of the characters) is playing with toy dinosaurs.

The Stegosaurus is speaking to the T-Rex.

I used black Aida cloth to make the grey and turquoise floss pop.

I put the pattern together and am pretty pleased with the way it turned out.