Hello Kitty & Bows Cookies

Today I have Hello Kitty cookies for you and some cute bows too. I found the Hello Kitty cookie cutters on Ebay. They are huge and we all know that I like big cookies. I thought that the bow cookies were cute to go along with the Hello Kitty cookies. The bow cookie cutter is from CheapCookieCutters.com and it comes in two sizes. I chose the larger of the two measuring about 4.5".

I have lots more cookies to show you, but I think I'll sneak in a bike ride before all the rain comes back tomorrow! Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

and here is the Hello Kitty blog background that I made for these cookies:

Will It Be A Boy or Will It Be A Girl???

Did you know that I'm going to be a grandma? My daughter is going to make me a grandma and she promises me that I don't have to swap out my pink hair for gray hair just yet ;-) We are all very excited as I'm sure you can imagine. I've always said that raising my children to be independent, competent, loving, kind, giving people is the most important thing I will ever do. EVER. But now I get to spoil a grandchild and leave all the difficult parenting stuff to my daughter and her husband! HA!

My daughter will be the best mom EVER. She is such a phenomenal, accomplished, brilliant young woman and she knows that parenting is the most important job. My daughter and my son are ten years apart. They never one time had a single argument or even a frustration with each other. Not once. They ADORE each other and this summer Nick will become an uncle. Mellissa will be delivering this baby the same week that my last child leaves for college. I think God knew that my heart will break in half when none of my babies are at home.

What? You want to know if the baby is a BOY or a GIRL? Girl in pink raises her hand... I know, I know! Well the left side of the blog background is pink and the right side is blue. Here's some cookies to help.

Oh wait. That's no help at all is it? ;-)

Well I'll tease you just a tiny bit more and show you some fun photos of Mellissa's baby gender reveal party. We all had to pick a necklace of what we thought or hoped that the baby would be. For the last couple months, I couldn't decide. Then last week, it hit me. I want a grand-DAUGHTER and I was quite sure about it too, so I took a pink necklace. Hubby did too and so did Nick. Mellissa thought it was a boy, so she wore a blue necklace. Look at that ADORABLE baby bump! So in love with this beautiful girl!

 Mellissa and Irik had the ultrasound and asked them to not reveal the gender and instead to write it down and put it in a sealed envelope. She took that envelope to a bakery and they would fill the inside of the cake with pink for a girl or blue for a boy. When they cut into the cake in front of family, they would all know the gender. I wanted to make gender reveal cookies, but she wanted me to find out the gender at the same time as her, so she went with a cake from a bakery.

 Oh my gosh! Time to change that necklace Mellissa :-)

 Proud parents to be, Mellissa & Irik

Did you guess right? It's a GIRL! You know what's funny is that when I was pregnant with Mellissa, I was so sure it was a boy, that I only bought boy clothes and we only had a boy name picked out! Now she thought it was a boy and she will be blessed with a girl too.

Nicky and Nonie pretty excited too!

 me and my babies

So of course I had to HURRY to make some baby girl cookies last night!

 Pretty fun huh!

I bagged them all up at 2am and Mellissa came by in the morning and took them to her work so she could reveal her exciting news to her co-workers.

So ready for a twist or an added element? No, she's not having twins. We already knew that from the previous ultrasounds. Mellissa & Irik announced that the baby will be named:


Abigail - Cristin - Last name
Say it with me - AWWW!!!!
Mellissa got so choked up trying to tell all of us the baby's name that I didn't even understand her for a second. Then it hit me... hard. I'm crying just writing this. What an incredible honor!


The first time that my father held his first grandchild, my daughter went from Mellissa (our honeybee) to Missa and she's been called Missa ever since. I wish he could have held his first great-grandchild, but I'm sure he is watching over all this with love and joy.


Thanks for sharing in this excitement with us! I've so enjoyed all the emails, facebook messages and comments on my blog. You guys are so much fun to share this joy with us!

Baby Gender Reveal Blog Background for today:

Hockey Skate Cookies while waiting for the big reveal!

Well I was hoping to do a post today about my daughter's baby, my first grandchild. We had the gender-reveal party last night and I KNOW if my first grandchild will be a girl or a boy AND an extra twist! Unfortunately I have to burst at the seams and wait before telling you :( Mellissa asked me to make some baby cookies and she will tell all her co-workers tomorrow, so I have to wait to share the big news. At least I'm keeping busy with cookies!

In the meantime, I still have lots of cookies to show you. My friend, Erica, asked me to make ice hockey skate cookies for her son's hockey team.

These skate cookies are super huge and the kids always love them

What a cutie huh!

GO STARS!

Tomorrow - gender reveal!

Hockey background in case you missed it

Bicycles and Bee Stings and COOKIES

I met my friend, Rosalie on a double/triple century ride. She was full of life and excitement even with completing a 200-mile bicycle ride. Unfortunately on a recent bike ride, she was stung by a bee on her forehead and it caused her to lose balance and crash. She ended up needing surgery on her elbow! Those bees are powerful against cyclists! One time I was doing a 20-mile descent down Mt. Hamilton and a bee/wasp flew into my jersey and stung me repeatedly. To get the darn thing to stop, I had to take my hand off my handlebar for a second and smash the bee into my chest to kill him and make him stop. We've all had bee stings on our legs and let me tell you when you get one during a descent, it's like being hit by a rock. Thankfully Rosalie is healing really well and she asked me to make her some fun bicycle and bee cookies that she can bring to her surgeon. Here's what I came up with.

My friend Rosalie was riding her red triathlon bike when she crashed, so I made all the bicycles red 

 and then I made a variety of bees

Here's my friend, Rosalie, with her injured arm. Wishing her a speedy recovery! This gal is made of steel so nothing will hold her back! She'll be back on that bike very soon pedaling and pedaling and pedaling...!

So do you know what is happening TONIGHT??? I will be finding out if my first grand-baby is going to be a girl or boy! How exciting is that! What do YOU think? Girl or Boy?


Here's the bee/bike background I made for Rosalie's cookies. Thank you to Tricia-Rennea, Illustrator for sharing her beautiful bicycle image with me. You should check out all the amazing invitations, calendars, notecards and other items that she creates and a bunch of them are cycling related! Thank you also to Amy at AZRedHead Etsy shop for creating the fun paper packs for me to create a fun background on my blog!

Girls Sleep-Over with Arty McGoo!

Ok, she didn't actually sleep-over, but a couple weeks ago, I received an email from the infamous ARTY MCGOO titled Sleep-Over! She said that she wanted to come meet me. Can you even imagine? Wouldn't you just die? Yaa me too. Seriously! She and her hubby, Mr. John, were going to drive about 3 hours to come and play cookies. We shared our crazy full schedules and worked out a day. I was super excited... UNTIL a couple days before. Then I was just freaked out. Yep, freaked out! ARTY MCGOO wanted to meet ME??!!!

Okay so I did what any super insane crazy person would do. I cleaned my house. I know that's not so crazy, but you don't know Pinkie crazy. I cleaned out my cupboards. I cleaned out my closets. Why? Because I'm me. Enough said. Then the day before the celebrity, ARTY MCGOO, was going to come to my house, I decided that it was about time for a panic attack. I backtracked. I wanted to cancel! I got way in my head and super nervous and felt so far out of my element. My cookie princess friends talked me out of my head. If only they had known who was coming, they would have been in crazy mode with me, but I kept the secret. I sucked it up and decided to just go with it and have fun.

Then look who arrived at my door(!!!!)

 The night before Arty McGoo was set to arrive, I stayed up late and baked a whole bunch of sleep-over theme cookies. Guess how many we decorated? ONE. Yep, one cookie! Funny huh. We did lots of fun stuff too. Did you see her video yet? FUN! I'll share it at the bottom of this post.

 Eddie was super excited to see Arty McGoo and Mr. John, but he didn't get in his head about it ;-)

Here is the beautiful Arty McGoo with her wonderful hubby, Mr. John

 and me and Arty McGoo!

Arty McGoo even made me cookies. Can you imagine receiving such a gift from ARTY MCGOO?! I think my heart stopped beating. She is SUCH an incredible ARTIST. I was pretty excited to see that my Cristin's Cookies logo became a cookie! How incredible is that?! Nick told me the next day "I bet we don't ever get to eat that cookie huh" um try it buddy... duh!

We had a wonderful time and she calmed my nerves. She is seriously one of the kindest people you can meet and open-hearted and funny and silly and incredibly fun. Her hubby, Mr. John, is quite the amazing guy too. They are a perfect match.

I started with Artist cookies because, as you know, Arty McGoo is such an incredible artist. 

But then I realized that I wanted to do a girls sleep-over theme for the cookies that I made for her visit since that was the subject line of her emails to me. So I went with these:

Since Arty McGoo asked me tons of questions, interview style, I decided to put HER in the hot seat too. Here's the top 10 things you want to know about Arty McGoo.

1. I have three children. One is quickly catching up to my shoe size and height... that is weird for me.

2. I collect lanterns: moroccan, railroad, wooden, all kinds.

3. I used to fall in the "obese" category before I discovered a love of running 8 years ago.

4. I got married to Mr. John when I was 19 and am the luckiest woman on the planet. He is the most generous, loving, hilarious, creative, best friend anyone could ask for and I get to sleep with him.

5. My favorite food in the whole word is a freshly picked homegrown tomato that is hot from the sun.

6. I have 5 siblings and they are all amazingly talented and the most awesome human beings on the planet.

7. I wish I was more organized. I can get organized, but staying that way is hard!

8. Growing up, all my clothes were sewn by my mom (even my swimsuits and underwear)! Our sandwiches were made on homemade, freshly milled wheat bread with jam my parents made from the loganberries growing in our backyard. I would trade it for a ding-dong at school. Don't worry... I have my priorities straight now!

9. I love to play the piano and sing and recently got to record a couple of songs in a studio. Super scary, super fun!

10. My kids are so different from each other and I love sitting and listening to them, because they are hilarious and incredibly smart.

Have you seen her video yet? She did an amazing job and I'm so incredibly thankful to have been a part of it! If you click play on the video and then click on the little YouTube word on the right side, you can see it larger directly on YouTube.

So a huge THANK YOU to Arty McGoo for including me in your video and driving all the way up here to come play cookies with me. I enjoyed every minute of our time together and feel truly blessed to call you a friend.

My sleep-over pajama party blog background for today:

Which Camera Do YOU Use & Recommend? Link-Up Your Photo!

What camera do you use? What camera do you recommend? I need your help, your guidance, your knowledge and your expertise. It is TIME for me to get a camera. I've figured out how to make really fun cookies, I've figured out how to become a blogger and I've figured out a bunch of HTML and Photoshop Elements. Now it's time for better cookie photos!

Please share what camera YOU use and include a photo in our link-up. Add a comment on the blog as to why you like the camera you chose and what you recommend.

I pretty much have it narrowed down to two cameras, but am still very open to suggestions as I haven't had time to do enough research on the subject of cameras yet. I prefer Canon over Nikon because it's a little more user-friendly and more do-able in price. I definitely want a digital SLR. The two cameras below are a T2i and a T3i, both by Canon.

I also need to know which lens. A macro 55-250mm lens or a 50mm 1.8 lens. I don't understand the difference between the two just yet, but from what I'm hearing the 50mm 1.8 is better for lighting although I have much more research to do.

I bought this photo tent and then decided it was too small for a platter of cookies.

So next I bought this HUGE photo tent.

I also ordered PhotoShop which should arrive soon and that will be a whole adventure in itself to figure that out! 

Here's a few cookies to entice you to share with me what camera you use and any info you can provide. This lamb cookie cutter is from CopperGifts.com. I have 109 cookies to finish decorating today, but tomorrow will be concentrating on camera research, so any info you can provide is greatly appreciated!

Peace Baby, Peace & Love & Tutorial on How To Make Tie Dye Peace Cookies

Today I have Peace sign cookies for you. I had a lot of fun with these. I bought this great peace cookie cutter from CheapCookieCutters.com. Everyone always asks me where I get my cookie cutters, so I'm going to try to make a point of telling you on my blog posts, so you can get one too. I've heard there's a lot of confusion over peace sign cookie cutters from others where the center piece is separate and they weren't sure what to do with it. This cookie cutter that I found, is one piece. Easy peasy. It cuts out the two sides and the two lower sections for you and you're left with just a super cute peace cookie cutter that is 3.5". I really like this one. 

 I wanted to do several in a tie dye design. I'll show you how.

Choose your colors and then work in sections and somewhat quickly. See on the right hand side? That's your visual to get started. Take your first color and make lines enough apart to fit in 2 more colors without a bunch of space in between.

 Then the start adding in your second color. Try to work quickly or at least do it in sections the way shown below.

Then your 3rd color and hopefully this will fill up all the empty spaces.

Lastly take a toothpick and pull through all those lines in a downward motion throughout the section that you just iced. Fun huh!

That's it for today. Guess what - I'll have more cookies for you tomorrow :-)

I'm looking into getting a new camera to try to take better photos of my cookies. Please comment here if you have suggestions or what camera you use. Glaze icing is so shiny that I get lots of glare and have invested in TWO photo tents and lots of backgrounds and I'm still having difficulty. It's time for a better camera!

For those that missed seeing the Peace background with these cookies, here it is: