I TOAD-ally Like You & GIVE-AWAY!

I TOAD-ally like you. You know that right? Seriously, I do. I appreciate that you follow my joys in baking here on my blog and on my Cristin's Cookies Facebook page. Well as of Wednesday night, I surpassed my goal of having 4,000 fans on my cookie page. And so I'm here to tell you that I TOAD-ally like you and appreciate you. And I want to prove it with a give-away! See below for all the details.

I made a new frog cookie cutter and I named him Freddie the Froggy. I love him. Actually I TOAD-ally love him! I am seeing him as another idea too. I'm not telling. You'll have to wait and see... the froggy cookie cutter is available in my Etsy shop. 

 I made these for Valentines Day. See... this is how I feel about all of you.

 I packaged them up for Valentines Day. Cute as a button, or well, a froggy...

and you know, I was inspired. Can you guess who inspired me for these froggy cookies? Yep, you know...

and now for the 4,000 FAN GIVE-AWAY...

One lucky winner will win....

THREE Cristin's Cookies Cutters! Yes, THREE cookie cutters!

The winner will choose 3 cookie cutters from what is available in stock on my Cristin's Cookies Etsy Shop (or send me a message and I'll let you know when they are in stock). You can see my current cutters in the picture above or you can see a list of my cutters here.

*All cookie cutters must ship together in one package, one shipment.

*Open to US and Canada & International fans

OR if you are not a cookie decorator, I will make you one dozen cookies and send those to you. My design. My choice. 12 cookies.

Here's how to register for the Cristin's Cookies 4,000 Fan GIVE-AWAY

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for following me here and on my FB page. I'm so honored.

Froggy blog background for today:

Is The New Mystery Cutter An Owl Or Not?

I created a new cookie cutter and made it into a challenge. You know me. I really like to do that. It's such a fun way to see the creativity of so many different cookie decorators and it's a great way to have fun with our cookie community. I've had some challenges that the design could be many various things and some that were difficult to figure out. This one was pretty obvious. The funny thing is that I figured we would have 12 different versions of owls. But there actually were some really cool owl designs and some that DID think out of the box and insist they could make something different than an owl. The designs are absolutely incredible and had me giggling in delight as I gathered the photos for the collage.

Here is the cutter I asked them to use to design their cookie:

So are you ready to see all the entries? I know you've waited so very patiently. Here you go:

Now are you ready to meet all the talented cookie decorators?

1)    Michelle of Wonderland Cake and Company Co

2)    Heather of Twins Plus One Goodies

3)    Leah of Simply Eden Baked Goods

4)    Amy of One Preppy Cookie

5)    Maria of Homemade Cupcakes, Cookies & More

6)    Elaine of Elaine’s Sweet Life

7)    Megan of Sweet Baketique

8)    Beck at Strawberry Giggles Edible Gifts

9)    Traci of Cookie Queen Kitschn:  

10)  Channing of TheCookieMaster

11)  Cristin of Cristin’sCookies

Now do you want to know why I chose my owl design?

 Would you believe my sweet grandbaby Abigail was my inspiration? I know, you're so very surprised. You can hardly believe it. But look.... isn't she so darn cute?!

Ok, ready for a short tutorial? I started with my owl on a branch cookie cutter. Yes, you can get one too. They are available here in my Etsy shop.

Then I baked my owl cookies

 and outlined my design

and then I filled in the white part of her eyes. I used a toothpick to move around the icing to the edges to make sure there wouldn't be any air bubbles in this tiny area. Then I filled the brown on the branch under her feet. I let that dry overnight as I wanted to use an edible pen to draw branch lines on the brown icing.

and then wa-la I had my owl cookie. I know, I skipped a whole bunch of steps. Sorry about that. I must have gotten bored with taking photos and I didn't realize it! I used little pink heart candies for the owl tummy and after the white icing dried completely, I used a blue edible pen to draw the stitching on her tummy and black stitching on her wings. I used sky blue for most of her body and regal purple for her wings.

and then I made her some friends so she wouldn't be lonely when Abigail wasn't here.

 and I made a valentine version of my owl too

 and then I bagged her up with some fun owl cookie tags. Yes, you can have some owl cookie tags too. You can download the cookie tags by clicking here.

Thank you to all the amazingly fun cookie decorators that played along in our cookie challenge and to Abigail for being my muse!

Owl blog background for today:

Mystery Cookie Cutter Challenge RESULTS

Are you ready to see the mystery cutter results? I'm so excited to show you what everyone came up with! I created a new cookie cutter and decided to make it a mystery cutter challenge for fun. I didn't tell anyone what the cutter was meant to be and everyone made their own design. I love all the wonderful and creative designs everyone came up with! Make sure to stop by their pages and enjoy their cookie photos. Below the collage I'll share my cookie photos and of course you want to know why I made the design that I made... 

Aren't these all adorable! I'm really surprised that no one made a Yoshi! I thought for sure we would have a few Yoshi characters. Here are the wonderful cookie decorators that participated in this fun mystery cutter challenge. Stop by their site and say hi

#1 – Tami - Tami Rena’s Cookies

#2 – Natalie - Sweet Shop Natalie

#3 – Liz - CookiesToGo:

#4 – Cheryl - The Sugared Apron

#5 – Diana - The Cookie Princess

#6 – Jacquie - Sweetness

#7 – Audrey - Savannah’s Party Cookies

#8 – Blanca - SugarChic

#9 – Shiyanne - Sweetie Pete Treats

#10 – Connie - Connie’s Creative Chaos

#11 – Cristin - Cristin’s Cookies

So I made my cookie into a zebra:

 Why? Yep, you guessed it... that little Abigail inspired my Zebra...

I started with the Zebra cookie cutter. As you've seen above, it can also be decorated as a giraffe and a dinosaur and a horse and even a boot. Yes, I'll share. You can get your own pink cookie cutter here at my Etsy shop.

 Then I baked my cookies with my new cookie cutter

 and I outlined my design. At this point you could make it into several design options.

I added nice thick stripes for my Zebra.

Then I filled her in with the colors that match Abigail's outfit. While the icing was wet, I added a flower detail and the tiny heart in her ear and the hearts on her tail. Then I let her dry overnight. The next morning I used an edible pen to draw on the pink stitching and the eyelashes.

Then I made her a bunch of friends so that she wouldn't get lonely.

Then I dressed her up for Valentines Day. 

 and with Valentines colored stripes too with a big heart that says I Only Have STRIPES For You! and smaller hearts with zebra print on them. You know, I just couldn't resist.

and I bagged her up to give to friends

 well you know me, then I took it just a step further...

and I made her into a giraffe too. I couldn't help myself. My friend Georganne at LilaLoa sent me these adorable eyes so I felt compelled to make a cute giraffe with pretty blue eyes. I love her. Seriously. Like it was really hard to give her away!

 and all my cookies from this new fun cookie cutter

And I made some fun Zebra printable cookie tags to share with you too. Click on the photo below and it will take you to the link to download your own Zebra cookie tags:

and yes, some Giraffe printable cookie tags too. Click on the photo below and it will take you to the link to download your own Giraffe cookie tags:

As is often the case, thank you to Abigail for being my inspiration and my muse! And thank you to all the cookie decorators that played along in our mystery cutter challenge! I love all the different ways you showed that the cutter can be used!

Our next mystery cutter challenge ends on Friday, so another collaborative project will be coming next Monday too!

Zebra blog background for today:

Birthday with Lots of Cookie Cutters

My son celebrated his 19th birthday last week. The problem was that he was about 700 miles away! This was the first time that he wasn't home for me to throw him a big birthday celebration. It was harder than I expected and I missed him terribly. I decided to make him a whole bunch of cookies to give out to his friends in college. And since I generally go pretty overboard with things, I made a bunch of new cookie cutters too. Thankfully my kids appreciate my craziness and they like cookies ;-)

Somehow I forgot to get a platter picture of the cookies. All that work and no platter picture. This will have to do. Get ready for lots and lots of cookies...

This one was my favorite. Birthday boy with cupcake. The cookie cutter is available at my Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/shop/cristinscookies 

Birthday Boy with Party Hat

Birthday Boy with Balloons

Cake Slice

Party Hat

Balloon Bouquet

Cake Tier - I changed this one after I made these cookies. I didn't like the bow.

Candle

Noise Maker

Confetti 1

 Confetti 2 - I changed this one after so that it's not as thin

and then some more cookies with cutters I already had

 This pinwheel is an eCrandal cookie cutter

As you can see, I had lots of fun making so many new designs of cookie cutters. They can be found at my Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/shop/cristinscookies

In all, I shipped 41 cookies to Nick. He said that he gave them out to friends and they were gone in a day. I'm glad they enjoyed them. He will be home for Spring Break in a few weeks. I'm so excited to see him. I wonder what I'll make for his return... 

Birthday blog background for today: