Christmas Cookies 2013

It's the most wonderful time of the year folks! I love the Christmas season. Everyone seems to make just a little extra effort to be together, celebrate and express their love and appreciation.And what better way to express that love than with Christmas cookies! These are definitely my favorite cookies to create every year. I got an order from Maria over at the Yancey House again this year. It wasn't another 300 like I did for her last year, haha. But a couple dozen for her to share with her family and friends. stretched myself creatively this year, used some new cookies cutters and I have to say I was pretty impressed with myself.  I just love how these turned out.

There was another exciting development this week. My new cookie boxes and stamp came in the mail! I'm also ver excited to announce that in the next couple of weeks I'll be introducing cupcakes to Cherry Blossom Crafting. So stay tuned for that! 

Wishing you all a Christmas that is Merry and Bright!

Ciao
Heather

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Falling for Baby

I got a bit of a surprise order earlier this month from my cousin's girlfriend. She was hosting a baby shower for a friend of hers, shortly after Thanksgiving. I've done lots of baby shower cookies before but Heather wanted something a little different. The theme for the party was Falling for Baby. So I came up with a fun mix of baby shower and fall cookies. The real challenge was coming up with a color scheme. Heather really wanted to incorporate the teal color she was planning for the shower decor. So I had to come up with fall colors that worked with teal. I was pretty happy with the results.

This was a fun order! Hope you enjoy them.

Ciao!

Heather

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Opening Day!

Today is THE day! We have offically opened Cherry Blossom Crafting in Lovin Florist. Mom, Leslie and I worked so hard to get everything together. We're so pleased with the result and can't wait for you to see it. So without further adue...

 Isn't it adorable?! Right now we have filled the display with beautiful gifts for baby and kids so go check us out on the square in Lawrenceville, GA.

Ciao!

~Heather, Diane & Leslie

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Kitchen Shower Cookies

I have exciting news! For years my Mom and I have talked about opening up a shop of our own. Ever since we planned my wedding we caught the craft bug. We got started crafting and creating and I started decorating cookies! Just last year we helped my new sister-in-law create some special touches for her wedding and when we found out my new niece was on the way, we started creating for Harper and her adorable nursery.

Our new creations have gotten some attention and we'll soon be opening our own little gift shop in Lovin Florist in downtown Lawrenceville, GA! We've been creating like crazy and can't wait to get everything set up. We'll have beautiful, handmade products for babies, weddings and your home. So stay tuned as we add pictures of our new products.

You'll also start to see posts from my amazing mother, Diane and my beautiful sister-in-law Leslie!

Until then... I would love to share some fun cookies I got to do this week. About a month ago I got an order for a wedding shower. It was a vintage kitchen shower theme, which I was thrilled to take on. The client sent me the invitation as inspiration and told me a little about the bride and groom. I found some great cookie cutters and got excited about executing my vision. Then suddenly, I got three more cookie orders! It was exciting and a little overwhelming but I stayed organized and got them all done. I think everyone was pretty happy with what I created for them.

I would like to share with you the Vintage Kitchen Shower cookies, since they came out soooo cute! I'm really proud of them because they are original and were very personal for the bride. I chose to do a stand mixer, nesting bowls, teapot, oven mitt, rolling pin and apron. I also used a lot of new techniques I had never tried before. The apron features a freehanded zebra print and the oven mitt is an airbrushed stencil pattern. These were so fun and I think I really surprised the client. Enjoy!

Ciao!

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Welcome to the World Harper Grace!

My brother Casey and his beautiful wife Leslie welcomed a baby girl into the world. My entire family was so excited for her arrival. Harper Grace is my parent's first grandchild and my first niece. We could not wait to take some pictures of our beautiful baby girl, so at just a week old she is already a model!

I'm definitely not a professional photographer, in fact I just got a fancy camera as a graduation present last May. But I've been practicing, reading tutorials and looking at photos I like. We took the pictures in my Mom's backyard which is well shaded and the grass is lush and green. And we picked the perfect time of day, around 4:30 PM. My Mom picked out a beautiful antique quilt my great grandmother made and an antique mirror that used to hang in my room when I was a little girl.

I have to say, she was fantastic and the taking pictures of her was so fun. I'm enjoying every minute of being an aunt. Maybe in a few years in can give her a cousin :)

Ciao!

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Baby Shower Cookies

In a few days I will be an Aunt for the very first time! Just a few weeks ago my aunt's threw a beautiful, fun baby shower for my sister-in-law Leslie. I was thrilled to make some cute cookies for my coming niece, Harper Grace, as shower favors. I'm so excited to show them to ya'll. Enjoy!

Ciao!

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New York, New York

My cousin had a birthday recently. Her mom, my aunt, is wonderful at planning parties and every year she gives Emily a fabulous themed party. Emily has a big personality; she's a cheerleader, gymnast and dancer. So when Christine began thinking about Emily's party, she thought about her recent plea to go to New York City! I was thrilled when she asked me to create some fun New York themed cookies for Emily's party. Check out the finished product:

Ciao!

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Don't call it a come back....

I'm back! I hope ya'll have been wondering where I've been these past 6 months. Well wonder no more. It was a tough final semester finishing school but I did it! It feels so great and I'm so excited to be able to return to my hobbies and bring me even more joy. Plus I get to spend more time with my family and my incredible husband.

It wasn't all reading and writing this semester. My lovely sister-in-law Alisha did ask me to do some yummy cupcakes for a bridal shower for her friend. I was excited to be able to create something for her and she was so easy to please. She let me be creative and do whatever flavor combination and style I wanted. Her friends wedding colors were purple and white so I decided to work with that. Then I found this fun tutorial on how to create edible sunflowers from pineapple! I just had to give it a try. Of course you can check out the tutorial here. If your coing to attempt to do these, you'll be thrilled with how easy they are to do. Here are a couple of tips, when you slice the pineapple, let it sit on a few paper towels for an hour or so to get rid of some of the juices. You'll also need to really concentrate on cutting the slices as thin as possible, otherwise it wil take FOREVER to dry out them out into flowers. I actually left mine in a little long in the oven so that they browned around the edges because I really liked the color it created.

It's always super important to me that whatever I create taste great. What's the point in creating something that's pretty but dry, bland or just gross. I want my creations to taste as good as they look! So I went in search for the perfect vanilla cupcake recipe. I didn't have to look far. Glory, over at Glorious Treats (haha get it, Glory, Glorious) had already done all the research for me. She has discovered THE best recipe for vanilla cupcakes EVER. You can find it here. I really wanted to challenge myself with these cupcakes so I decided to fill them with something and if you know me at all you know I love chocolate. And what's better than chocolate ganache? What I was really happy to learn is that it is soooooo easy to make ganache. Of course the amazing folks over at Martha Stewart have a recipe and tutorial for ganache here. To cut the rich taste of the ganache, I decided to top the cupcake with classic vanilla buttercream icing. This was a big challenge for me as I've never been able to successfully make buttercream icing from scratch. I've made may attempts but it always seems to separate. I used this recipe from Magnolia Bakery that I Am Baker posted here. It totally worked! A couple of tips and apparently what I had been doing wrong the whole time you really have to wait for the unsalted butter to reach room temperature and you must use heavy cream. Otherwise, your icing will separate and be super runny and gross. These cupcakes turned out cute and delicious!

I'm so glad to be back to blogging, I missed ya'll and I hope you enjoy these! 

Ciao!

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