I have some big news to tell you. And it's about these cookies. And me.

The truth is... I've never liked the baby rattle cutter. But I'm in love with these rattle cookies. And it's the same cutter I've always used.


But that's not the big news. That's the little news. The big news is that these cookies are for me!! For my very own little one. She's not here yet... but she should be coming sometime in April.

I just thought you should know. Because I'm super excited! And also because if you are coming to Cookie Con and meeting me for the first time, I don't want you to be thinking, "Wow. She looks surprisingly more like an alien than I expected." I'd rather you be thinking, "Yeay! New cookie friends!" And because we're friends, I really want to show you how to make these rattle cookies.


Use that rattle cutter that is just about everywhere. And then grab your onesie cutter and use it to cut the side knobs off. (I never…

I made these cookies last week. And I have a tiny secret to tell you. I don't have a double balloon cutter. I'm pretty sure they only exist in CookieLand. You can find them right next to the automatic color mixing station where you insert a color swatch and fill your ice cream buckets up with perfectly smooth and colored icing. If you reach the dirty tip/clean tip exchange then you'll know you've gone too far. But since I'm still waiting on my visa to be approved for travel to CookieLand, I had to make double balloon cookies with my single balloon cutter. And I was thinking that if YOU wanted to do the same thing, you could do that too. Actually, what I was thinking was that maybe some of you don't know the best way to put two cookies together to make just one cookie. So let's talk about that.

Let's think of the two cookies like a piece of cardboard that has been *gasp* torn in half. Probably by a small child in a fit of rage. Or fit of excitement. Or …

Street markets were all the rage when I lived in South Korea. They had been for hundreds of years. My kids loved them because they knew if they found something they wanted they could leverage the shop owner against me as well as their own youthful smiles and charm. And they knew that if there were enough "I love you forever Mommies" while the shop owner pushed the items at me, I would end up with another bag hanging off my arm while we went off in search of cinnamon-walnut filled bread and mini water bottles with a cartoon character cap.

But I drew the line at junk. There was a little wind-up mouth toy that my 5 year old desperately wanted. Desperately. He had moved right past the exclamations of love, through begging and very nearly into the tantrums before collecting himself and settling on the pitiful "I thought you loved me but now I know I was wrong forever" face. And let me be clear. I do love him forever. But the toy was worth about 12 cents. It was a littl…

HEY!!! Americolor must have changed their Super Red formula since I posted this. I'm in the process of editing this post -- in the meantime use 3 parts electric pink and 1 part electric blue for a similar plum color!

It's not a big secret that I love colors. Especially those of the deep and dark variety. And earthy ones. And bright ones. And sometimes, if you catch me when I haven't quite had enough sleep... I might even have some kind feelings towards those lighter than air colors too.

And don't tell dark red this, but one of my favorite colors is plum. I've been in love with it since high school. I am not even joking. (I wish I was. I've always had a color obsession.) I love that plum is its own accent. Pair it with any neutral and you have a gorgeous color scheme. I have spent lots of time mixing this and that into bowls of icing and eventually end up with a color that resembles the plum of my dreams. But, I recently happened upon a very simple and perfect c…