Memorial Day Cookies ... Lady Bugs (using a heart shape)

We had our annual Memorial Day party at the lake. I love that each year we have some familiar faces and some new. This year I wanted to make some fun cookies, I went with the patriotic color themed. Yesterday I showed the Flag Star Cookies. Today are the patriotic lady bugs. I love taking a shape and turning it into something totally different. These were simple but so fun!

If you're in need or cookies for a party or just to eat, shoot me a msg at SweetPea Cookie Therapy. Thank you!

What you Need:

Heart Cookie Cutter
Royal Icing - Red, Blue, Black and white/uncolored (see recipe below) 

Pipping Bags


I started with a basic heart shape and turned it into lady bugs. I started with making the head with a black triangle. I then added the red or blue (depending on what color I wanted). Before the Red dried I took a piping bag of white and made the dots for the back of the ladybug. I then made the eyes and the antenna's. For the eyes I made a small white dot and added a smaller black dot in the middle. The antenna's was a fancy looking V. Let them dry and you have some cute cookies!

  
Here are both the cookies made:

Click HERE to see who I link with.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups butter, softened 2 cups white sugar 4 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS:

1.	In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
2.	Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
3.	Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Julie Usher, she has a GREAT YouTube video on how to make, color and make consistency adjustments. 

Royal Icing what you need:

2 lbs Powdered Sugar

1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar

5 Large Egg Whites (or equivalent) 

Flavor to Taste

Gel Icing Color

Mix powder sugar and cream of tartar in your mixer, just to make sure it is incorporated in. Slowly add egg whites, then whip start of slow then go to very high speed. She says around 2 minutes, my friend had an older mixer so it took almost 10 minutes. You want stiff peaks that hold on and won't fall off the spoon. Add in your flavor, I would suggest you use a clear flavoring.  This would be the glue texture great for ginger bread houses etc.

Take 1 cup of royal icing in a smaller bowl then add your coloring, lightly mix so you don't get air into the the icing. I'm like her and like the gel coloring. 

For Top Coating - Add 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 tsp Water (This is if you don't want to outline and flood)

For Outlining - Add 1/2 to 3/4 tsp Water

For Flooding  - Add 2 to 3 tsp Water

WATCH her video on How to Top-Coat, Outline, and Flood Cookies. YES it is around 7 minutes BUT if you have never done this technique it's a MUST she explains it perfectly.

Memorial Day - Flag Cookies

We had our annual Memorial Day party at the lake. I love that each year we have some familiar faces and some new. This year I wanted to make some fun cookies, I went with the patriotic color themed. These were simple but so fun!

If you're in need or cookies for a party or just to eat, shoot me a msg at SweetPea Cookie Therapy. Thank you!

What you Need:

Star Cookie Cutter
Royal Icing - Red, Blue and white/uncolored (see recipe below) 

Pipping Bags


I played around with the red, white and blue. Have fun and dot's and stripes.

  
Here are both the cookies made:

Click HERE to see who I link with.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups butter, softened 2 cups white sugar 4 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS:

1.	In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
2.	Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
3.	Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Julie Usher, she has a GREAT YouTube video on how to make, color and make consistency adjustments. 

Royal Icing what you need:

2 lbs Powdered Sugar

1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar

5 Large Egg Whites (or equivalent) 

Flavor to Taste

Gel Icing Color

Mix powder sugar and cream of tartar in your mixer, just to make sure it is incorporated in. Slowly add egg whites, then whip start of slow then go to very high speed. She says around 2 minutes, my friend had an older mixer so it took almost 10 minutes. You want stiff peaks that hold on and won't fall off the spoon. Add in your flavor, I would suggest you use a clear flavoring.  This would be the glue texture great for ginger bread houses etc.

Take 1 cup of royal icing in a smaller bowl then add your coloring, lightly mix so you don't get air into the the icing. I'm like her and like the gel coloring. 

For Top Coating - Add 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 tsp Water (This is if you don't want to outline and flood)

For Outlining - Add 1/2 to 3/4 tsp Water

For Flooding  - Add 2 to 3 tsp Water

WATCH her video on How to Top-Coat, Outline, and Flood Cookies. YES it is around 7 minutes BUT if you have never done this technique it's a MUST she explains it perfectly.

Pause for Memorial Day

Just wanted to take a moment to thank all of those who have severed our country and all those family that have stood by their sides here while their loved ones were away!  Thank you for your service, so often we forget to Thank those that make it possible for us to have our freedoms like the freedom to write this blog, to say what I want to say with out the free of going to jail.   For our freedom to believe in God or for those who don't for their freedom to not believe.  Just think of those who don't have these simple luxuries we take for granted every day!  Make sure to thank not ONLY today but everyday for those who have fought and many who have given their lives for these freedoms!  Take a 60 seconds pause, only 60 seconds for all they do REALLY is that too much to ask for?

Memorial Weekend 2011 Wrap Up

Thursday night Rick and I went out on a date night since we had a babysitter so we could meet with Cole’s principal for the end of year wrap up and evaluation if we will be welcomed back next year.  Well the secretary had the dates wrong it happen to be drama night at Cole’s school so we had to cancel the meeting but not time to cancel the babysitter.  So after drama night we went out to dinner, I’ve been eating so well for a few weeks so going out was a test I failed.  It all looked so well but I over did it and paid for it later that night.  Since then I have been sick as a dog .

On side note we meet the Principal on Friday nothing but good words about Cole.  He has come leaps and bounds since the start of school, still has his moments but YEAH we’re doing well baby!!

Cole’s school does a Drama night each year.  This year they did the garden.  Cole played a flower and a WEED .  The Weed’s rapped it was hilarious!  Cole even told the farmer that he didn’t want to become “Coleslaw”.  He had no idea why people laughed at his name … lol.

Darma night Cole needed Sunglasses to play a Weed so Caden had to get some Monkey glasses . My parents even came which was great they usually don’t come to things that are very religious.  But this night it was just a play so everyone was happy.

We had a few sun days so that means play time.  Which made us very dirty, my friend had to hose the boys down before they came in … lol.

We had our last swim class until class start back up in late June.  Our teacher was gone so we had a new teacher.

We had a Lowe's kids clinic making biplanes, let’s just say the reason you don’t see a finished product is momma was frustrated so yup we left I’ll have to finish those up later … lol

We visited my parents to see all the changes they have done at their waterfront.  They added in a slide off the dock, tore up the grass put in blocks and bunch of dirt and then a concrete pad and a new gazebo. They also extended out the dock so the jetskii’s can be there the whole time.  We even had a tasty dinner.

Happy Wednesday everyone!!