Metallic Dress Cookies

It's FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!

I took a little break to recover from the holidays. I need a real vacation. I thought after I had the baby my life would just go back to normal...wake up, drink coffee, get kids to school, clean house, eat lunch, clean some more, pick up kids, clean some more, cook dinner, decorate cookies, blog, clean again, then off to bed.

Not happening! It isn't going that way. I certainly didn't think adding baby #6 would make that big of a difference. What's one more?  Apparently one more is like fifteen more. I'm frazzled! Don't get me wrong, he is a fantastic baby. He just ALWAYS wants to eat. Nursing is a full time job. My girls never nursed this much. Not to mention I am now a human pacifier. 

My schedule goes a little more like this now.....wake up, fall back asleep, wake up, drink coffee my teenage daughter has made me (God bless her), get kids to school, nurse baby, potty train toddler (that's an all day thing), get baby down for nap, pull out my hair because toddler wakes up baby, feed myself and toddler, nurse baby, pick up kids from school, nurse baby, throw dinner together, nurse baby....blah blah blah...it's now 2am and I've not made cookies and I can't blog!!!! 

I really think I got ten grey hairs last week. GREAT, now I have to squeeze in a hair appointment. Can you say stressed out?

So I took a step back to focus on the most important things in my life....my family. I had lots of snuggles with the baby. Spent time with the older kids. Still potty training the toddler....she's a bit slower than the other kids were. Things are getting into more of a system. I even got some baking and cookie decorating in! Life is good. 

Georganne of

LilaLoa

gave us a

challenge

on the first of January to make something without color. I thought...how perfect. Less colors to mix=more time to decorate! It was a win win. I'm not a fan of mixing icing....or the clean up after. I simply like to decorate cookies. 

These were the cookies I came up with for the challenge.

I'm going to show you how to make the dress in the middle.  The dress on the right was inspired from these

cookies

by Callye of

Sweet Sugarbelle

.

1. Bake cookies and allow to cool. I pieced the dress together using a heart and large party hat cutter.

2. With a #5 tip and piping icing, pipe a row of dots across bottom of cookie. Take a small damp paintbrush and stick it in middle of dot and pull toward you.

3. Pipe a second row of dots, repeating step #2.

4. Repeat this until you reach the top dress section. Leave room for the sash. 

5. Outline dress top with #2 tip and grey piping consistency icing.

6. Fill dress top with flood consistency grey icing. Let dry several hours.

7. Add a sash with white icing. I used icing that was a bit thicker than flood icing. Let dry over night. 

I made rose royal icing transfers and allowed them to dry overnight. I added the rose the next morning using a dot of piping icing and glued it onto the sash.

8. For a metallic sheen, spray cookie with Wilton color mist spray in silver. Let dry.

Mrs. Claus' Dress Cookies

It seems my life has gotten so busy lately.

My time has been consumed with the Christmas shopping....the wrapping....the children's school parties ....the Christmas dinner.

THE CHRISTMAS DINNER!!!!!!

Then it hits me......I haven't planned Christmas dinner or bought the food for it! Seriously I don't know where I put my superwoman cape at but it's gone! I have become "that mom". The one who forgets everything. The one leaving the house in her pj's to get her kid to school just in the nick of time.

I mean where are the cute clothes and heels?  I think I need to gather myself and get it together.....fast.

I certainly can't go to a christmas party in my pj's, or can I? Noooo people talk and they would certainly be talking about me.

I've been decorating a lot of Christmas cookies this year. One of my favorites is Mrs. Claus' dress.  She has to be well dressed. I imagine she has quite the heel collection. After all, she needs to always look her best.

Wanna see how I made them?

1. Roll out cookie dough and cut out dress shape. I used this cutter from Copper Gifts. Then using a heart cutter cut out the top part of the dress.

2. Trim off scalloped edge of dress. I used a large party hat cutter since it was curved at the edge. Piece the heart and bottom portion of dress together and bake.

3. After cookie has cooled, pipe a belt on the dress with a #2 tip and black piping icing. Allow to dry completely to prevent bleeding. If you need a good icing recipe you can find mine

here

.

4. Pipe red royal icing using a #2 tip. I used Tulip Red for this.  You can find the Tulip Red icing color

here

at

Karen's Cookies

.

5. Fill in top and bottom dress portions with 15 second icing in tulip red. Allow cookie to dry overnight.

6. After cookie is completely dry pipe white fur on dress top. I used a #2 tip and thicker icing. Probably around 20 second icing. I did this to prevent the icing from running and I also didn't want it to be completely smooth.  I also did not pipe a line but did more up and down motions when piping. I wanted it to have a rough edge.

Next, using a clean paint brush, paint a belt buckle with silver luster dust. You can find luster dust

here

.