2012 New Year cookies

This week I've decided we have too much stuff. Really, we do. There comes a point when you run out of room to put it all.

Seriously, there is only so much storage space.

Now, mind you I live on a military post in a duplex. Not much room to begin with. We don't even have a pantry for food. REALLY NO PANTRY. Who the heck can function without a pantry? My front closet I turned into a pantry months ago.....but anyway too much stuff in this house.

It's time for a New Year.......which gets me thinking about starting new.

So out with the old and in with the new. I started boxing up old toys, old clothes and just stuff we didn't use anymore to donate to goodwill. I'm one of those people who just hate clutter.

Sometimes I really want to just throw everything I own away and start all over from scratch. Don't you ever feel like that?

Well it's obvious I can't really throw out everything BUT I can throw out some things and have less clutter.

Do NOT mistake less clutter for less CUTTERS. I will continue to clutter the cookie room with cutters. After all it is my space to be creative and decorate cookies. It's the time I need to keep from going insane.

Ok.... I'm babbling again.

I made cookies for the New Year.

Can you believe it's going to be 2012 already? The time really does fly. Hopefully you were having fun when it was flying.

Ok so I couldn't do a tutorial on all the cookies, but I did do a tutorial on the party hat. Please excuse the fact that the first two pictures were taken of one hat and the rest were taken of the other hat. The same steps apply so just pretend it's the same hat.

First outline bottom of hat and top of hat.

 Fill with white 20 second icing

 Outline outer edge of cookie and diagonal lines in purple royal icing and #2 tip

Fill every other section with blue20 second icing and let dry a few hours

 Next fill remaining lines with purple 20 second icing and let dry several hours

 Now outline in between diagonal stripes of hat with grey royal icing

 Now while the grey icing is still wet pour silver disco dust over it and allow to dry about an hour

 Shake off excess disco dust (Don't worry about the excess disco dust left on the cookie)

Take a CLEAN paintbrush that you'll only use on food and brush excess disco dust off of cookie. Then you're done! 

Mardi Gras Mask

As most of you know I only have one son and four girls. So things around here are usually all tiaras and sparkles. The girls usually have control of everything around here. The boys are just outnumbered.

 So the only time you hear us squeal is when we see a spider....a moth....and occasionally a grasshopper.....yes I can't stand grasshoppers. Look, they hop at you....Yuck.

The day after Christmas my son went deer hunting with his Paw Paw. He got his first two kills on this trip.....in all of ten minutes.  Right in the jugular....ONE shot. Yes, my baby know's how to shoot VERY well.

So right after the deer were shot, I got the picture text within minutes, which just made me so glad I purchased him an Iphone last year....so glad. If that wasn't bad enough, he came home today.....with some of the deer.

Well it has been a squealing kinda day around here. I guess my son figured he was due some squealing and grossness around here since he has had to deal with sparkles and tiaras around here all these years.

Guess who got to keep him company while he cleaned off the deer antlers that he wants to keep? You guessed it......ME. I squealed, I gagged, I ewwwwwwed, the works. It was utterly DISGUSTING! I know he appreciated the time I spent with him while he cleaned things up, but it was as gross as ever and I NEVER want to keep him company while he's doing that again.

When that was over I had to go to my happy place.....a very happy place.....COOKIES!

I love Mardi Gras mask. There are so many beautiful ones out there. I have a few that I've purchased over the years.

I knew I had to make some Mardi Gras mask. I bought two Mardi Gras mask cutters from the fabulous 

Coppergifts.com 

. Their cutters are never a disappointment.

They were very easy to make. I just outlined and filled the mask and let them dry. Then decorate the top however you want. It's super easy.

Here's an alternate mask that I decorated. They'll look pretty no matter how detailed or simple  you make them. 

If you missed the other Mardi Gras Cookies I made you can view them

here.