Valentine Cupcake Cookies

Stores are coming out with holiday stuff earlier and earlier. When I went to Hobby Lobby the other day to grab some Mardi Gras sanding sugars for my giveaway, they were already putting out Easter stuff.

You think they could wait for one holiday to be over before they start putting out stuff for the next. 

Watch, next year they'll be selling Christmas stuff in May.

I'm not sure about you, but I can't get all excited and want to buy stuff when it isn't even close to that time of year. 

I managed to GLANCE at the Easter stuff.......that's right, I glanced. I didn't look long enough to purchase, but didn't look too fast as to not see.

See....I know how to do it. 

Ok well you're here on my blog and we are on the proper season/holiday. So you get Valentine's day stuff.  I promise that I won't start Halloween now or anything crazy like that.....okay? Sound good? 

Good, we're on the same page.

Today I'm going to show you how to make Valentine's cupcakes.

First roll out your sugar cookie dough and cut out cupcakes.

I have a great sugar cookie recipe if you need one.

Bake and cool your cookies. I like to do this the day before.

Using a pink royal icing and a #2 tip outline the cookie, making a cupcake liner.

Let dry about 15 minutes.

Now with pink flood icing, fill that part in. Allow to dry several hours.

Now with red royal icing and a #2 tip outline a heart at the top of cupcake.

Let dry about 15 minutes. 

Fill heart with red flood icing. Allow to dry several hours.

With white royal icing and #2 tip, Outline white part of cupcake.

Let dry about 15 minutes.

Fill section with white flood icing.

While the white icing is still WET, put some red sprinkles on. 

You could use any sprinkles you choose. Heart sprinkles would be cute.

Let cookie dry several hours.

Now outline the heart with red royal icing and add lines to the cupcake liner.

Enjoy your cookies for Valentine's day.......or make them for November, if you like to do things early like the stores.....just kidding.

~ENJOY

Love Bird Cookies

Remember what it was like when you first fell in love? When everything was new and exciting.

Remember acting like little love birds. Always holding hands, kissing, using mushy love talk. Yeah, those were the days.

The days before you had to clean his hair out of the sink from his morning shave......before you had to pick up his dirty clothes off the floor.......and before you knew of all his disgusting habits. You remember the days before that right?

Those were the days......

Well my hubby and I are still like love birds.....and he doesn't have any disgusting habits.....he even picks up all his dirty clothes and puts them in the properly sorted laundry baskets.......

AHHHHH YEAH RIGHT!!!! Totally Fantasy.....but it's a good fantasy.

Well this fantasy got me thinking about cookies. Then again, everything has me thinking about cookies.

I bought this paisley cutter from Ecrandal right before Christmas and never got around to using it. I knew when I saw it, I was going to use it for quite a few things. Mainly I wanted it to make birds. So, when I started thinking of love birds I was so excited to use my new cutter.

First roll out your dough and cut out paisley shapes and a heart shapes.
Bake according to your recipe directions.

**TIP: If you want birds facing each other be sure to flip some of the paisley shapes BEFORE baking. Otherwise you have to decorate the back of the cookie. Which isn't the end of the world, but isn't how I wanted to do mine.

 Using pink royal icing and a #2 tip, outline cookie. 

With pink flood icing, fill entire cookie. Let dry overnight.

Outline heart cookie with red royal icing. I just used the bottle of flood icing. About 20 second consistency. I didn't feel like putting it in a bag :)

Then Fill with the red 20 second icing. Let dry overnight.

Add eyes. You could use black candy beads if you're not comfortable piping. 

Then add a dab of royal icing and lay heart on top for wing. Be sure your hearts are completely dry to prevent sticking your finger in them like I did and making a dent.

Allow several hours for icing to dry under the wing.