Custom Cuts: Gone Fishin’

My best friend (and former roomie) Kate needed a hostess gift a few weeks ago.  She was heading to Annapolis for the opening of rockfish season.  She figured food would be a nice touch.

Who am I to disagree with her?  After all, food is great.  For all occasions. 

So we put our heads together and decided on some sugar cookies.  Fish perhaps?

Now, I do not claim to be a fish expert.  In fact, I eat the little guys, I don’t catch ’em.  So, at the risk of offending my fishing friends, I went simple with the fish shapes.  Really simple.

I think they are pretty cute, though.  A little reminiscent of those little cheesy crackers from days long gone.  

And, if the fish aren’t biting, at least you have a cute, cheerful (and delicious, if I may say so myself) cookie to eat!

Custom Cuts: Cowboy Gus

Granddad loves Westerns.  Mini-series or full-length feature.  New or old.  Seen or unseen.  He loves them all.  If John Wayne is in it, well, that’s like hitting the lotto.

So, I can only imagine how disappointed he would be to find out I had to do a Google search when I was contacted to do these cookies.  See, the soon-to-arrive baby will be loosely named after the main character, Gus, in Lonesome Dove.  (On my behalf, I knew it was a Western.  I just didn’t know much after that.)

Cousin Pam (you remember her from this post, right?), who ordered these cookies for a book club friend, wanted to tie-in the name reference with the cookies.

And so 10 gallon hats were born.

And as a bit of an ode to those Western days, we added stars to the onesies.  Come one, surely Western babies wore cute star adorned onesies.

From what I heard these were a huge hit.  Perhaps, this will inspire me to read Lonesome Dove.  On second, thought, maybe I’ll rent the miniseries and just watch it with Granddad.

Custom Cuts: A Little Birdie Told Me

I have to say, I think these are some of my favorite cookies I’ve made to date.

My friend Ann emailed me to do some cookies to welcome a friend’s new baby girl.  She was open to whatever, but passed along the link to the bedding, thinking it was springy.

I took one look and was sold.

That’s right, these are based on the bedding in the nursery.  Cute, right?

I love the preppy, yet folksy feel of the birds.  And, like Ann said, the springy feel is perfect for these cool spring days.

A little “welcome” cookie rounded out the dozen.

Hopefully Mom and Dad enjoyed eating these as much as I loved making them!

Custom Cuts: Class of 2033

My friend E contacted me again to do some cookies for a cousin who just had a baby.  Ahh, large families!

E wanted to do something similar to the last round.  But with a twist.

She wanted to use dad’s alma mater, mom’s alma mater and where mom and dad met.  Loved the idea.

Dartmouth.  Western Kentucky.  NYU (for their MBA).  Smarties.

We added a couple of congrats, welcomes and, of course, accolades for the new big brother.

Maybe they’ll contact me in 2033 for some graduation cookies!

Custom Cuts: Staying Neutral

Another baby is coming… this time it’s my friends Cate and Tim from college!

Cate and I go way back.  All the way back to the 2nd floor of St. Monica’s freshman year, in fact.

Cate proceeded to follow me for the next two years.  She was right down the hall Sophomore year in Sheehan.  Then just a quick trip upstairs Junior year in the apartments (St. Clare for those who are keeping track).

Every year I showed up, there she was.  She was such a stalker.  No, not really!  It was always great to look down the hall and see Cate’s smiling face.

What about senior year you ask?  Well, we did one better than living down the hall from one another.  We tackled racial stereotypes and “The Real World” for our Senior Project.  Yes, we really did.  It was awesome.  And involved really, really long nights, loads of coffee and really great stories – one of which involved Cate in the hospital and me getting dropped off on main campus in the back of a cop car.  She was okay, I was embarrassed and, no, I didn’t do anything illegal.  The full story is for another day.

In any event, Cate and I have stayed friends and I was beyond thrilled when she and Tim moved to Northern Virginia.  Now we get to make ladies who lunch dates, impromptu dinner outings and…

baby showers!

I was so excited to be able to do the cupcakes and cookies for Cate’s shower this past weekend.  Since Cate and Tim aren’t finding out if the Bebe is a boy or a girl (yay!), the colors are modern neutral – silver sage, chocolate brown and tan.  and, of course, you can’t go wrong with polka dots.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed the treats as much as I enjoyed making them for such a special lady… and the little one to come!

(PS – Too bad I forgot the camera to take pics of the set-up.  One of these days I’ll get the hang of this!)