Jellyfish Cookie

Just another cookie I made for the Creative Cutters contest. A shimmery jellyfish made from a baseball glove cookie cutter.

Creative Cutters

Yeah, yeah. I know you haven't seen me here in a while. Sorry about that. Will you forgive me if I give you a cookie? I thought so!

Samantha at Flour-De-Lis and a few of her talented cookie-making friends are having a Creative Cutters contest. The objective is to use a baseball glove cookie cutter to create a cookie that isn't a baseball glove. Sounds fun, right?

 

I didn't have the cookie cutter, so I printed a picture of it, cut it out, and traced it onto a piece of paper a few times. Then I started sketching. This is what I came up with. I was inspired by traditional American Indian princess tattoos. I had no idea if it would actually work as a cookie, but I had nothing to lose.

Once the (hand-cut!) cookies were baked, I traced the basic outlines of my sketch onto tracing paper and transferred it to my cookie using a needle to gently carve around the edge of my template. The inside lines were then poked through the template onto the cookie.

Time to outline! This was done with my usual vegan royal icing and a number 2 tip.

I was excited to try to make the feathered headdress look feathery, but I didn't take the time to thin my white icing. Big mistake. At least I learned that wet-on-wet doesn't work when the icing dries really fast. Bummer.

I filled the other sections with my chosen colors, and ended up denting the blue and the skin color because I wasn't being careful. Luckily both dents were in areas that were going to be covered once the details were added. I let this dry for almost a full 24 hours.

The next evening, I was ready to add the details. I traced her face onto the paper template from the day before, poking needle holes in the lines as a guide, and transferring the pokes to the cookie. Then I made the black icing. I spent a good 30 minutes getting it to a good piping consistency. I wanted her face to look amazing! I practiced piping on a piece of tracing paper placed over my drawing. Once I was happy with the way it looked, I moved on to the cookie. This was done with a number 1 tip.

More linework, freehanded based on my drawing.

Finally, I filled the braid and headpiece, and piped her lips.

My original drawing included red shading across her nose and cheeks because I saw that in a lot of the tattoos I used as reference. I was too lazy to go to the store to get red luster dust, but I'm still pretty happy with the way she looks.

What do you think? Would you do anything differently? I'm still new to the cookie world, so any advice is appreciated. Hopefully I'll win the Creative Cutters contest and have more cookie cutters and goodies to practice with. I can't wait to see the other entries!

Makin' More Progress

I've accomplished a few more things from my "30 Before 31" list.

9. Find jackfruit and make something out of it. 

This wasn't really photo-worthy. I found jackfruit at Pacific Ocean and turned it into "pulled pork" for tacos. It looked really meaty. The taste was pretty boring. That's what I get for following a random internet recipe instead of just winging it. I should know better. I might try again one day, but I wasn't really impressed with the texture or anything, so it's not high on my list of priorities.

11. Bake (vegan) French macarons.

I had plenty of free time while I was in Utah, so I thought I'd give these a try. I used the recipe from Hanna Kaminsky's Vegan Desserts. The cookies almost worked, but they spread too much. They tasted like egg replacer. I didn't bother making the filling because the cookies were crappy, and I really have no desire to try these again.

18. Hang out on the beach.

Shaun and I ran off to San Diego back in February. We needed a trip to the beach. $80 round trip tickets to San Diego? $60 beachfront hotel room? Um, yes.

I didn't take many pictures because I was too busy practicing my beach bum skills. I'm not sorry about it.

22. Fix my broken chandelier.

I dug it out of the box to fix it. Turns out it wasn't really fixable. Bummer. Off to the thrift store it went.

29. Eat a vegan corn dog.

I was SO excited for this one. I ended up at Sputnik one night and saw that they had tofu corndogs. I giddily ordered one. I dipped it in mustard, stuck it in my mouth...

...and was really disappointed. It was flavorless tofu dipped in flavorless batter. At least I can cross it off my list. And I have an awesome new twitter avatar, thanks to Becky.

I have some pretty cool stuff coming up. Most likely opening the Monk and Mao Etsy shop again. Doing some gypsying. Hanging out with cats. You know. I'll try to blog about it. Not that anyone actually reads this. Buttholes.

Mmm. Tea.

2. Go to the teahouse in Boulder again.

We took a little trip up to Boulder on New Year's Day. We planned on hanging out at the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse just for some tea-drinking, but I was really excited to see that the menu offered vegan options so we ordered food, too. I had the Persian Chickpea Kufteh, which was chickpea balls with herbs & spices, a really delicious Persian tomato sauce, sautéed spinach and a pomegranate reduction. It was good, but too much of the same thing. SO MANY BREAD BALL THINGIES. I think if I ever ordered it again, I'd ask for more spinach and fewer balls. 

Ha. Fewer balls.

Gettin' Shit Done

I've knocked a couple more things off of my list in the last week or so. I'm really, really, really excited about number 17.

17. Fix the fan on my laptop... or just buy a new laptop.

After a little bit of research, I was able to take my laptop apart, fix the rattling fan, and put the laptop back together. The best part? I used duct tape to fix the fan. Yeah, really.

27. Get my twitter lists under control.

This was actually fun once I got started. I have lists for Denver people, vegan friends, and a couple other private lists. The private ones seem to be the lists I pay the most attention to, and I think my interactions with people have improved since I started using lists. That was the point. Success!

I've been working really hard on making "28. Be happy in a bikini." happen. I haven't been running as much as I'd like to. It's cold and snowy outside, and my treadmill went to treadmill heaven. BUT! I went back to practicing yoga! Classes leave me too sore to start thinking about taking daily classes... yet. I'm also participating in the BodyRock.tv 30 Day Challenge. It's kicking my butt and I love it. Most importantly, I'm doing it all with the help of Claudia Lailhacar. Her emails have already made a big difference in the way I train and the way I fuel my workouts. I'm eating really well and working hard. I can't wait to see where I'm at in a month, and I'm pretty sure I'll look AMAZING by summer!

This year has been productive already. What have you recently crossed off of your To Do list?

Progress

Last night I went out with my friend Johnny for his birthday. We've been friends since we were 15-year-old goth kids, so we decided to celebrate by going to goth night at the Church. Our group made up half of the population at the club, which was pretty sad considering our group was Johnny, Jon, Joey, Nate and me. Still, we had a blast, and I knocked something off my list!

10. Wear red lipstick in public.

Pretty sure red lipstick is going to become a regular part of my life. I want more! I might head over to the MAC store and try some out. Any others I should try? What's your favorite red lipstick?

30 Before 31

I have to say, my 30th birthday was one of the best so far. I woke up to three grey hairs and gifts on the table. My darling Shaun gave me a flask and some super cute kitty measuring cups! I'm one lucky broad.

Not my photo, obviously. Get these through ModCloth!

Now, on to the list. I wanted to put this up on my birthday, but I ended up running my little half marathon, then running around like a crazy lady to get things prepped for my birthday get-together, which turned out to be SO MUCH FUN. Totally worth my first hangover in years. Thank goodness for coconut water and Denver's best vegan pho from Pho 95!

Aaaaaand... here are 30 things I'm going to do before I turn 31.

1. Ride a motorcycle.

2. Go to the teahouse in Boulder again.

3. Sew my own lingerie. Undies for sure.  Possibly something else, too.

4. Try pad thai.

5. Go on a 90 day spending fast.

6. Fire a gun.

7. Make sourdough bread (with my great uncle Ken’s recipe, if anyone still has it).

8. Buy new running shoes.

9. Find jackfruit and make something out of it.

10. Wear red lipstick in public.

11. Bake (vegan) French macarons.

12. Go to yoga class every day for 30 days.

13. Learn how to can.

14. Spend some time in front of the camera.

15. Read at least 15 books.

16. Make cupcakes for Marcelo.

17. Fix the fan on my laptop... or just buy a new laptop.

18. Hang out on the beach.

19. Come up with a good veggie burger recipe.

20. Go out to dinner by myself.

21. Draw or paint a picture of my Monk and Mao kitties.

22. Fix my broken chandelier.

23. Stop being afraid to say no.

24. Make raw cupcakes.

25. Start learning Spanish with Shaun.

26. Run 100 miles in one month. (That’s only 3.33 miles per day!)

27. Get my twitter lists under control.

28. Be happy in a bikini.

29. Eat a vegan corn dog.

30. Dance.

I'm excited for every single thing on the list. This year is going to be tits!

What about you? How are you going to change your life this year?