Apparently, November is the month to be born! I have two very special birthday orders for this weekend. This is order #1 for an adorable little guy who is turning 3. I hope he likes his cookies!

We're accepting orders for this Year's Christmas design "The Tree Trimmers." This set would make a great gift for teachers or hostesses. Perhaps a stocking stuffers? Or the perfect gift for that person you never know what to get.
Each set cost $9.95 which includes shipping and handling. All you have to do is fill out a form with the address and name of the recipient and we'll do the rest. All orders will be mailed the week before Christmas and will arrive fashionably wrapped with a holiday greeting card revealing the senders name. Doesn't get any easier!

If you weren't able to get out to the Bazaar this weekend, here's a little peak at what ya missed!

Last night was my first public event. It was such a fun experience. For the event, I made nutella fudge brownies, vanilla cupcakes, chocolate cookies, and sugar cookies. For the display my husband and I did a little antique shopping and recycling of items we already own. With $20 cash in my pocket, we stopped by Lisa's Antiques on Mantoloking Rd. where we found two glass candlesticks, a glass cake plate, two lace table runners, and a large basket. Also I purchased two new, well old, cookie cutters that I plan to use for a new set of cookies. We purchased the whole lot for $15. I already had a small wooden tea tray, a large doily, and Tim's old baseball card holder and all these combined with my antique finds became my event display. 
The  antique table runners were laid out on the counter where everything was set up. I used the doily to dress up the little wooden tea tray and filled it with tea time cookies.Three of my own dinner/dessert plates were stacked in between the candlesticks to make a tier for the cupcakes. The Cake plate became a brownie stand and Tim spray painted his baseball card holder to make a display for the round flower cookies. The little ledges of the baseball card holder propped the cookies up for better viewing. The large basket made an excellent vehicle for transporting the cookies which I wrapped in a tablecloth for protection. I was so pleased with the overall look of our display. Not only was it very affordable, it was so vintage, which I adore.
We had a great evening and sold lots of a sweet yumminess to happy customers. 

My order of vanilla beans arrived today, just in time for the Showcase cookies. I've used vanilla beans in the past, but this time I didn't want to waste the fragrant pod, so here's a little story about my adventure with vanilla beans.
My beans arrived tucked up in an airtight bag labeled beanilla and when I snipped open the corner, a lovely mellow scent slipped out. Using a very sharp paring knife and little glass cutting board I slid the edge of my knife from one tip of the bean pod to the other, splitting the pod in two and revealing the grainy black cream hidden inside. With the back of my knife I scraped the beans from their coat and dropped them into a bowl with butter and sugar.
The pods lay there so bare and sad. I couldn't stand to throw all that delicate flowery flavor into the trash, so I wound each into two tiny glass jars and buried one in sugar and the other I drowned in raw honey. The leftover, unused pods were tightly wrapped in plastic and placed in glass jars for another day.

Vanilla bean can be added to almost any dessert and can be used as a substitute for Vanilla extract. There are some debates about substitution ratios. I personally used half a bean pod in exchange for one teaspoon of extract. The leftover pods are great for flavoring things like, honey and sugar to be used in coffee or tea. The pods can also be dried out and crumbled into powder that can be added to baked goods, frosting, tea, ice cream topping, puddings, etc. 
If you'd like to have your own bean adventure, I highly recommend purchasing your Vanilla beans from http://www.beanilla.com/ they are very affordable and shipping is free!

A dear friend of mine purchased a box of my tea time cookies. She's a photographer and in true photographer form, could not resist the temptation to capture some mouth watering poses. Here are a few of my favorites.
If you'd like to see more of Jess' work, including my own wedding photos, stop by her site and her facebook. Don't forget to give her a "like." 
http://capturedmomentsphotography09.shutterfly.com/ https://www.facebook.com/CapturedMomentsPhotoFL

The music studio I work at is having our semi annual Showcase extravaganza! Instead of giving flowers, parents are ordering a musical treat that can be personalized for their little star. 
I love the idea of celebrating two of my great passions with this joyful blend of musical sweetness! It's going to be so fun spending an evening listening to all our students showing off their talent. What better way to top off all the fun then nibbling a music themed cookie when the show is over?
As far as I'm concerned, any occasion deserves a cookie to celebrate. 

My mother has a lovely collection of antique costume jewelry and I wanted to find a way to incorporate some of the unique designs into my cookies. For my wedding I had purchased food grade mold making material in hopes of using it to design my wedding cake but with time crunches and so many other details, this never happened. However, all that perfectly good mold plastique was sitting on a shelf in our laundry room collecting dust and that was just not ok. Yesterday I went to work making molds of six gorgeous brooches and this is the first completed cookie inspired by my mom's favorite brooch. I used fondant, also saved from my wedding, to get the mold impression. More to come :)