Kookie Krums

Getting sick is half the fun . . .

 
This is my favorite card of the week . . . "Get up and around soon or the potty chair comes out."

gone in 60 seconds.

 
I had the privilege recently of doing the dessert table for the talent show & silent auction at my daughter's school. Cookies, brownies, and cake pops were the order of the night.

A big tray of cookies is always popular.

 
The cake pops, though, proved to be worthy competition.

 
Our now-famous sea salt brownies made an appearance too.

 
However, as soon as intermission was announced, everyone descended on the dessert table. I think I maybe had time to say, "Hi, yes, these are all from Kookie Krums," and woosh! Everything was gone. Sixty seconds is probably being generous! What fun to see so many people in one place enjoying our delicious treats!

And so fun to watch my six year old march confidently up on the stage and sing her heart out. I love her.

 

worthy of a merit badge.

 

Holy girl scout goodness. I just had to share what I made up in the kitchen. A girlfriend told me that she had seen online where someone put a samoa girl scout cookie in a chocolate chip cookie. It didn't make sense to me, how could you cook an already cooked cookie inside an uncooked one? I had to try it, just to see what happened. I found out where a girl scout meets pure bliss. It was oh-my-word-good.

My sweet hubby is not a fan of coconut, so his comment when I brought some of these delicious bites home was, "put a thin mint in there, then we'll talk." No problem, buddy, I'll take care of that for you. I have to say, not quite as good as the samoas, in my opinion, but still beyond delicious. So, so good.

I'm afraid next year my girl scout cookie order might increase. Just a little.

The Bowling Birthday Party

To answer all of the questions in one spot - here we go. Yes, I made everything for Hailey's birthday party. Yes, everything did have to be about bowling, as that was the theme of the party. Yes, I do make invitations for people, in fact, I can do the entire package for you. No, it was not overwhelming, and yes, I loved every minute of it. Yes, I did think our shirts were one of the best accessories of the party. And yes, I do know that I can get carried away. But I love it that way.

It started with the invitation. I'll have to come back and add a picture of the invite, because I sent all of mine out and didn't think to make an extra one for the archives. As usual. Anyway, I decided on a pink, black, and white theme for the bowling party.

A wonderful friend of my aunt's made Hailey's shirt for the party. Dr. Karen is into everything bling. And I mean everything. Hailey thought her closet was like Disneyworld. Sparkly shoes, sparkly clothes, sparkly jewelry, sparkly tiaras - she has it all, and she does it all! If you're looking for anything along the lines of bling, let me know. I can have you blinged in no time flat. The front of her shirt had an adorable little bowling design on it, with rhinestones accents.

The back of her shirt had her name in rhinestones, and then a number six, because she was six. Of course. Isn't it fabulous?!

Of course, I got so excited over Hailey's shirt that I wanted a party shirt too. Dr. Karen gave me the quick tutorial on how to make a shirt, and then let me have at it. So fun, and so me.

Then we had the dessert table. I had decided that I would make all of the desserts, instead of ordering a cake. Why order a cake when you own a cookie store, right?! Well, I mean, unless you really are in need of a cake. Our dessert menu consisted of cupcakes, bowling ball cookies, and cake pops.

I made the dessert display from a piece of wood, some scrapbook paper, and some white foam balls. I had my hubby paint the foam balls to look like bowling balls, and we attached them to the wood frame. The cookies were decorated to look like pink bowling balls.

The cake pops were a huge hit! We had both strawberry and chocolate, some dipped in milk chocolate, and some dipped in white chocolate. They were all covered in either sprinkles or cookies & creme toppings. I was amazed at the number of kids that chose a cake pop over a cupcake. I was also amazed at the number of kids that chose one of everything. But hey, they weren't coming home with me!

I had two cupcake displays on either side of the bowling balls, so it was like sugar heaven when the kids walked in and saw ALL. THESE. SWEETS.

 

The party favors were absolutely adorable, I have to say, even if I did make them. They were little paper boxes, filled with a ring pop and a few silly bands, and tied up with a cute ribbon. The tag on the front was a bowling ball (probably no need to clarify that at this point) with a note in the middle that said "thanks for coming to my party."

 

 

Would you love to have a party with all of these details, but don't feel you're creative, or just don't want to spend the time putting it together? That's what we're here for! You can order this entire package from the shop, in any combination of colors. And yes, we go overboard like this for our customers too. Of course we do.

A festive fourth!

How festive is this display?! I love the mix of red, white, and blue. Just making these bows makes me feel completely patriotic. With all of the parties for the Fourth this weekend, this is just what you need! Wouldn't a hostess love to see you coming with this adorable container filled with cookies galore?! This is our special of the week, so give us a call if we can put one together for you!

It's a Cookie Party!

We recently did a cookie party for a fun group of girls. Sarah was turning 13, and these girls were ready to have fun!

 

We started with blank aprons, with each of the girls decorating their own apron. We provided paint pens, boas, rhinestones, beads, glitter, and more for the girls to choose from. The birthday girl's apron had "Birthday Chick" with a cute little chick heat transferred onto it.

The girls spent a lot of time considering their design options, laying it all out, and decorating their aprons. On Sarah's apron, we created spaces at the bottom for her friends to write birthday messages to her, so she would have a fun keepsake from her party. Most of the girls were willing to model their aprons!

 

Once the aprons were decorated, it was on to the cookie decorating - eating - decorating. The girls had various colors of frosting to choose from, and then a buffet of "toppings" for their cookies. We included mini marshmallows, colorful chocoalte chips, sprinkles, M&M's, and colored sugars, to name a few.

We saw everything on these cookies, from names, to smiley faces, to mounds of frosting and toppings!! The girls even wrote out a thank you to us on one of the cookies, which was very "sweet" of them. In between decorating the cookies were being munched on at a steady pace!

 

 

The girls did manage to save quite a few of their designs. The party was a sleepover, so having cookies to eat later on in the night was a necessity.

 

The girls had a great time at the party, and we had a fabulous time with them!! Happy Birthday, Sarah, I hope this is a memorable year for you! Thanks for letting us be a part of your special day!

Barnie's beans are here!

I am so excited to announce that our Barnie's coffee bar is officially up and ready to rock your java world! A full vendor of Barnie's products, we are continuing some of what we've already done and now offering a whole lot more!  We've sold Barnie's coffee by the cup for a long time now; however, so many of our customers have wanted the option of purchasing the beans, which were not available until now. Take a look at our new space . . .

Doesn't it just look yummy and delish?! We currently have eight flavors of beans, with two of those being decaf. You can buy the whole beans, or let us grind them for you. We also have Barnie's Coffee Coolers. You can buy one to enjoy now, and take a bottle of the syrup home with you to mix up whenever you like! These are absolutely fantastic.

We also have the small packs of coffees in various flavors. These are fantastic to add to gifts or baskets, just the right size! These are also great for packing in your vacation bag to take great coffee along with you.

Come see our new products! If you mention you read about it on our blog, we'll give you a 20% discount to say thanks!

Tu Tu Cute

We were asked to create a cookie arrangement for a little girl who was having her ballet recital. Since we currently do not have a pot painted with a ballerina theme, we needed to get creative! Our client said, "pink, pink, and more pink, she just loves everything pink!" We can do that.

We made these ballerina slipper cookies, complete with the ribbon to tie them on. We also included a star shaped cookie with "you're a star" written on it.

These pink polka dot cookies were the final touch. I just love them, and think they would be fun in all sorts of colors.

 

The cookies were all wrapped up in a pink dragonfly flower pot, with a couple of chcolate chip cookies added, just because what little girl doesn't love a little chocolate?! Happy Recital!

Teacher Gifts - a DIY

The end of the school year has many celebrations that come with it. Graduations, class parties, summer birthdays, teacher gifts . . . I'm quickly learning how overwhelming it can get! I'll show you a few gifts I included for Hailey's teacher gift. Everything I included is something you can make very easily, even if you're feeling less than creative!

By now you probably know how I feel about gifts being useful. Instead of giving her teacher another something to find a place for, I tried to think of things she could use, and then make them a little more fun. Here's the finished box we put together . . . a cute brown caddy with her teacher's name on it. The classroom theme is always frogs, so we added some fun frogs too. So many uses for a caddy!

Here's what I included in the caddy: a fabulous clipboard that certainly won't get mixed up with anyone else's; some return address labels modified to say "This book belongs to Mrs. Ray, Kindergarte"; a picture frame made out of color pencils (tutorial will follow on that one, so cute!); two square glass vases, one labeled "pencils" (and thus filled with new pencils - I always loved new pencils), the other labeled "candy"; a plastic jar with a lid labeled "clips" and filled with all sizes of paper clips; a tshirt printed with "Hands down Mrs. Ray is the best teacher," with Hailey's handprints underneath. Hailey then wrote "Love, Hailey" underneath her handprints.  Hailey also wrote her own letter to Mrs. Ray and stuck that right in the front. I think there was a couple more things in there, but I can't think of what they are at the moment.

Here's a close-up of the clipboard, and then the super easy instructions on how you can make one too. Wrap it up, and you're ready to go with a teacher gift done!

Clip Board Instructions:

You'll Need: 1 Plain Clipboard (I bought mine at Walgreen's); 2 sheets Patterned Scrapbook Paper (12 x 12 works the best); 1 Sheet Solid Colored Card Stock; Ribbon; Tacky Glue; Pencil for marking, Scissors, and Alphabet Stickers

• Place one sheet of the 12x12 scrapbook paper over the clipboard, and mark the area you'll need to cut out for the metal clip on the top. Cut this out so that your paper will fit snugly around the metal area.
• Cut small squares at the bottom two corners of the paper so that the edges will easily fold around the edges of the clipboard.
• Cover the back of the scrapbook paper with tacky glue, place it on the clipboard, and wrap the edges around the back. Be sure to smooth out any wrinkles or bubbles in the glue.
• Turn the clipboard over, and cut a sheet of scrapbook paper so that it is the same size as the clipboard.
• Cover this sheet with tacky glue, then adhere it to the back of the clipboard.
• I had some overlapping of paper on mine, so I cut a length of ribbon and used it to cover the overlapping line of paper. If you didn't overlap, place the ribbon anywhere you like, and tie a knot off to one side. Keep in mind that you don't want this to interfere with the use of the clipboard, so place it high or low, and keep the knot to one side or the other.
• I also used ribbon to wrap the metal clip at the top. If you would like to do this, just add some tacky glue to one end of your ribbon, then start wrapping the clip. Add a dot of glue every few wraps for extra staying power. Tie off your ribbon with either a knot or a cute little bow.
• I used my Silhouette cutter to cut out adhesive vinyl letters in the font I wanted. You can use alphabet stickers found at any craft store to do the same thing. Cut squares from the solid cardstock, and place one letter in each square. Feel free to be creative here and add the name however you want, this is just how I chose to do it!
• Have fun with it, and follow the teacher's personality in your design!

Alice in Wonderland Party

What a fun theme for a party!! We were asked by the Junior League of Tampa to create cookies for their Mad Hatter Tea Party this weekend.

I have to say, I love these cookies!! Decorated in a variety of bright colors, with "Eat Me" on each cookie. Each cookie was individually wrapped and tied up with bright colored ribbon.  I was told the drink cups will have "drink me" on them as well. This is making me want to come up with an excuse to have my own party with this theme!!