Tennis cookies!

Happy Birthday Emil!!!

My husband's second oldest brother, 

(Joe is the youngest of 5 boys and yes his mother IS a saint)

had a VERY important birthday recently.

Sorry, can't tell you which birthday.

I am quite fond of my brothers-in-law 

and since they tolerate me pretty well,

 I'd like to keep it that way thank-you-very-much.

I'll just say, it was an important enough number that 

lots of fun people came to visit and

helped finish off a fabulous amount of margaritas...

....and wine....

...and some Croatian beer too....

.....and gin and tonics....

....hmmm.

Emil loooooooves tennis.

Loves.

So it wasn't hard to decide to what to make for him.

According to his lovely wife he practices his serve all day long.

He's lucky enough to have his regular tennis partner live in the neighborhood.

They get together to play a few times a week.

I've never asked Emil which one of them was a better player....

but I figure if he was having a particularly rough day and couldn't quite beat him....

...a little distraction wouldn't hurt.

Hope you had a great birthday Emil!

(Hope your head didn't hurt....)

What was that?

Oh yes....that is a giant sugar cookie tennis court.

Would you like a bite?

(construction pictures coming soon...)

Thanks for stopping by,

Lizy B

Cookie Necktie for Father's Day!

I recently had an opportunity to write a featured post for the website

SheKnows.com.

They asked me to create a special Father's Day Cookie and tutorial for their readers....

It needed to be something I hadn't made before.....

but definitely something that just screamed 

"FATHER'S DAY!!!!!"

what to do....what to do....?

Oh!!  I know!!!

All Dads love ties, right!?!?

Head over there for a FULL tutorial with TONS of Pictures!!!!

You can make your very own GIANT SUGAR COOKIE TIE for Father's day!!

CLICK HERE!!!

What do you have planned for Father's Day?

Thanks for stopping by,

Lizy B

Tutorial - Sugar Cookie Scrabble Board - Part 2

Let's finish this up!

(Part One of the tutorial can be found HERE)

Want to guess just how much royal icing it takes to cover a 12 inch cookie?

Anyone?

I used 16 ounces of grey flood consistency icing.

Really, I could have used a bit more...20 ounces would be perfect.

Next time, I'll be mixing, and then pouring from a measuring cup.

Lesson learned.

By the time the icing was poured, it had already started to set up in some spots.

(Which means there wasn't much I could do to smooth it out)

I put it under the fan for many, many hours and then....

It looked like a really unattractive grey cement paver for the backyard.

There aren't any pictures of the plain slab because.....it was ugly.

Next step, The Grid!

The playing grid is 15 squares across and 15 squares high.

If you divide it up evenly, with some left over for a border, 

then each square needs to be about 3/4 of an inch.

Since I had invested in a Kopykake, I thought I should try to use it.

I used the projected lines to make sure the ruler was straight,

and then piped a line along side of it.

But the lines were a bit distorted,

and clearly the image is not big enough,

and.....it wasn't going to happen.

This was a HORRIBLE idea.

I'm embarrassed to say that I even thought it might work.

(just keeping it real...)

So I went the low-tech route.

I used a long strip of card stock as a template.  

It's a little bit more narrow than I needed the squares to be

to allow for the width of the piped line.

(#2 tip)

I laid it next to the existing line, piped right above it, 

then moved the template up, and just kept going!

After the lines dried for about an hour,

I went the other direction.

Well now that wasn't so bad after all!

A border around the edges was the last step before letting it dry overnight.

The squares are painted with food coloring and a bit of water.

When it was all finished and dry, I measured the squares again to

determine the size of the letter tiles.

Half inch tiles turned out to be perfect!

Can you tell I painted them first?

I iced them the next day after Ethan asked me why the squares were the color of Cheetos.

...ahem...

There they are!!!

Quick!

Can you find the one that doesn't belong?

Ready...set...go!

(one mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi....)

Did you find it?

No, there isn't really a heart in Scrabble or Words With Friends.

But there should be!!!

(Letters are piped with a 1.5 PME, numbers are written with edible marker)

Note of caution...

if you really do want to play with the board,

make sure the kids don't eat the letters first.

43 Points!!!

Thanks for stopping by,

Lizy B