Happy Easter!

Wishing you all an amazing Easter!

These are the Easter cookies that I made for my daughter's school auction last week!

Sweet little lambs - Thank you, to Marian from Sweetopia for the tutorial and Georgeane from LilaLoa for tutorial on the "dotty" ones!

Brush Embroidery Eggs - I love the look of these...  Although, I need to learn that "less is more" in the decoration department.

My curious K. loves butterflies... so I made these in honor of her. ;^)

"Rejoice"  "Hallelujah" "He is Risen"

Fun Easter basket filled with Eggs - Thanks for the tutorial Callye!

I love this cherry blossom cookie too!
Thanks for the tutorial from Montreal Confections!
I really wanted to try this technique on some tea pot cookies (that I will share next week), so this was my practice cookie.

This was my first attempt at a "lace work" cookie.  It is WAY hard.  I will have to practice this more...Recently, Callye at Sugarbelle's had a great tutorial on piping lace on cookies, so I thought I would give it a try.  It probably would have gone more smoothly if I had actually followed her wonderful instructions.  Oh well, the colors are pretty...

Some of my favorite creators of this kind of cookie are:

• Nadia at My Little Bakery
• Alison at Ali Bee's Bake Shop
• Hani at Haniela's 

I loved these crosses!   Thanks for the idea and tutorial, which I copied completely for these practice cookies, Melissa!

One of my favorite Easter decoration is the sugar egg that we bought my oldest daughter several years ago.  It was too pretty to eat, so we have saved it!  I remember having similar eggs as a child.  A great little candy shop in Kansas City sells them and will even personalize them for you.  I also saw some at the World Market this Easter season.  There's all had bunnies and chicks in them, which were super cute, but I LOVE the ones with a cross or an empty tomb in them.

I did make one effort at an empty tomb cookie with some leftover frosting... It didn't turn out the way it looked in my head.  This one goes back on the list to try again next year.  What I did like about the cookie was the fun technique of making the stone speckled by using colored sugar (I didn't have any black, so I made my own following this tutorial from Callye at Sugarbelle) and sprinkled it on like Georganne suggested for her "Easy Speckled Eggs."

This cookie had two lives.  It was a turquoise Easter Egg that got over flooded.  Then, I realized that I was out of egg cookies, so I scraped it "clean" and created this cookie.  I love how the flood left a "washed" look for the sky.  I might even try it on purpose next time.

At Easter time, we talk about how eggs symbolize "New Life" specifically, the new life that we have in Christ.  This year, we have a momma robin who has built her next on one of the support beams under our  deck.  She has three little eggs in her nest.  I love the nest symbolism of home, comfort, warmth, too, and have often thought of our home as a nest, especially after a wonderful discussion about it with to Mary Catherine Newman a few years ago! (Thanks, MC!) We can actually peep through the cracks in the floor boards and check on the eggs.  If you stop by my home and happen to see one or more of my girls laying face down on the deck, now you know why.  

Wishing you and your nest a Blessed Easter!

Sarah

St. Patrick's Day Musings...

A Trinity Cross

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 

Actually, we don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day in a big way at our house.  We will wear green shirts.  We will eat green shamrock pancakes, because it is fun.  On a good year, we might even go to a parade, if it doesn't make mommy tired just thinking about it.  We won't really talk about Leprechauns (except to remind our girls that they are just fun imaginary characters) or chase after their pot of gold...  We don't believe in luck... so there isn't much to say about that.

Before I mixed up my green icing...
I just used white and covered it with green sprinkles.

One thing, that we will definitely do though, is talk about who the real St. Patrick was and why we celebrate his day.  He was a real person.  He did not believe in God.  He was captured by bandits and taken to Ireland.  He was a slave and a sheep herder.  He was alone and afraid, and he prayed to God to save him.  God did!  Then, Patrick studied the Bible and soon he wanted to go back to Ireland to tell the people there about Jesus.  He was the first missionary to Ireland.

We will talk about the symbol of the Trinity on the crosses (above) and how there is no beginning and no end to their design, just like God, who is infinite,  and has been from eternity past and will be for into eternity future.  (Thank you to Anne at the Flour Box Bakery for the inspiration for these crosses.  You really should go see it... Her cross is AMAZING!)

We will talk about the shamrock and how it is also a symbol of the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit).

We will talk about the daffodil and how flowers are a symbol of death (when you plant the dead looking old bulb in the Fall) and new life (when it blooms as a beautiful new creation in the Spring).




 We will talk about how we are all like sheep and are prone to go our own way, but Jesus, the Good Shepherd, watches over us and takes care of us.  (Thank you to Callye at Sugarbelle and Marian from Sweetopia for sharing the guest post on how to make these cuties!  I guess if I had actually read the whole post, I wouldn't have ended up with the great big pile of icing in the middle... oh well!  They still tasted good and looked cute.)  

We will talk about rainbows and the beautiful symbol of God's covenant love that they represent.

We will have lots of fun things to talk about...
We might even eat a cookie that looks like a funny green hat. ;^)


Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Cheers!
Sarah

Reader R's cookies - She is becoming quite the decorator!

P.S. - I did have fun decorating cookies with my oldest daughter,  Reader R.!  She says "I love FLOOD!"  Too cute!  Her cookies turned out great too!

Here are our pancakes too!  Reader R. and Lil' L. were so excited.  Curious K. was not too excited about the green breakfast that looked strangely like broccoli.