It’s a ‘Hoot’!

Happy Birthday to my crazy aunt Michelle today!

Are you getting sick of cookies? Well…I hope not…because I’ve got some more cookies for you today. :)

After Elmo and BYU cookies, I actually had quite a bit of cookie dough leftover and after consulting my calendar, I realized, I was just in time to whip up something sweet for my aunt Michelley for her birthday.

She’s kind of obsessed with owls. So I made her owl cookies :)

Soooooo cute, right?! I got the inspiration from HERE. Then I packaged them with little toppers that said “Happy Birthday – Hope it’s a ‘hoot’!”

I know. I’m so funny. ;)

Happy Birthday Michelley!

Rise and Shout!

The Cougars are out!

Now I’m not going to waste time on the last BYU vs. Utah game and discuss how ridiculous it was that the Ute fans couldn’t stay off the field until the game actually ENDED…I really wish we had won. Would’ve served them right for storming the field twice before the game was over…oh well.

But I digress…

I made some super awesome (if I do say so myself) BYU themed cookies for an old roommate of mine that works for BYU in the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology and she needed something spiffy to give to the donor’s for their donor retreat this year. Or something like that.

Cue the cookies.

I was super nervous about getting a good BYU blue color in the icing. Darker colors are extremely difficult to make without making the icing taste funny. After a little bit of trial and error, I was pretty pleased with the way the blue came out. :)

I also made bag toppers for the event (and I have to tell you I was super excited to find leftover BYU scrapbook paper for my backdrop! score!!!)

Well…let’s hope we win against Boise State this week… ;)

Elmo. Take 2.

I actually find it quite amusing that my Elmo cookies are among my most popular. Works for me though! A friend from one of my old wards at BYU asked me to make some Elmos for her little boy’s 1st birthday. And I happily obliged. :)

Don’t they just make you want to smile?!I even got to design some super fun Sesame Street style toppers – not too shabby, eh? :)

Maybe I should try doing cookie monster next…he is certainly a favorite… ;)

Dad, I Hope You’ll Forgive Me…

But I made cookies for an Army promotion. The Marines are still my favorite though, I promise!

(My dad is a retired Marine, in case you didn’t know…)

;)

A friend of ours at church was promoted to Major in the Army yesterday and I was asked to make cookies for the event. The original plan was to make American flag cookies. Then I found out he thought it would be SUPER cool if I could do an oak leaf because that’s the symbol of Major. Well, why not then? So I did both.

I printed off a picture of an oak leaf pin and cut it out as a stencil. I made them shiny by mixing edible glitter and orange extract and painting it on. The orange extract evaporates off, leaving the shiny finish.
I think the combination worked quite nicely together.

The promotion was very nice and we were glad we could go. I helped set all the cookies out on the platter. Being a cookie maker comes with many requirements. Such as platter arranging. ;)

Congrats to Bryan on this next step in his career! So glad to have been able to be a part of it! :)

A Rather Fabulous File Cabinet

If I do say so myself! ;)

Alright, so I’ve been trying to reorganize the office room because frankly…it’s a mess. I don’t really have a system that works for me with all my craft stuff, so things just tend to accumulate and then all of the sudden I have piles of stuff EVERYWHERE. And it’s driving me crazy. So in an effort to consolidate and organize, I set out to find a filing cabinet. To my dismay, most of them run from about $80-$200.

WHAT?! Um. No.

Enter craigslist. Yes!

With my parents in VA, I can also look at the craigslist for their area too, which is great because I found a four drawer filing cabinet on their craigslist for $20. SCORE! My parents were lovely and picked it up for me and brought it up here to our place.

Now, as you know, I can’t just leave well enough alone. As soon as my parents picked up that file cabinet for me, I had been scheming of ways to make this filing cabinet cute. Because really people, I simply must have cute!

After hemming and hawing over a couple of different color schemes and fabrics, I finally made my choice. You should all be proud, because I actually managed to do this entire project without a speck of chevron. *GASP!* I know. It’s actually quite comical how hard that was…what can I say? I’m obsessed!

Alright, I’m sure you are just ready for pictures. I started out with this:

BOOOOOORING!

We moved it out to the balcony and I removed the hardware and painted it white.

After all that consideration, I wanted to be a little adventurous and I went with Valspar’s Seafarer for the base color.

I have to admit, I was totally nervous about it, even after purchasing the paint color and bringing home. Eeeee!! PS I’ve never bought paint before. Thankfully, the lady at the paint counter at Lowe’s was SUPER nice. I went up to her and basically said “Hi, I’ve never bought paint before and haven’t a clue what I’m doing. Will you help me?” She totally laughed and walked me through getting my primer and paint and even helped me pick out the rollers and other things I’d need. Basically, she was awesome.

And I don’t know if anyone else feels this way, but when I bought my paint, I felt so empowered! I was going to completely refinish a piece of furniture! I’m an official DIY-er now, you know ;)

Anyway, I primed the cabinet and let that dry for a few hours. The cute girl at Lowe’s tinted the primer a similar color so that if/when the paint chipped, it will still look okay. So here it is primed.
Once that was dry, I painted the cabinet (it looks basically the same in the pictures, but the actual paint was a little darker) and mod podged my fabric onto the fronts of the drawers. I used Amy Butler’s Wallflower in cherry (from Hawthorne Threads) and I. Love. It. Once everything was dry, I put the hardware back on and called it good! And John noticed I managed to get paint in my hair. I was not surprised by this at all…

But here’s the finished cabinet! (sorry the pictures aren’t that great…our labor day is overcast, rainy and HUMID. That means not so great pictures…)
Loooooooove it

And because we all love a good before and after, here you go

Ahhhh now I can stuff it full of folders and papers and who knows what else, and I can revel in its adorable-ness :)

Thanks for reading! :)