Carve Out Some Time for Fun

What a hoot...we have officially fallen into autumn. The busy cookier season has begun!

What do you have planned?

Me? I will be having the Dala horse cookie party for kids. I just finished my first cookie class of the season. I named it 'Freshly Baked'.

The cutters were an apron, mixer, oven mitt, cookie sheet, rolling pin, and piping bag. The inspiration photo below is the full set we did.

The techniques I taught were:

-piping letters

-royal icing transfers

-wet-on-wet

Today's Highlights

1. your question, my answer

2. cookie-cutter flips

3. Autumn inspiration photo

4. latest WeCookier's page

5. business sense, marketing yourself

6. business tips

Your Questions, My Answer

Q: How do you achieve a beautiful, deep burgundy royal icing color?

A: One of the colors for the class cookies was deep burgundy.

Simply take red royal icing and add a smidgeon of royal blue or regal purple. I use Americolor gels, and that's the name of them. Just add a little and bring it to the preferred color. As you imagine, purple will make it a purple-y tone, like in the inspiration picture.

You can also use a tiny bit of brown to make it a deeper color.

Cookie Cutter Flips

Here goes: arch cookie cutter = umbrella with fall leaves

arch cookie cutter = pile of leaves with boy

rainbow with clouds cutter = autumn banner with mischievous squirrel!

Sorry, if you have an email with just HTML, you cannot see the photos.

Take me to Cookie Cutter Flips galore! ...or you can tap on the photo

Autumn's Inspiration Photo

Latest WeCookier's Page

Decorated Football Cookies is the latest page. I just finished it almost a week ago.

I included tips on how to make football brown, field green, etc., colors. Take a look and please share it so it gets on Google's radar quickly for the season. Many thanks!

Football-themed Cookies

Shop Gotta-havs-- *New Update

I finally got my Shop Gotta-havs up and running. There are hundreds of items to upload yet, but it's a start.

You can have a look here...

Take me to Shop Gotta-havs!

Business Sense: marketing yourself

1. Sometimes people just get used to knowing you are a cookier. You may need to give them a nudge here and there.

For instance, if you know someone who loves tennis, make them a couple of tennis ball cookies for the fun of it. They will be grateful, and it could spur them into giving you an order.

2. Business open houses will be popping up before long. Have you thought about taking a walk down your business district and handing out your cards? Let them know you do open house cookies for businesses. A bonus if you provide them with their own logo cookie!

3. Do you have an Oktoberfest going on in your local area? Perhaps you can do a pop-up shop for it.

Business Tips

1. I recently was on a fb group. I read that one cookier uses the small zip ties from the dollar store to seal the piping bags. She swears by it. I almost always tie the end in a knot. Works great, except when I fill it too much. I can't wait to try the zip ties for that!

2. Did you know that the result of your cookies reflects the temperature of the butter when mixing the dough? The softer the butter, the more the cookies spread in the oven.

A great rule of thumb is to use a stick of butter that you can bend with your fingers. If the stick breaks, it's too cold. If your fingers melt into it, it's too warm.

3. I've always used those tiered spice shelves for my 4-oz bottle of food color gel. No more! I ordered these organizers. It was frustrating to keep moving the bottles and knocking them over to read the colors on the labels.

Whoa. Time-saver! I ordered 4 dividers. It's so amazing.

They weren't made for food gel, just organizers.

Here are some photos of them I put on my Royal Icing Tips page:

Royal Icing Tips--Food Gel Organizer

Pepper Blair's Space

"Dance your dance with such elan, the sky could fall unnoticed."

Pepper Blair on Pinterest

Hope your autumn is off to a great start,
Nita

Interested in starting a website of your own? This is who I go through and have for many years. Simply the best!
Site Sell's Video Tour--get to know them!

Back to Back Issues Page