The heat is here. Now you’ll hear me complain about the heat until the first crisp day of Fall. But this year, instead of mooching off of friends, I actually splurged on pool passes for myself, Maeve and Violet. I even bought a baby swim thing that essentially amounts to 15 feet of mesh material I’m supposed to know how to wrap around me to hold Violet so I can handle two kids in the pool. I don’t know how 15 feet of mesh is supposed to be comfortable in 95 degree weather, but the lady on the package looks happy.

As Memorial Day approaches, I’ve rounded up some Summer treats from my archives. You can find everything for this time of year up there in the Seasonal button, too. And if you need more Memorial Day ideas, check out this roundup of 22 food and party ideas over at my other blog.

Summer classics as cookies:

watermelon cookies, lemonade cookies, popsicle cookies, cookie ice cream cones.

Frozen stuff:

frozen yogurt pops, ice cream sandwich pops.

S’mores!

S’mores on a stick, s’mores pops, self-reflective s’mores.

Beach creatures:

Starfish cookies, crab and fish cupcake toppers, turtle cookies.

Get outside:

Baseball cookie pops, camping cookies, mini tennis cookies.

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One of the benefits of being a blogger of sweets is eating said sweets–in this case, chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting–at any time of the day. Another benefit? Joining a community of like-minded sweets makers and bloggers. Today I join 20 other bloggers as we craft cupcakes to match our bella cupcake couture cupcake wrappers. Hosted by Carrie Middlemiss from Bella Cupcake Couture and Betsy Eves, of JavaCupcake.com & Cupcakes Take the Cake, it’s a Cupcake Couture Blog Party to show you how good cupcakes can look, and how easy it is to make them wow. And there’s a giveaway. A giveaway of over 500 bucks worth of cool stuff!  To enter the GIVEAWAY, scroll to the end of this post.

Visit everyone to see what they did with their cupcake wrappers:

Bella Cupcake Couture

Chronicles of a Foodie

Crazy for Crust

Creative Food

Cupcakes Take the Cake

Diary of a Mad Hausfrau

Eat Your Heart Out

Haniela’s

Hoosier Homemade

In Katrina’s Kitchen

Inside BruCrew Life

Java Cupcake

Love From the Oven

Make Bake Celebrate

Not Just a Mommy

Sugar Daze

Sugar Swings! Serve Some

The Baked Equation

The Baking Cup

The Decorated Cookie

I got these colorful polka dots. I had a bunch of ideas to decorate the cupcakes in polka dots. Icing dots, sprinkle dots, candy dots, fondant dots. But I wanted to use the actual cupcake wrappers in the decorating. So I made these super-easy polka dot cupcake wrapper cupcake toppers. Just use cardstock in coordinating colors to any cupcake wrapper, or buy an extra set of cupcake wrappers and use those.

For the cupcakes, make your favorite recipe or just use store-bought cake mix. I then prepared my buttercream frosting, added a bit of white food coloring to brighten the frosting, and prepared a disposable decorating bag with a size “1M” tip. Pipe the frosting on top of the cupcake and let set a bit.

For the polka dot cupcake toppers…

you will need:*

cupcake wrappers and/or coordinating cardstock

scissors or a 1 1/2-inch circle punch

craft knife and mat

6-inch lollipop sticks

*Find the supplies in the craft store.

what to do:  Use the circle punch (or just trace a circle and cut out with scissors) to cut circles from extra cupcake wrappers and/or cardstock. With the craft knife, on a mat, cut a small “X” in the middle of a circle. Thread the lollipop stick through the “X” and repeat with more circles. Insert the topper into the cupcake.

More TIPS: To make the backdrop, I just cut out larger circles from the cardstock and glued to white paper. I also cut out circles to place on top of these cupcake stands.

And now… THE GIVEAWAY!!!

Look at all this cupcake coolness you can win from these great sponsors:

Thanks to our amazing Prize Pack sponsors for their generous donations! Please, visit their websites to see more of their fabulous products!

Cupcake Stand

Java Cupcake

Lil’ Punkin Creations

Sweets & Treats Boutique

To enter to WIN this Prize Pack, simply fill out the entry form below.

Contest opens May 21st at 07:00 am PST and closes May 27th at 11:59 pm PST. One winner will be chosen and announced within 24 hours of the contest ending. Winner will be contacted via email to claim their prize.

This contest is open to residents of the USA and Europe only.

Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!

Ever the supermom wannabe, I of course volunteered to help out with the Family Fun Day at my daughter’s school, even though we couldn’t attend said Family Fun Day due to a family event up in Jersey. The day was garden-themed. My tasks were to turn pieces of cardboard into signs and to come up with a make-your-own-birdfeeder idea.

First, look at my awesome signs. I’m pretty proud of these, which is why I’m posting a photo here even though it has no place in this blog post.

Second, we made Cheerios birdfeeders. I thought about some alternatives first. I wanted to make birdseed ornaments, but every how-to I could find involved baking, which wasn’t going to happen with a line of kids on the school grounds. I thought about painting toilet paper rolls with honey and rolling them in birdseed, but imagine the mess 150 kids with honey could create. Not to mention some kids have sesame seed allergies. So a google search later and I decided on Cheerios birdfeeders. How did I miss that this existed? They are everywhere on google. Easy peasy, inexpensive supplies, limited mess, fitting for both the younger kids and older, and easy to tote around afterwards.

To make Cheerios birdfeeders…

you will need:*

Cheerios

pipe cleaners (younger kids)

floral wire (older kids)

instructions printable

*The Cheerios came from Costco. I also got these pipe cleaners and floral wire. I printed up these instructions. And I made a display be wrapping a Styrofoam block in green tissue paper and popping in a stick I got from the backyard. I also precut a bunch of pieces of yarn in case they wanted to add a bow to tie to their tree.  To make the spiral Cheerios, you can use a big marker for the mold or make a paper tube from cardstock.

how to make Cheerios birdfeeders:

older kids: To make a heart, thread Cheerios on a piece of floral wire, leaving about three inches on each end. Twist the wire ends together to form a circle. Make sure to twist the wire right at the end of the Cheerios so the Cheerios aren’t loose on the wire. Twist a loop with the wire ends. Bend the Cheerios on the wire into a heart shape. Thread yarn through the loop to hang to a tree. To make a spiral, thread a Cheerio on a piece of floral wire and wrap the end of the wire around to secure the Cheerio. Thread more Cheerios to fill the wire, leaving a couple inches at the top. Twist the wire at the top to secure the cheerios and make a loop. Bend the cheerio wire around the paper tube to make a spiral. Thread yarn through the loop to hang to a tree.

Or, bend the wire into any shape you like.

younger kids: Make a loop at one end of the pipe cleaner, and twist to secure. Thread the pipe cleaner with cheerios. Loop and twist the other end to secure. Thread a piece of yarn through the loop and hang from a tree.

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Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!

I whipped up these little tie-dye (tie-dye-esque?) cookie bites to bring to a party from leftover cookie dough and icing. I used the cutest little square cutter from this set I found at Ikea ages ago. The best thing about leftover cookie dough and icing bags you already have is that you can do whatever you want and you don’t have to worry about messing up. Plus, I find that people love cookies and are easily impressed.

To make these, I cut out little squares of cookie dough, baked and let cool according to the recipe. I used my royal icing, thinned just a bit, tinted with Americolor Soft Gel Pastes (Bright White, Electric Pink, Orange and Egg Yellow, but use any colors you like), and filled disposable decorating bags that were fitted with couplers and size “3″ or “4″ decorating tips. (For tips on finding supplies, click HERE.) I then outlined each square with white and let set a bit. Working with a few cookies at a time, I piped three stripes of color, then I swirled a toothpick through the icing. For Basic Cookie Decorating how-tos, click HERE. Let the cookies dry for several hours or overnight before handling.

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Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!

So I have a kindergartener. She goes to a public charter school here in Washington, DC. I’ll spare you all the charter school talk, since I’ve waxed on about it before. (To read more about the charter school system in Washington DC, click HERE and HERE.) These pencil cookies are for all the superfantabulous teachers and staff at her school, Inspired Teaching.

If you don’t have a kindergartener yourself, or if you don’t know any, I’ll tell you a little bit about what it means to be in kindergarten. It means you talk all the time. You talk all the time because you know everything. Often, having this expansive knowledge means you must correct the grown-ups around you an awful lot. You also think the world revolves around you, so you must be heard the second a thought enters your brain, no matter what is occurring around you. If the grown up you are interrupting asks you to be patient, you explain, loudly, that you can’t because the thought actually WILL leave your brain if you don’t get it out right then. As a kindergartener, you can do much more for yourself, and you know the general rules of life, but sometimes these rules are hard to follow and your toddler past still sneaks up on you in the form of whines, tantrums and arguments. In fact, arguments are relatively common for a kindergartener, be it with other kindergarteners or with siblings, friends or any grown-up. And as a kindergartener, your logic is outstanding, if only to you, so this gives you much ammunition for arguing. As a kindergartener, you also must move frequently throughout the day. This can mean jumping, running, somersaults, dancing or any similar physical activity. Often, this must be done on busy city sidewalks or during quiet time, but safety and appropriateness cause very little inner conflict for the kindergartener.

Imagine spending seven hours a day with 20 kindergarteners.

This is why we have a week of teacher appreciation. Because teachers are spending thirty-five some hours a week with our children. And they are stunningly patient and deft at handling their little (I mean big) egos. And all while teaching them stuff.

Teachers are awesome.

They deserve more than a few pencil cookies, but this is what I cooked up for the staff at my daughter’s school this week.

to make pencil cookie favors…

you will need:*

cookie dough

royal icing

pencil or crayon cookie cutter

food coloring

disposable decorating bags

couplers

decorating tips, sizes 3, 4 and 5

rubber bands

*Find the decorating bags, couplers and tips at the craft store. For food coloring, I suggest Americolor Soft Gel Pastes (Egg Yellow, Chocolate Brown, Super Black and Electric Pink used here), found in specialty stores or online. For tips on finding cookie cutters, click HERE. This is the cutter I used.

step one: bake your cookies. Prepare cookie dough, chill, roll out, cut out the pencils, bake according to the recipe and let cool completely.

step two: prepare your icing. Prepare royal icing according to the recipe. Divide and tint your colors, yellow, pink, gray, black, and tan. You’ll need the most of yellow. Prepare decorating bags with couplers and tips, fill with each color and close tightly with rubber bands.

step three: decorate your cookies. For general cookie decorating instructions, click HERE.Use a 3 tip to pipe the black point. Then use a 3 tip to pipe the tan part of the pencil. Pipe and fill the eraser with a 4 tip. Pipe lines of gray with a size 4 tip. And pipe lines back and forth in yellow using a size 4 or 5 tip. Let the cookies dry overnight before packaging.

To package the cookies…

You will need:*

cellophane favor bags

ribbon

this label printable

these circle labels or white, letter-size photo paper or cardstock

Print this printable onto the circle labels or just print onto paper and cut out tags. Place the cookies in a cello bag, close with ribbon and either stick the label on the bag or use a hole punch to attach the tag to the ribbon.

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Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!