It’s been over a year since Sugarlicious hit the shelves, and I’m still super proud of that book. Why? Because it packs so much information in over 200 pages. It’s the book I wish I had when I started moving beyond decorated cookies into cupcakes, cakes, marshmallows, stuff on sticks and the mysteries of fondant.

Here, I’m going to expand on the Sugarlicious Chart I include in the back of the book. While I provide ideas for sweet crafts here and in the book, my goal is for you to learn the techniques so you can mix and match and make your own. But not everything goes together well. I wouldn’t use royal icing to top cupcakes, egads!  And you can’t use edible markers on buttercream frosting, but you can use them on poured sugar icing. See? It gets confusing. So what goes with what?? Royal icing, frosting, fondant, cupcakes, cookies, cake pops, marshmallows… aaaaagggghh!!!?!  Though I’m sure you can find examples of exceptions, below are the matches I think work best.

I usually choose one of these sweets to start:

• cookies or cookie pops, • cupcakes, • cakes, • cake pops, • petits fours and • marshmallows or marshmallow pops

And here are your choices for toppings:

•  royal icing, • buttercream frosting, • poured sugar icing, • fondant and • melted candy melts

And these are some things you use for decorating:

• royal icing designs, • piped frosting, • fondant and candy clay decorations, • edible markers, • painting and stamping with food coloring, • sprinkles and candy, • edible icing sheets

NOW WHAT GOES WITH WHAT??

These toppings are best with these sweets:

• top cookies with royal icing, poured sugar icing, fondant, or dip pops in candy melts

• top cupcakes and cakes with buttercream frosting or fondant

• dip cake pops in candy melts

• top petits fours with poured sugar icing or fondant

• leave marshmallows bare or dip pops in candy melts

These decorations go best on these toppings:

•  on royal icing, use piped royal icing designs, fondant or candy clay decorations, edible markers, painting and stamping, sprinkles and candy or edible icing sheets

•  on buttercream frosting, use piped frosting designs, fondant or candy clay decorations, sprinkles and candy, or edible icing sheets

• on poured sugar icing, use piped royal icing designs, fondant or candy clay decorations, edible markers, painting and stamping, or sprinkles and candy

• on fondant, use piped royal icing or frosting designs, fondant or candy clay decorations, edible markers, painting and stamping, sprinkles and candy or edible icing sheets

• on candy melts, use piped royal icing or frosting designs, fondant decorations, edible markers, or sprinkles and candy

I hope this helps!! In the book, of course, I go over each of these sweets, toppings and decorations in ridiculous detail.

Below is a cheat sheet.

To PRINT, click HERE.

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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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Followers may notice my recent obsession with these portrait cookies. I started with this gift for my niece. The next year I made these favors for her art-themed birthday party. And now, portrait cookies for my mom for Mother’s Day.

This is my mom.

This is my brother and his family.

This is my sister and her family.

And this is me and my family.

Seriously, the likenesses are, ahem, uncanny. No really. It’s as if I studied the fine art of portraiture.

Gift-buying in my family is never easy. We all have way too much clutter and need very few things. That’s why I always turn to cookies. They can be personalized and they never leave clutter. Only crumbs (hahahaha…. groan).

Here are some favorites of Mother’s Day past:

all about mom Mother’s Day cookies

preppy cookies

over-the-rim cookies for mom’s tea

And of course, there are plenty of flower-themed ideas. Felt flower cupcake toppers, gerbera daisy cookie pops, carnation cookie pops, bite-size daisy cookies, how to make a flower cookie arrangement, springtime marshmallows.

 to make Mother’s Day family portrait cookies… I cut out rectangle cookies with my cookie dough. Bake and let cool completely. Then I prepared my royal icing and tinted it white and gold with Americolor Soft Gel Pastes (Bright White and Egg Yellow). I prepared a disposable decorating bag with coupler and tip, size “4″. I filled the bag with the gold icing and closed with a rubber band. I piped rectangles on the cookies, leaving a border. Then, I switched the tip to size “3″ and piped the frame part. After the gold set a bit, I thinned the white icing to flooding consistency, filled an empty decorating bag, snipped the tip and piped to fill the frames. Let the cookies dry super duper well, overnight.  And then I drew with the portraits with edible writers.  For basic cookie decorating how-tos click HERE. For tips on buying and using edible writers, click HERE.

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Nope, this is not another dangers-of-facebook post. This is a why-I-love-facebook post. I, like many, visit facebook a lot. It’s one of my go-to spots to hit all day. Email, other email, other email, facebook. Linger too long, back to email. Maybe Pinterest. I do, very much, understand why many are wary about the dangers of social media consuming us, of our computers swallowing us whole, leaving only our feet sticking out of the screen. I know we risk spending our lives in virtual relationships and forgetting the grass and trees and sky and books and people. But there is something else facebook gives us that I think is, if not wonderful, at minimum, fascinating.

Facebook lets us constantly, daily, sometimes hourly, write our lives. Facebook forces us to investigate, interpret and present ourselves to others. Concisely and efficiently. We become introspective. What do we post? We must evaluate our lives to determine what is worthy of a post. If we even do that much thinking before the fingers fly over the keyboard. Is it reality? No, probably not. We are the masters of our story. We represent ourselves how we see fit. We may try to display the flaws in our lives. Find humor in them. Seek sympathy for them. Or hide the flaws and paint a more perfect picture. We may display gilded versions of our successes, our cute children, our clever crafts. No matter. We are at a moment in history when we can create ourselves in a few sentences every day. Maybe several times a day. We are all writers, and we are all writing memoir.

I, for one, love it. Not just to write my own story, but to read those of others. I love having glimpses into so many of the lives I’ve encountered in my forty years. Elementary school friends, past high school pals, college friends all over the world, co-workers, acquaintances, extended family, my husband’s family… I see pictures of kids and vacations and marathons. I read quips, anecdotes, gripes and dramas. I startle at ultraconservative rants, snicker at funny-kid quotes and snort at stories of bad customer service. I know that a long-ago friend didn’t wear matching socks today. Another lost her dear grandmother. I’m frustrated right there with you when you miss the Little House marathon or when your kid is home sick and you had SO much to do today. I feel connected to so many from my past, I learn things from those I might have never had a relationship with otherwise, like they are also struggling with fertility or they have picky eaters, too. And that is enough for me.

Whether or not these relationships would be the same without the computer between us doesn’t matter. Whether or not they are fancied up versions, whether or not it’s selective information full of gaps, I don’t care. It’s enough for me to get these pieces, because it’s just enough for me to get a sense of who they are in life. What they choose to post, no matter how flippant or casual or serious or emotionally wrenching, true or masking truth, gives me something about them.

How do you choose what to share? What do you post? I admit I’m persnickety about it. I think about what to post, and I choose carefully. I complain about my lack of sleep, I demonstrate angst veiled with attempts at humor. I post cute stuff my kids do, but I usually deprecate them so as to not be one of those posters who post cute stuff their kids do. I share what I think are insights into the world but probably aren’t anything new.

I went through a few of my posts from the past few months. Not those from my Decorated Cookie facebook page, but my personal page. I thought I’d share and give you some possible interpretations as to what lies beneath.

My thought of the day, which I thought was smart. On the bonus of having babies at age 40: Yes, it means you won’t be done and free til your 60s or 70s. But I’d rather have been free in my 20s and 30s when I had the energy to enjoy it. Dancing salsa, concerts at clubs, shooting pool, late night diners. I’m totally fine spending my twilight years going on old people group trips and drinking wine while sitting somewhere quietly. Interpretation: I’m a little anxious about being 40 with a baby.

Does anybody else take the bag of wine out of the box and squeeze it to get every drop out? No? Oh, me neither. Interpretation: I like wine. I need it to cope. This is charming, not a problem. Right?

The good thing about being up at 1, 3, 4 and 5 is that you get work done. Just learned a whole new level of photoshop. Interpretation: I’m tired. Feel sorry for me.

Aw, Maeve is so SO considerate. This morning she came into my bedroom where I slept peacefully, put my glasses on my face, pulled off my covers and shouted “Get up! Get up! Get up!” because she was worried I was “cold.” SO considerate. Interpretation: I’m tired. Feel sorry for me.

The human species is so lame. Can’t horses walk right after they are born? Two months in and she can’t even sit without falling over. (Picture of Violet face down on couch.) Interpretation: I’m taking a casual approach to parenting. Also, look at my cute baby.

Yep. Expensive bean bag chair santa got maeve for Christmas worth every penny, sigh. (picture of cats sitting on bean bag chair) Interpretation: Look at my cute cats.

What it’s like to drive home with a 5 year old in the car: “I know what communicating means. Communicating! That’s an ‘ing’ word! So communicating is talking to each other. Bears communicate. Birds communicate. When they have stuff to tell each other. Did you know mountain lions communicate with each other? Mountain lions communicate with each other. So did you wish for snow? On that star, you wish for things. I don’t tell my wishes or they won’t come true. Tomorrow is that animal, what is it? A beaver. Yeah, a beaver. I think.” “Groundhog?” “Yeah, groundhog, if a groundhog sees his shadow we have 6 days of winter, if not it’s an early spring. Do you want him to see his shadow? We voted at school, and I voted for early spring, and guess who won? Early spring, and Anna voted for, I forget what she voted for, and look at that tree. Did you see that tree? I just ate the tail off of my goldfish cracker, you know what it looks like now? Hmmm, a hot air balloon. Which hand is it in. Left or right? Which is left again? We have to collect ten things again. The 100th day of school is in ten days. I might collect coins. When are Mom Mom and Pap Pap getting here? I think they will be there when we get home. Violet’s eyes are open…. ” Interpretation: I’m not being cryptic here. My daughter talks incessantly. It gets annoying.

I think Maeve’s self esteem is developing juuuuuust fine. Today I saw her reaction in the mirror as she noticed a pimple/scratch/something on her cheek. She looked like she was disappointed at first, and I mentally rushed to have the necessary response ready about how not to buy into the arbitrary pressure girls face to appear perfect and… her expression changed all on its own. “It’s a beauty mark! It means I have a lot of beauty. I hope it stays forever.” Phew. Girl crisis averted. Wish I had some of what she has. Interpretation: My kid is awesome.

Listening to Greg in the other room teaching Maeve about 911 and pretending to be a 911 operator… I think he missed his calling. Interpretation: Please note what a good father my husband is. Also, he’s a good 911 operator.

Quick update! To-be-named baby arrived early on friday. Exciting to watch a team of many panic and debate a plan of action for surgery. All is well tho i’m still in much discomfort (so not answering calls, emails or visitors). But the docs gave my voice a lot of weight which was smart all around. Will respond more when I’m well!! Thank you all!! Interpretation: I’m in the hospital. I just had surgery. The baby came early, which could have been very dangerous for me, but I’m alive.

What kind of facebook poster are you?  Do you put thought into your posts? Do you paint pictures or try and display even the worst sides of things? Or, do you avoid facebook altogether?

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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!

This whole kids-drawing-on-cookies thing is not new to this blog. My daughter first make her own cookie art HERE when she was just a wee lass of two. And I gave my niece these framed cookies and a set of markers for her 7th birthday. Well, I adapted that same idea for her 8th birthday, celebrated at a kid’s art studio (did they have those when I was a kid? because I would’ve loved that).

And drawing on food is old hat around here, of course. For tips on choosing and buying edible writers, click HERE.

To make these, I used a small rectangle cutter to cut out the cookies with my cookie dough. Then I prepared my royal icing and tinted it white and gold with Americolor Soft Gel Pastes (Bright White and Egg Yellow). Then, I prepared a disposable decorating bag with couplers and tip, size “4″. I filled the bag with the gold and closed with a rubber band. I piped rectangles on the cookies, leaving a border. Then, I switched the tip to size “3″ and piped the frame part. After the gold set a bit, I thinned the white icing to flooding consistency, filled an empty decorating bag, snipped the tip and piped to fill the frames. Let the cookies dry super duper well, overnight.    (For basic cookie decorating how-tos click HERE.) To package, place a cookie in a cello bag, tie with ribbon and attach an edible writer 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!