hello kitty 4 lyfe

when a friend contacted me for some cookies for her 40th birthday party, i was more than willing to help out.  knowing that she's a fellow hello kitty fanatic, i figured it would somehow be sanrio-related - and it was.  the party is hello kitty-themed, which sounds awesome, and her cookie of choice?  that fabulous kitty's famous red bow.

i knew i hadn't seen a cookie cutter in that shape before, so i had to get creative.  using a tip i've read in sweet sugarbelle's blog, i took a trip to a local shop that offers a pretty wide variety of shapes.  all i needed was a basic shape that i could manipulate a bit, and at first i thought maybe a dog bone cutter would work.  while it may have been just fine, i found this one instead:

it's meant to be either sunglasses or a bikini top.  i twisted and pulled and bent that sucker into what i wanted, used the little round cutter to cut out the middle, and voila:

you know i totally congratulated myself on achieving my goal, right?  the other option was to create a paper template of the exact shape and hand-cut them, but i had four dozen of them to do.  no way, jose. and they baked up nicely.

with a thick black glaze and a #3 tip, i piped on the outline.

some red glaze thinned out for flooding, and i was done.

they may not be perfect, but i think they'll do.  the bean was 47 kinds of excited when she woke up and saw what i'd been up to.  "mommy, you're the best hello kitty cookie maker ever!" she said.

yeah, there's one that isn't finished.  i had some trouble with the outline on it due to a faulty tip that clogged up, so i skipped it.  thank goodness i always make a few extra.

hmmm.  that cookie may very well be breakfast.