cookie week

when it rains, it pours.  it seems like i go through long stretches of time without touching a frosting bag, and then all of a sudden i have requests for a plethora of cookies all at once (not that i'm complaining about that).  last week was one of those times.

i received an e-mail from a longtime blog reader who i hadn't met before.  this is always so cool for me - i've been blogging for almost eight years (!!!), and it's fun to hear from people who've been following me over the years.  anyway, she was throwing a birthday party for one of her boys - a minion-themed bash.  FUN!

after poring through my stash, i ended up choosing one of my round cutters and giving it a little squeeze to create the perfect minion shape.  decorating these little guys was really fun, with a little help from one of the bean's happy meal toys:

then my twirlie friend ijack, who i was so excited to finally meet in person a couple of weeks ago, hit me up to do some treats for her daughter's birthday party.  "farm animals, please" she said, and after scouring the google for ideas, i ended up shipping out two dozen of these.

i loved these so much, i think i may repeat them for my submission to this year's l.a. county fair culinary competition.  although i have to give them six cookies.  i've got to come up with two more farm animals for my entry.  hmmmmm.

lastly, my dear friend mommybelle asked me if i could help her out with LFM's birthday party.  the theme?  ninja turtles.  and for the favors, she was making mini pizza boxes.  one guess as to what she wanted me to make...

now, making pizzas sounds easy enough.  right?  except that for some reason, it just...wasn't.  i started out with basic round cookies and gave them a thick-ish red outline for the "sauce." then i filled them in with frosting that i gave a slightly off-white tint to.  i don't know why, but straight white just didn't seem quite right.  anyway, if i were trying to make plain cheese pizzas, i'd have been screwed:

after learning that LFM's favorite pizza toppings are pepperoni and olives, i mixed up some black frosting and gave it a shot.

ugh.  SO not pizza-ish, right?  when i polled my friends via twitter, the monkey said it looked like "measles and mouse droppings."  yeah, not exactly the look i was going for.  and so after a bit of discussion with the teen (who always ends up stuck helping me out of situations like this), i decided that a little green was what i needed.

i actually liked how this looked, but when i showed the hub, he said "you need lines to make them into slices."  so that's what i did.

personally, i liked them before the "slicing."  but when i sent mommybelle this photo, she was super stoked.  thank god.

after all, the customer is always right.  right?