Valentine Cookies | lots of pictures

My Michigan littles received their Valentine package today, so it’s safe to post about the cute cookies I sent them.
(No, I don't think they read my blog, but their momma does and I wanted her to be just as surprised.)
I had a lot of help from Kelly & Charley, as a matter of fact, Kelly actually made the cookie dough and the Royal Icing and I just cut the dough and iced the cookies. It was a fun day, but it is a messy process. All in all, I think the cookies turned out AMAZING!

The lips were for some littles here in Georgia...I eventually wrote their names on them too.

Here are most of the Michigan little's cookies all together. One note, for anyone wanting to try this at home: notice the cookies toward the top left corner that say "Alex" and "CM". Those cookies I used a larger tip, like probably a 5. The others, that look better (notice the new "Alex" cookie to the right of the old "Alex" cookie) I used a smaller tip, probably a 1 or 2. Royal icing can be tricky, it is runny, dries fast and can have an attitude if you're not careful. Your hand will want to fall off by the end, but the final product will look like it was worth it...not just taste like it.

Kelly was mixing more black royal when she discovered she had a little love in the cup!

Me, icing the cookies.
Photo taken by: Charley

Miss Charley...helping with the oven mitt.

Here is a shot of most of the cookies. There were two smaller pans in addition to this, but one looked mostly like this and the contents of the other you will see momentarily.

OK. Another reason I wanted to make Valentine cookies was so I could send some to that guy up north. I don't talk about him much at all and there may be nothing to talk about at all very soon, but everyone deserves a valentine and he is no exception. I wanted to do something fun, that was more him than just simply Valentine. That is where these cookies come in...

What could they be?

Here I am transforming the little round discs into...

Billiard balls!
Do you think they look like the real thing?
Let me tell you...this was such a pain in my rear! I wanted to get them correct, you know, the right numbers with the right colors and all that. I messed up a lot! For 16 cookies I think I had to "fix" at least 5 of them. That's a lot of fixing! I was super frustrated, but in the end I agree (Kelly) they did look cute.

You can sort of see a wooden box to the right in this picture (below). It is a triangle (do you get it?) I tried to get them all to fit in that little box to ship, but they were not having it. I must have put them in that box every way I could think. I tried so many times that a few of the little cookies started to crumble on the edges (they are wrapped in plastic wrap.)
In the end I opted on a trip back to Michaels' to find a better solution.

I ended up with these darling little plastic boxes (below). I really liked the boxes, mostly because you could see through them. But then I got really creative and found some green felt for the bottom (get it?) and the display was complete. I am sure he won't think it is that big of a deal, but I wanted it to look perfect and well...this is about as good as it got. I'm happy.

I made a fun little Valentine card that said:
"Even mean ol' sharks need a little love"
(Get it? Pool sharks. Come on people, try to stay with me here!)

I also made a few traditional Valentine cookies for BJK's box too.

He received a second plastic box with the traditional Valentine cookies. It looked like this:

"Let's Kiss" is my favorite cookie of the batch!

I stacked them up and tied them with some cute "Happy Valentine's Day" ribbon (sorry, didn't take a picture of that part) and off they went to the post office. I'm not sure how the cookies held up in the mail or how good they will taste after almost 2 weeks. Especially with royal icing, I guess I'll ask when I get a chance to talk to Michigan and BJK.

The ground outside is covered in snow.
It's beautiful!
Stay warm.

xoxo