Snoopy Baby Shower

I meant to write this post ages ago, my baby shower was back in September. But better late than never!

As anyone reading my previous posts on my bridal shower and the various baby showers that I've assisted with, I love event planning. And I've always known that, if I were lucky enough to have a baby, I would want a Snoopy-themed baby shower.

This presents its own difficulties, as many Peanuts-themed items are becoming rare and expensive. And the ones that are available are more naturally geared towards children's parties, and I didn't really like the look of them. So instead, most of the items at my shower were handmade by myself or my family. Here is a quick rundown of what we did, in case anyone else out there would like to do something similar.


First, the invitation. I made this myself, and I think it came out rather well:

I'm not much of a photo editor, and clearly not a graphic designer. But I was actually able to use PowerPoint for everything I needed. First, decide on the size of your invitation. I decided on 5x7", which is size A7. I ordered my paper products from Paper Source. Once you know what size you want, you can go into PowerPoint and adjust the slide height and width to match (Design --> Page Setup). I would suggest adding an extra 1/4" to each side (5.25x7.25") as a bleed section.

 I found a Peanuts font online, to get the lettering right. Unfortunately, this font has no numbers, and the numbers from fonts I already had on my computer didn't look right, so I used the Waltograph font for the numbers, which paired nicely with the Peanuts font.

I got all of the images on the invitation by googling "baby snoopy" and I used PowerPoint to remove the original color and tint everything blue (Format --> Recolor --> Light Variations, while clicked on the image, I chose the light blue option for everything here). I also used PowerPoint to adjust the contrast and brightness (also under Recolor), which helped to sharpen the edges of the images. Lastly, I made sure the backgrounds for the two images flanking the text were transparent (Recolor --> Set transparent color).

I added a border for the bleed section, so that variations in printing wouldn't cut into my actual design.

Once I had the design the way I wanted it, I saved the slide as a jpeg: make sure everything in the slide is grouped, then right-click the slide and select "save as picture." PowerPoint caps the resolution of jpeg exports, so I followed these instructions to change the resolution of jpegs saved in PowerPoint to 300 dpi, it was easy to do and made a huge difference in the quality of the invitation!

For the favors, I decided to make a Greek cookie called Kourambiethes, which I also made for my bridal shower. I'm pretty proud of the packaging, they are little Snoopy houses:

This is a demo bag. Yes, I know Snoopy's house is actually all red, but I couldn't find red bags that were a close enough match to the tops, so I went with white. Red, white and baby blue ended up being my shower colors, and they looked great.

The bottoms are small white paper bags (I think in the vicinity of 2x3"). The tops are made from red construction paper (basically a trapezoid butterfly that folds over the tops of the bags). The Snoopy and Woodstock image was downloaded from Google images and sized to match the scale of the bags. They were printed on white cardstock, and cut out by my Dad, before being attached to the red tops. The tops were then folded over the filled bags, and voila! Snoopy favors!

My dad made tons of these, this isn't even half of the favors, he made well over 100!

My MIL made centerpieces for the tables. She makes these neat centerpiece/favor combination using these:

Clear tubes filled with color-coordinated M&M's, topped with white carnations and color-coordinated curling ribbon. These treats go into a bowl, the top flowers present a unified front, and it looks something like this:

Then a themed object can be placed on a stalk in the center of the bowl. My MIL and SIL painted bird houses to look like Snoopy houses, and put little plush Snoopies and Woodstocks on them:

Beautiful! I don't have a full length pic of the centerpieces, but there were also Snoopy balloons from Amazon that looked like this:

Here is what the table looked like all set up:

I also made an Activity Booklet with puzzles and such. It is in pdf format, but anyone is welcome to take pages out of it as they wish:

You'll obviously want a different first page, but the rest of the pages can be used for anyone. It can be tinted purple for a girl.

I hope anyone out there looking to plan a Snoopy shower got some ideas! There are tons of other great ideas out there, I wish I could have done more!

Easy Favor Packaging

I have now made cookies favors for two different events, both baby showers. The first was for my cousin, where I baked up really cute Mickey Mouse sugar cookies, and packaged them to be consistent with the Disney theme that her mom chose for the shower.

The second were the Grover Cookies of my previous post, which were for my friend Allie's baby shower.

Since the process of making these favors was pretty much the same both times, and since it really can be applied to almost any favor that you would like to make, I thought a separate post that just talked about favors and favor packaging might be useful to some people wanting to create tidy-looking favors for an event. The two examples I have listed here are both edible, obviously, but this method of packaging can also be used for non-edible favors, if you like the look.



The Favors

Let's start from the beginning: what to make? Cookies are an obvious choice, but candy, cake balls, mini-cakes, muffins, and even cupcakes (depending on the icing) are also potential choices with this type of packaging. Is there a theme, be it colors or characters?

Whatever you choose, just keep in mind that, depending on the size of the function, you might be in for a lot of work if you choose a favor that is too complicated to make. So put some thought into a few things: 1) How many do you have to make (accounting for a few extras)? 2) How complicated are they to make? 3) Do they need to be decorated, and if so, how long will that take? 4) Can they be made in advance? 5) If so, how feasible is it to store them (i.e. how much room do you have in your freezer)? 6) Are they something that can stay out at room temperature for a considerable length of time post-packaging (at least a day or two)?

Number 6 is particularly important, because this dictates how far in advance you can package the favors.Something like Oreo Balls would be exceptionally delicious as favors -- buuuuuut they have cream cheese in them and are thus perishable.  So if you want them as favors, you either have to package them the day before and find space in your fridge for all the favors in their packaging, or you have to commit to packaging them just before you leave when it will probably be highly inconvenient to do so. And then, they will be sitting at room temperature for an indeterminate length of time (some people might not eat theirs during the party, or even the same day, for that matter), so you'll have to run around encouraging people to gobble down their favors before they leave the party, lest they get sick later. My best advice, therefore, is to choose something that will freeze well, so that you can bake it in advance. Something that isn't too complicated to decorate, especially if you have a lot to make. And, finally, something that is perfectly stable at room temperature, so that you can package them a day or two in advance, pack them in a travel box, and leave them there until it is time to bring them to the party. It might not be exactly what you pictured in your head when you first start mulling over ideas for favors, but trust me,  this advice will reduce your stress-level by at least ten-fold.

One of my favorite ways to make favors is to use a stamp cookie cutter -- one of those cookie cutters that comes with a little stamp that leaves a design in the dough. My Micky Mouse cookie cutter for my cousin's shower was a stamp cookie cutter.
(I apologize in advance for the quality on some of the Mickey Mouse pictures, I don't know what is going on with my phone -- the details on the cookies themselves were clear as bells)

 First you use the outer cutter to cut into the dough:

Then you use the inner stamp to create a darling little imprint in the dough which will still be visible after baking:

Some cookie cutter sets also come with texture maps as an alternate way to press a design into the dough.  The great thing about these types of cookies is that the imprint itself is a decoration, so you don't necessarily have an additional step for decorating if you don't want it. For the Mickey Mouse cookies, I left them as-is and packaged them up.

Alternatively, if you intend to decorate the cookies with royal icing or something like that, your job just got a whole lot easier, because now you have lines to trace and you don't have to freehand it!  A quick Google search will bring up hundreds of options like these. My personal favorites are the Star Wars Cookie Cutters from Williams-Sonoma. They have two sets, Heroes and Villains and Vehicles, and I own (and am in love with) both of them. How cute would those be, all packaged up for a birthday party??

In the case of the Grover cookies, they were frosted and dipped in sprinkles -- nothing crazy.

The Grovers weren't from-scratch dough, they were slice-and-bake, and you know what? Everyone just loved them, and thought they were both adorable and delicious. Remember, you're making these out of love for someone, so don't be afraid to make some decisions that ease some of the stress on yourself, too!

The Labels

Even though I have Labels and Packaging listed separately, you have to think about them together to some extent, at least for sizing, because they are a pair.  The labels on my favors are folded over the tops of the bags and stapled on. So, the first question is: what size labels do you need to make? And in order to answer that question, you need to know what size bag you want to use.

For most things you will make, the best cellophane bag size to buy will be 4"x6" -- that should accommodate most things you would make. So, let's use that as an example, with the understanding that you can scale it up if you need a bigger bag.

Aesthetically, I think a set up where the favor is 1/3 label and 2/3 bag is the most pleasing to the eye. For a 4"x6" bag that is 6" long, this means that you want the label to hang down 2 inches. Since the label will be folded in half horizontally over the top of the bag, figure 4 inches of height in order to get a 2" overhang on either side of the bag. Your bags are also 4" wide, so you will need a template that is 4.25"x4.25" (I always put a little extra on, so that the label extends past the sides of the bag ever so slightly, the last thing you want is a label that is more narrow than the bag).

PowerPoint is a great option to make the labels in, if you have access to it, because you can freely move around words and text. Open a blank PowerPoint slide (in '07 version) and go to Design -> Page Set Up and select "Custom" in the pull-down menu, while making the Height and Width both 4.25".  Click show ruler, and keep in mind that the horizontal zero is the axis the label will be folded on.

Now, make one half of the label with a mixture of fonts and pictures. There are plenty of fonts available online to tie into a theme. The font below on the Disney label was Waltograph. Once you have one side made, decide if you want the second half to be exactly the same, or if you want different things on either side. If you are doing the same combo of pics and text on both sides, it is easy to get it over to the other side. Select all of the pics and text on one half of the label, then go to Arrange -> Group together. Then, you can select the entire group, and go to Arrange ->Rotate -> Flip Vertically and  Arrange ->Rotate -> Flip Horizontally.   If you are using different pics (like I did below), you can do this with just the text, and arrange the pictures by hand. You end up with something like this:

 and

Now, if you select the label, and hit the Shape Outline option, you can outline the labels in a very light grey, this will really help when you are cutting them. Then you can print them out, maybe 4 or 6 to a sheet -- regular paper is fine, but you can also use something more sturdy like card stock or photo paper. Cut them out with scissors or slice them out with a paper slicer, and the labels are all set!

The Packaging

I am very concerned with freshness. So I opt to heat seal the favor bags before putting the labels on, using one of these, an impulse heat sealer:

These things are great! In order to activate the heat, there is a little metal piece under the handle that needs to connect to the screw at the end of the sealer, so it is only hot when you are sealing something. They run about $35-45 depending on the size you get. Mine is an 8" sealer, but if you want it for larger projects, they have sizes up to 16".

You set the length of exposure with the knob in the front. I have found Level 2 to be perfect for the Wilton 4"x6" cellophane bags, but you might have to play around a bit to find the sweet spot for sealing the bags you bought. Here's how it works:

• Put the favor in the bag.
• Set the sealer to the proper level
• Line up the edges of the bag a bit -- it doesn't have to be perfect, this will be covered by the label anyway. 
• Drape the bag over the bottom of the element, try to make it straight. Make sure that you are positioning the seam somewhere that will be covered by the label.
• Bring the top of the sealer down over the bag, and press down with the handle. This will complete the circuit and the sealer will turn on. The little red light above the knob will go on, and the machine will hum.
• When the light goes back off (just a few seconds), the machine has done its business, but don't go lifting the handle immediately, you need to give the bag a few seconds to resolidify, so count to four first (as in one thousand one...etc).
• Gently lift the top lever up. Most likely the bag will be stuck to the top.
• Gently peel the bag off of the top, and voila! Heat sealed favors!

Now you can fold and staple on those labels, and you have these:

Beautiful favors in nice neat little packages! And the best part is, you can use the same basic process again and again to make favors unique to each event!

Grover Cookies (Cookie Favors)

Presenting the further adventures of everybody's favorite hero. A monster who is faster than lightning, stronger than steel, smarter than a speeding bullet. It's...SUPERGROVER! (And he's cute, too)!


This posting is about a month overdue. I had some deadlines at work to deal with, and my baking/posting predictably suffered accordingly. But within the next few weeks, I hope to be entirely back on track.


This posting isn't technically a recipe.It is a decorating and packaging idea for making Grover cookies (which could easily be adapted to make pretty much any Sesame Street monster into a yummy cookie. And, because of their very nature, they are also a great thing to make with kids!!!



I also show a glimpse in an easy way to package cookies in general for favors, but I am saving the details of that for a different post.


Now, onto the cookies, with some little-known Grover facts sprinkled in, such as:


(Grover's official birthday is October 14th!)


These cookies (along with a matching cake) were made for our friend Allison's baby shower which just so happened to be Grover-themed.  They were done primarily by my cousin, with yours truly assisting, and help from momma-to-be Allie herself!


To make these cookies, you will need some 
Basic Supplies (for Grover) colors will vary depending on the monster you are making:

• Sugar cookie dough (store bought or your favorite recipe), for rolling
• Frosting, dyed blue (from scratch or ready-made, we used tubs of BC Vanilla frosting dyed with blue gel)
• Blue sprinkles (or jimmies, depending on which part of the country you are from)
• White fondant (Satin Ice is an excellent brand. Stay away from Wilton, it tastes horrible)
• Blue gel dye, for the icing
• White, red, black and pink  candy coating melts (you can melt these yourself and use a small #2 or #3 decorator's tip, or buy These nifty candy coating pen writers that we found, in red and pink.
• A circular cookie cutter, ion the 2" to 2.5" range. A set like this is particularly useful, and has every size you will probably ever need. You can find sets like this at your local craft store, as well as stores like Sur la Table, as well as online.
• A small oval cookie cutter (for the eyes). You can find graduated oval cookie cutters at the stores above, or online.

(Incidentally, all the links I provide above are for the specialty cake decorating store by my house, Candyland Crafts)


(Grover's original name was Fuzzyface!)


The workflow goes something like this:


1. Roll out your cookie dough, and using a large circular cookie cutter, cut out your cookies and bake them according to the recipe specifications. I leave the specifics up to you, since it will depend on what dough you decide to use. We had a lot of cookies to make, so we opted for the ease of Pillsbury Slice and Bake sugar cookie dough, which is a great option, especially if you are short on time. If you have the time, feel free to make your own favorite rolled sugar cookie dough from scratch


(The best-selling Sesame Street book of all time is The Monster at the End of This Book, first published in 1971!)


2. When the cookies come out of the oven, after they've cooled for a few minutes, you can go ahead and use the same cookie cutter to recut the baked cookies. This step is entirely optional, but it will make the edges sharp and the sizes uniform. Since we were making favors, we wanted the cookies as uniform as possible.

3.  Let the cookies cool completely. In the meantime, get your icing dyed to the proper color. 


(Grover originally had dark green fur and an orange nose. This puppet later was used for Grover's mommy!)


4. Roll out the white fondant and use the small oval cutter to cut out eye shapes (this is Grover-specific. For other monsters like Oscar, Elmo and Cookie, use a small round cutter). When eyes are cut, use melted black candy coating wafers to dot on the pupils. This is where the candy writer comes in handy, because it is a true black. Trying to dye melts black yourself usually results in a dark purple, and the only time I've seen black melts sold is at Halloween. You can get away with dark brown if you can't get a hold of the writer and can't find black melts. I wouldn't recommend using chocolate chips only because it needs a way to adhere to the fondant.

Here is my cousin, hard at work on a tray-full of fondant eyes

5. When the cookies are cool, frost the cookies.

(Grover first appeared in 1967!)


6. Then, dunk them in the sprinkles until the frosting is pretty much completely covered. 

7. With a little melted candy coating (preferably white), attach the eyes to the cookie.


8. Using melted pink candy wafers or the pink writer, draw on a circle for the nose below the eyes (you can try the more teardrop shape if you want, I am not much of an artist so I stuck with basic shapes).


(SuperGrover might know how to fly, but he can never land without crashing!!)


9.  Using your red candy writer or melted red wafers and a small round tip, pipe on a thin red mouth. All the cookies are smiling here, although having a nearly straight line going across would be a little more accurate.

We made some labels, and packaged them up.

Here's Allie, hard at work on the packaging details!

And here is what the finished product looked like:

The packaging itself is involved enough that it is in a separate post, if you are interested in the relatively easy way I package cookies for favors.

(Frank Oz voiced Grover from 1967-2001, and he still occasionally does so. Grover is currently voiced most often by Eric Jacobson!)


And here is a pic of the matching Grover cake that  my cousin also made. She used the same frosting and sprinkles for Grover's face. A larger oval cutter to cut out white fondant eyes. Fondant dyed black and a small circle cutter for the pupils, one of the sugar cookies frosted pink for a nose, and rolled fondant dyed red for the mouth.

These cookies could also be done with royal icing, but I love the look of the frosting and sprinkles because it looks, well, fuzzy! Just as it should. These colors and shapes could easily be modified for any other monster. If you make Oscar, don't forget to draw in his brown unibrow!


And last, but certainly not least, a huge congrats to Allison and her husband Mike, whose little boy was born on January 27th!!!!!

The Cookie Buffet: The Greek Cookies

When I finally decided to do the cookie buffet for my bridal shower, I knew that I had to include some Greek cookies to honor my heritage. My favorite Greek cookie of all time, finikia, is a honey-dipped spice cookie perfect for autumn, but believe it or not, I've never gotten around to making them before. I usually just make the rounds of local Greek festivals to get my fill. So, because I didn't feel like debuting yet another new recipe (I already had 2 other new cookie recipes planned), I decided to stick with what I know.

In my house, we make two kinds of Greek cookies, mostly around the holidays: koulourakia and kourambiedes. I forgot to take pictures while baking, so I included a later pic of koulourakia as an example of the traditional shape. The pictures of the cookies in the basket below are the ones from my shower.

Koulourakia
Koulourakia are Greek butter cookies, typically made around Easter time. They often have an egg glaze, and sesame seeds sprinkled on top. The dough is normally rolled into ropes, and then twisted into circles, spirals, or simple hairpin twists:


My recipe for koulourakia comes from my Aunt Sondra. Although it also calls for twisting the dough, I opted to make them as drop cookies using a cookie scoop because, well, it was just easier! My mom typically does the same thing, so I knew they would still taste great, even if they weren't in the traditional shape. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 C butter
• 1/4 C solid shortening
• 4 tsp vanilla
• 1 C sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 3 eggs
• 4 1/2 C flour

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375F
2. Cream the butter, sugar and shortening together on medium for 5 minutes (trust me)
3. Add eggs one at a time, reserving one yolk to brush cookie tops with
4. Add vanilla
5. Combine baking soda, baking powder and flour in a separate bowl
6. Add half of flour mixture to the butter mixture, and mix until just combined, then add the second half of the flour mixture
7. Using a #40 scoop, scoop out dough and drop onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet 1" apart
8. Lightly brush tops with reserved yolk and a tsp or two of milk
9. 
   
   
   Bake about 12 minutes, until golden brown

And you get about 8 dozen of these:

Kourambiedes
Kourambiedes (also spelled kourambiethes, kourabiedes, etc etc) are Greek almond cookies normally made aroun Christmas time. They are close relatives of Kahk and Mexican Wedding Cookies. The traditional shape is a crescent, but they are often formed into balls as well.

Again, I opted for balls, because drop cookies are always easier to make than a hand-formed cookie, especially when you have a lot of cookies to make! This recipe comes from my Aunt Ellen.
Ingredients:

• 1 lb unsalted (sweet) butter
• 1/4 C confectioner's sugar
• 6 oz almonds, corsely chopped
• 4 C flour
• 2 yolks
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 jigger of whiskey

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325F
2. Cream the butter and sugar on medium for 10 minutes
3. After the first 5 minutes of creaming, add the vanilla, yolks, whiskey, baking soda and powder, and continue to beat for 5 minutes
4. Add the flour in 2 batches and mix until just combined
5. Using a #40 scoop, scoop the dough onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet 1 1/2" apart
6. Bake for about 30-35 minutes, until bottoms start to brown
7. Cool completely, and then roll in powdered sugar. Also, add powdered sugar to whatever container they will be stored in.

Although we store them in a cookie tin filled with powdered sugar, we tend to put them individually into cupcake cups when serving, and I know a lot of other people do the same. It is just neater.

And when you are done:

Yummy Greek cookies, ready for the taking at the cookie buffet!

The Cookie Buffet: Details

I knew fairly early on that I wanted a sweets buffet as part of my bridal shower. Well-coordinated candy buffets have such a stunning effect, that I fell in love with the idea of a Halloween or autumn themed candy buffet, something gorgeous like this or these. But, budgets are always an issue, so I downgraded to the idea of a Halloween candy buffet, for the reason that there would be plenty of Halloween candy around in the middle of October, so it would be easier and more economical. I was right on this point, it would have been cheap (relatively) and easy, but something about the concept of a Halloween candy buffet 2 weeks before Halloween still wasn't sitting right with me. And then I hit upon a great idea, and I have no clue why I didn't think of it earlier: a cookie buffet filled with homemade cookies!


This had all the elements I wanted: homey, rustic, baked, etc etc. And although I love baking anything and everything, cookies make me especially happy. So I chose my cookie types and got to baking, starting about 3 weeks before my shower. And I had to figure out a way to turn this: into the cookie buffet of my dreams!



I started with containers, I wanted something to remind me of fall, with a rustic feel. While I was at Michael's, I saw these great apple bushel baskets (I think they are technically 1/4 of a bushel baskets, or maybe 1/2), so I decided to use those. But I knew right away that I'd want to line them with something, to protect the cookies from the baskets and vice versa. I figured that some of those large cellophane bags meant for gift baskets would work well. So, I bought some wide (1.5") ribbon in fall colors:
and used a combination of double-sticky tape and a glue gun to adhere the bags to the baskets, and then the ribbons around the rims to hide the bag edges. I ended up with this:

which pretty much looked exactly how I had envisioned.

Now, all of the nicest candy buffets I have ever seen have these cute little signs identifying the contents of each container, and seeing as my containers were not see-through, I figured I should definitely log some sign-making time. I used rectangle labels to print out all the names of the cookies I planned to make, and then I adhered them to a dark brown cardstock backing. I made a giant Cookie Buffet sign as well, so there would be no misunderstanding at my shower as to the purpose of all the cookies!

The last real thing was the goodie bags -- what would I provide for guests to take their cookies home in? I went through many ideas until I finally settled on Kraft brown paper bags, which still preserved some of the rustic feel I wanted. Plus, I found great autumn-themed twist ties that looked great paired with the bags:

Add a brown tablecloth, and this was the final product:

See that blue box next to the bags? Bakery wax paper grabs, incredibly economical, and saved me from having to buy tongs or grabbers for every container!

On to the cookies themselves. I made 8 different varieties. I originally wanted them all to be reminiscent of traditional autumn flavors, but then I decided to go for a mix of traditional cookies, autumn cookies, and cookies honoring my heritage (I am Greek and Polish).

Here are the Spice Cake Balls:

Good ol' Chocolate Chip

Pierniczki, which are Polish ginger cookies:

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies:

Gluten-free Chocolate Chip Cookies (plus candy from the local orchard in fall colors):

Koulourakia, a Greek butter cookie:

Pumpkin Cookies:

and Kourambiedes, Greek almond cookies:

All in all, it was definitey time-consuming, but I wouldn't exactly call it work. I loved every minute of baking the cookies, and I loved watching people enjoy them. I'm happy to say that, after making and displaying 56 some-odd dozen cookies (I averaged at least 7 dozen per type), there were only crumbs left by the end of the 3 hours...