Ooo-La-Lingerie Cookies

ACHELORETTE PARTIES can sometimes mean a never-ending supply of tequila shots, an obscene amount of phallic-shaped party favors, and stuffing dollar bills into a police officer's rippling banana hammock. Fortunately the bride-to-be wanted a low-profile trip to Napa to get some R&R and take time away from the stresses of wedding planning.

I couldn't attend so I thought it would be nice to send her some bachelorette-appropriate goodies. I enlisted Sherri from Sherri's Sweet Treats (Her cupcakes are unreal—fan her Facebook page!) to make some lingerie cookies with me. We used heart-shaped sugar cookies (there are so many types of cookies you can make with them!) royal icing, pearls and non-pareils for all the bows and frills.

Photo credit unknown.

We didn't get a chance to snap any pictures of the ones we made, but it takes a little bit of skilled handiwork to get these looking pretty as the ones pictured above. As Sherri and I both discovered, it gets pretty tiring applying pearls individually. We learned some useful lessons along the way:

• Line your cookie with the shape of whatever you're working on. As a reference, the icing for the outline needs to have a toothpaste-like consistency.
• Flood your cookie with a thinner, runnier icing than the icing used in the previous step. Use a toothpick to fill in the lines if necessary, or gently shake the cookie to get the icing to settle.
• Use tweezers to apply the pearls evenly to your cookie while icing is still wet.
• Start off with just a few colors, and do everything methodically (i.e. line all cookies first, let dry, flood to fill cookie, then decorate with other colors). Royal icing dries fairly quickly so it can be chaotic trying to use a ton of colors without knowing your game plan.
• Keep a spray bottle handy for spraying into your royal icing to thin (If you don't believe me, then take her word for it! Sweet Sugar Belle, the cookie-decorating goddess, swears by this.)

Please feel free to leave suggestions you may have; I'd love to hear your input. :)

Thanks,
Margaret

Vintage Treasures Part Deux!

Y NOW I had hoped someone would pay me to do their shopping for them, but since I've had no such luck on that front, I am growing increasingly fond of the idea of opening up my own little vintage boutique or vintage housewares/upcycled furniture shop. I love when classic things get a fresh twist! It's also worth mentioning that this flicker of inspiration has been fueled by my late-night Mad Men marathons.

Here are some things I've bought in the last few months:

1. Buying secondhand leather shoes is one exception I've made to buying animal products.

2. Although it appears to be vintage, this dress is from Anthropologie. I couldn't resist scooping it up for—you guessed it!—a wedding in September. :o)

3. This quartz bracelet is currently one of my favorite things! It's made partially from vintage materials—eight lemon faceted circular quartz crystal beads and three quartz crystal faceted transparent square beads.

4. I needed a cute way to store my runaway spare buttons and jewelry. This vintage octagonal shadow box is both functional and pretty. I think shells or rocks (which I also collect) would look nice displayed in a case like this too.

5. It's probably no surprise, but yellow is one of my favorite accent colors. I love this alarm clock just for decoration; my cell phone works fine as an alarm clock. Plus I just can't resist a good deal!

1. 1980's Nicole Club Leather Sandals, etsy.com/shop/LapineOurs.  2. Anthropologie Spiced Dress, anthropologie.com.  3. Quartz Bracelet, etsy.com/shop/KimDulaney.  4. Octagon Shadow Box, etsy.com. 5. Vintage Alarm Clock from West Germany, sacantiquefaire.com.

Speaking of retro gone mainstream, be sure to check out the highly anticipated collaboration between Mad Men Costume Designer Janie Bryant with Banana Republic on BR's 50's-inspired Mad Men Fall collection.

What are your latest purchases, and would you buy any of BR's Mad Men pieces?

xo, m