Thank You NICU Nurses

These cookies were made last year as a parting gift for Idrees's favorite NICU nurses. The BWH is for Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the I is for Idrees. Some were made into oversized favors like pictured above for specific people. I also made big trays of mini's to put near the coffee machine as a treat for everyone. I made them in one night, so it was a bit of a rush job. If I had more time I would have made the BWH much nicer or even the hospitals actual logo.

Zack's First Birthday

These cookies were made for a beautiful little boy's 1st birthday party. The little animals are taken from the party's invite.

Thank you so much to my friend Maryam for ordering, I was so happy to make cookies for Zackaria!

The Last of the Eid Cookies

Chocolate Brown Wedding Monograms

75 Chocolate brown wedding monogrammed cookies. For the first time ever, I let someone help decorate cookies with me. To help me out, my sister Feda hand painted most of the monogram letter's with pearl luster dust. There is also painted gold luster dust dots in the inner corners of each cookie. One of my other sisters (I have 4) Marwa helped me package them all up. Thanks Ladies, Love You! These were shipped to Kentucky. I've never shipped a big order before, but I'm happy to say not a single one broke. So far I've had great luck, and haven't had any cookies break during shipping. I have to say though, I do use entirely too much packaging, but it gets the job done.

Thanks so much to Leigh for ordering, so happy to have been a part of your wedding!

P.S Follow my sister Feda's blog, she is a great photographer. See her July archive and scroll all the way down to see more pictures of me and some of my sister's all painted up like this in "The Tribe Series":

Texas!

I've been seeing alot of Texas and western themed cookies around, and I was happy to get a chance to make some myself. These were ordered for a wonderful Texas man's birthday, by his equally wonderful New Englander wife.

Half the fun of decorating cookies for me is coming up with the design and sketching it out. This is my take on the Texas shaped Texas flag cookie.

Thanks so much to Annie for ordering! I loved making them <3>

Happy Birthday Bob!

After my mother and father, Bob was the first person to hold me when I was born. He's been there for me ever since. Love you Bob!

Graduation Party Cookies

For Joe, who just graduated from Thayer Academy and is moving on to Northeastern University. The designs are based on the two schools logo's and mascots.

A special cookie for Joe, Congrats!

Thank you so much Kathy for ordering again! It's been a pleasure being a part of your children's celebrations.

Funky Cupcake Cookies

A Really Big Cookie

I made this a while back. It's a big sugar cookie that is roughly about 12x7 inches. It was used at a Master's dissertation presentation. The Dissertation was about Antar and Abla. The Footsteps say Antar and Abla in arabic, and the camel is because there is a part of their story where Antar has to go get a special kind of camel from another area to be able to marry his love Abla. I was a little reluctant to freehand such a big element (the camel). I drew it on paper first because my theory is that if I can draw it on paper than I can do it with a piping bag too. I was relieved that it came out ok, and that turned out to be only a minor issue.

The major issue being that, IT CRACKED, like a thousand times! I just stuck it back together with royal icing and moved on because there was no more time to make another one. I barely charged anything for this because of those cracks. My friends who ordered it really didn't mind the cracks that much, so it all worked out in the end. One good thing is that I have learned from my mistakes now. After alot of critical thinking I've figured out a fool proof plan of how to make one of these without the breakage.

Many thanks to my friends the Alzaim's for your support and your business :-)

Theater, Music, and Movies

Birthday cookies for a girl who loves theater, music, and movies.

I'm in love with these pink satin bows, I was smiling the whole time I was tying them.

One special big cookie for the birthday girl


Thanks to Cathy for ordering, it was my pleasure to make these cookies :-)

Graduation cookies

Graduation cookies I made for my brother Safwan's graduation party last sunday. The cake was from Gerardo's Italian Bakery in Westborough, Ma. It was really delicious and not heavy at all.

Dusting of the baking and blogging cobwebs

I won't go into details but life has been pretty hectic for the last month or so, but seems like everything is settling down now, so I'm ready to start blogging and showing my work again.

Did I ever mention how much I love decorating cookies? Something about it just like makes me so happy. I love colors and art in all of it's mediums, even coloring in coloring books. Cookie decorating was love at first site for me. I don't remember what, but I googled something and ended up on Annie's Eats, I saw her cookies and was seriously excited and then I read her royal icing tutorial. I automatically thought "I need to make some of those". Maybe the next day I went out and bought all the basic decorating supplies. At this point I didn't even know yet that there was this huge cookie making community, I'm glad I didn't because I may have never even tried to make any after seeing some of the AMAZING cookies that these ladies make. Let's just say it can be a little intimidating to look at their galleries and flikr pages at times.

The first cookies I ever made were for my friend Maryam, whose wedding I was attending in a couple days. I had a flower cutter that I really liked but I couldn't find a cake cookie cutter in the stores. I didn't have time to order one and I really had my heart set on making cake cookie's. So I thought to draw the flower topped cake design on a styrofoam plate, cut it out, and I used it to cut the cookies out with a knife. I found out Maryam's color theme and I started decorating. People in my family were giving me strange smiles (you know the one were you think the person is going crazy so you just smile and don't say a word) but they humored me, and to my and everyone else's surprise, they came out wonderful!

I can definitely see ALOT of flaws in these now, but I still love them to death and they will probably be my favorite cookies forever.

Steam Punk Festival

I had the pleasure of making cookies for this awesome event. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Waltham-MA/Steampunk-Festival/234046964955. It was my first time vending and although I wasn't sure what to expect, I had such a blast and met so many wonderful people.

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This is a good description of what Steam Punk is:

"Steampunk" is the science-fiction of the Steam Age; the Industrial Revolution re-imagined with the advantage of modern hindsight. Drawing upon the wealth of historical technology and the scientific fantasies of the Victorian and Edwardian periods, steampunk seeks to reinvent modern wonders (such as the computer) as the people of that era might have envisioned them. Following in the footsteps of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, steampunk authors blend history, science and imagination into a world of wonder that might have been. -G.D. Falksen

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If you still don't get it (I didn't), google Steam Punk images and check it out.

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It took some research and thinking to figure out what part of this culture would be best translated onto cookies. This is what I came up with. I made regular vanilla sugar cookies and chocolate chip chocolate sugar cookies. I tinted the icing as close to bronze as I could, and after they had dried, I painted over everything with bronze pearl dust.

The favorite, this design sold out first.

In the end after icing almost 100 cookies (and having a Root Canal), I wanted to do something a little easier so I simple flooded these and drew on them with edible writer markers.

Brown and gold small circle stacks

A gift bag I put together for the raffle at the festival. It had some hand embroidered tea towels, The Tea Deck by Sara Peterson, and two Steam Punk cookies.

My table! I love the way it all came together :)

Here's me! and my too tired to try that hard sign, that I finished at 4am.I sold almost all the cookies and whatever was left I just gave away to the other wonderful vendors on my way out.

More Baby Boys

I had a really hectic week, but I still managed to make these baby boy cookies on time. The rattles are chocolate sugar cookies, there's mini chocolate chips in them too :) Thanks Carol for ordering again :-)

Arabic Coffee

I made these to give to friends to sample. I saw Tea Party cookies on Sweetopia that I love, and then I thought to make these Arabic coffee themed cookies. Arabic coffee is very similar to espresso, but made differently, and often includes cardamom. There is also another kind that is less commonly made in some parts of the middle east, that uses lightly roasted coffee beans and lots of cardamom, that coffee is actually yellow instead of brown after it's brewed. Like espresso, Arabic coffee is served in demitasse cups.

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The bigger cookies are antique brass Arabic coffee pots, I dusted them with copper pearl dust to make them a little shiny. The cups replicate the most commonly used demitasse coffee cups in Lebanon, and other parts of the middle east (I'm American/Lebanese btw). I really love these cookies and it was really satisfying to make something from my culture into cookies.

All tied up, with a card.