Hope everyone is having a great weekend! Just a quick post to announce the winners of our giveaway…
The following posts were selected randomly from all of the awesome and kind people who posted!
Congratulations Winn, Nancy Cavagnaro, Linda Jacobson, Sheila Mom to Seven, and Mera Tucker! And thanks so much to all who participated!
Winners, please shoot us an email with your address and we’ll send you a Notta Cookie and one of each of our four new cutters!
Thanks again!
Karen
We have an exciting new product to introduce to you! As many of you know, Mike and I put on a big cookie convention in Salt Lake City called CookieCon, and I baked a lot (and I mean a LOT) of cookies for it so that the attendees can practice decorating. After the first CookieCon (fall of 2012), Mike and I were talking about how it’s a shame that there isn’t a dummy cookie for practicing, so that so much delicious butter and sugar wouldn’t get wasted practicing on cookies that would never get eaten. We even joked about a name for it… Notta Cookie. You know, in case someone tries to eat it, you say “Don’t eat it! It’s Notta Cookie!” Haha! And so the concept was born.
I kind of thought it was mostly a joke and a fun idea, but Mike was serious and determined. He started researching plastics and manufacturing. We found a local company to make the mold and another one to do the manufacturing. The mold was made with an actual cookie that I baked. We wanted it to be shaped and textured like a real cookie.
That way you’re practicing on a surface that is more realistic, and close to what you’ll experience using a real cookie. You can do anything on them that you would do on a real cookie– Piping, flooding, marbling, lettering, stenciling, painting, airbrushing… the list goes on as far as your imagination will take you.
You can either scrape the icing off while it’s still soft, or let it harden and pop it off with a metal spatula. They clean off so nice, and are dishwasher safe. They don’t stain either! When we got the initial sample of plastic, we poured straight food coloring (Americolor Gel Paste in Super Black, Super Red, Royal Blue, etc) all over it and let it sit for several days. It washed off very nicely, so we knew we had a winner.
We weren’t sure if they would be done in time for this year’s CookieCon, so I baked cookies again. As luck would have it, as soon as I was about done baking the CookieCon cookies, we got the call that the Notta Cookies were done! Darn. But we brought some with us anyway for people to try. Here are a couple of our awesome attendees practicing stenciling on the Notta Cookie.
(Kim and Beverly, you are both adorable! 🙂 And great job on your stenciling!)
The Notta Cookies were a hit! They are perfect for practicing all kinds of decorating techniques, and next CookieCon, I’m not baking as many cookies! Yay!!!
The Notta Cookie took almost exactly 18 months from concept to finished product, but it’s finally done, and you can start using them for your cookie decorating practice! You can find them here.
We also brought a few new cutter shapes to debut at CookieCon. We got them up on the site, and they are now available to everyone.
Check out the new KC exclusives. They are the Large and Small Fancy Sign and the Large and Small Thought Bubble. Incidentally, the thought bubble was this year’s Mystery Shape at CookieCon. Check out this link to see some of the crazy-creative things people did with it (scroll about 3/4 of the way down, past the regular sugar show entries to all the ones on the black background).
I’ve decided I’m not going to apologize for long (LONG) spells between blog posts. Because I’m busy, you know. I have a lot going on. So I’m not going to apologize for leaving you hanging. I’m not going to apologize for silence at the Karen’s Cookies Blog. Nope. Not going to do it. Because I don’t do that anymore. (So sorry!! I’m going to do better, I promise!!!)
No, instead of apologizing, I’ll just keep bribing you to stay tuned by doing giveaways. Comment on this post, and 5 lucky winners will be randomly selected (using Random.org) to receive one each of the new cutters and a Notta Cookie. Tell us what you think of the Notta Cookie and you’ll be entered! You have through Friday, Apr 4th to enter. Good Luck!
Wow, quite a response! Nearly 850 responses! I wish I had enough sprinkles for everybody (and enough money to ship them all! 🙂 )
Thanks so much for entering! Here are the 3 winners:
Yvonne Horowitz
(Entered September 18, 2013 at 3:02 pm)
Comment: You can never have too many sprinkles!
Gayla G.
(Entered September 18, 2013 at 2:42 pm)
Comment: I love sprinkles!
Kim (Barefoot n Baking)
(Entered September 20, 2013 at 10:29 am)
Comment: Sprinkles!!! Who doesn’t love sprinkles??!!
Go ahead and shoot us an email through karenscookies.net with your addresses and we’ll get your sprinkles sent off!
Thanks again!
It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything. Just so you don’t think we’ve gone away, here’s a quick, fun little giveaway!
You like sprinkles? How about a chance to win 32 different jars of sprinkles? Just comment below and we’ll randomly pick 3 different winners who will each receive a package in the mail with 32 jars of sprinkles!
I’m not going to list every single kind here… just know that you’re getting an awesome variety! And really… would such a list really make a difference on whether or not you enter? 🙂
So there you go. Get that comment in by Saturday the 21st, and we’ll use a randomizer to select the winners. Good luck!
We’ve had an unbelievable response from our square and rectangle fancy frame cutters and we’ve seen some AMAZING things done with them from so many people. So we came up with a couple of new shapes that hopefully will inspire as much creativity. Say hello to our new Plaque and Scalloped Oval cutters!
Just as before, we wanted to just come up with a basic shape to use as a canvas, and let the creativity flow from there. Also, people have loved the frame cutters for message cookies! So once again, here are a couple of new shapes to allow you to write just about anything you want – or just decorate them up for whatever occasion you’re decorating for.
So here are just a few ideas I came up with (And, ok— Mike helped!) Can I just point out that the Summers family wasn’t really established in 2000? My head said “1996” and my hand said “2000”. By the time my hand caught up with my brain, it was too late. Does that ever happen to you? But anyway, I digress. I”m so excited to get these cutters out there and see what you uber-creative geniuses come up with!
These cutters are now available on Karen’s Cookies if you’d like to try them out! Click here to see them. We have the Plaque in large and small, and the Scalloped Oval in large and small. To save you some money on them we’ve got a 15% off coupon for you as well! Just type in may2013 in the coupon code box on the shopping cart page and the coupon will be applied.
Ok, so let’s give a few of these away shall we?
Reply to this post by the end of the weekend (By end of day Sunday, May 12th) and we’ll randomly draw 5 of you to win a complete set of these four new cutters (Plaque in two sizes, and the Scalloped Oval in two sizes).
Since it’s Mother’s Day weekend, go ahead and tell me what you love about your mom. I’ll go first– My mom is my number one fan. She has always encouraged me to grow my talents and go after my dreams, (even if they’re a little looney), and she always tells me how proud she is of me even if I don’t deserve it. Thank you, Mom. I love you!
Good Luck!
Mike and I recently got back from hosting CookieCon 2012. It was so much fun! We had such a great group of cookie-loving people together for a weekend of cookie decorating and cookie-art appreciating! I will do a post about the actual event soon, but I wanted to give a huge thank you and shout-out to our awesome sponsors. One of the things that made it so much fun was the their amazing and generous support. Here’s a peek inside the goody bags:
We had a few left-overs from our goody bag assembly, so we’re going to give away some bundles of goodies to those who weren’t able to attend this year. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First let’s talk about what was in the bags!
Mandy Wallington from Kool Cookie Cutters came all the way from Perth, Australia to attend CookieCon , and she brought with her gum leaf cookie cutters, handmade in Australia! So awesome!
Julia M. Usher came and demonstrated how to use stencils, (among other awesome things! Thank you Julia!!). Designer Stencils is THE place for culinary stencils, and they donated a stencil to every attendee. This one can be used for brush embroidery. So cool!
Along with the donation of one of their awesome projectors as a grand prize, Kopykake donated a gift pack of frosting sheet decals to everyone. We had fun playing with them during open decorating.
American Tradition Cookie Cutters sent cookie cutters for everyone! They are such a great company and have a fun selection of high-quality cutters. Check them out!
Patrick from Plastics in Print sent a cutter for everyone. Their custom cutters are very reasonably priced and they also have some really fun stock shapes.
Fondarific sent a sample of their delicious fondant for everyone to try. Did you know they have fondant in lots of fun flavors? Buttercream, mocha, grape, peppermint…. just to name a few. It is great fondant!
Fancy Flours sent some really fun wafer paper sheets for everyone. The attendees got to play around with them during the open decorating session, and it was so much fun to watch what they did with the wafer paper. Very fun! Have you tried wafer paper yet?
Kip and Connie from BRP Box Shop came and participated in CookieCon. They were such a fun addition, and we were so happy to have them there! In addition to donating an awesome grand prize (A BRP- Branded BIKE!), and a Half-as-Grand second prize (a BRP-Branded UNICYCLE!), they also gave generous gift packs of their boxes and bags. Look what was in there!
Amazing, right? If you haven’t checked out BRP Box Shop yet, do yourself a favor and head right over there. They are a great company with the prettiest boxes available. They also debuted a limited-edition Ornament Box and gave one to everybody. Go check those out before they’re gone!
Americolor Corp (THE place for the best food coloring out there) donated a bottle of their awesome Soft Gel Paste coloring to everyone.
This one blew everybody’s mind. Nielsen-Massey Vanilla sent a 2-oz bottle of their Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla to everyone! Such a fun surprise and generous addition to the goody bags.
In addition to a grand prize of a $150 gift certificate, Country Kitchen Sweet Art donated a fondant impression mat to everyone. The attendees had lots of fun playing with fondant and impression mats during Open Decorating.
Sylvia from Foose Cookie Cutters donated so many fun goodies! In addition to an awesome gift basket loaded with cutters, she also donated more than 20 gift sets of cutters to be given away, and a set of adorable mini cutters, note pad, and coupon for the goody bags.
Karen’s Cookies (that’s me!) donated a little gift pack of fun stuff to each attendee. Here’s what was in it:
We included both of Pam (Cookie Crazie)’s new exclusive cutters— the Homespun Christmas Tree and the Cupcake that we are selling through our site. We also included a PME tip, a disco dust, a pixie dust shaker, and a boo-boo stick.
I don’t have a picture of the next one because we used all of them in the goody bags. Kee-Seal donated two of their disposable decorating bags to each attendee, along with some gift packs of their bags to be given as prizes. They are great bags! Definitely check them out.
So that was what was in the bags! Although this post is dedicated to the gift bag items, I want to also mention the other awesome sponsors we had. They were just as generous, and donated prizes that were not in the gift bags:
A huge thank you to all of the generous sponsors of CookieCon! You helped make it an awesome and memorable event for all those who were in attendance.
Now for those of you who weren’t able to attend, we have a chance for you to win some of this fun stuff! We don’t have complete goody bags left. We just had a few extras of some of the items. So what we are doing is giving away “bundles”– kind of like a grab-bag. Comment on this post and we will randomly choose 8 of you (through Random.org) and send you a fun bundle of goodies. Please comment by Wednesday, November 21 at midnight (wherever you are!). International entries are welcome. I will try to get the winners announced on Thanksgiving, but I might be too sleepy from all the carbs…. so I reserve the right to announce the winners on Friday. 🙂
We’d love to offer these prizes to people who didn’t already get this stuff from CookieCon. So to be eligible, please indicate that you didn’t make it to CookieCon this year. And you can also feel free to wish Mike’s mom, Lorene, a happy birthday! Have a great week!
Ok, I just LOVED LOVED LOVED looking through the links to the beautiful frame cookies everyone posted! We are still very excited to have these new designs! We ran all entries through a random number generator and it picked…. (drum roll)
Tatyana!
She made these beautiful cookies here:
https://secure.flickr.com/photos/88915337@N04/8103998939/in/photostream/
Congrats on the $100 Gift Certificate Tatyana! I’ve already decided that we’ll be having another contest in the future. We should be getting in a new (and much larger) batch of these cutters in within the next few days!
Thanks so much to all who entered!
We’ve been super excited about the very positive response to our new Rectangle and Square Frame cookie cutters. Since we posted about them, we’ve been shipping them out like crazy – to all corners of the globe!
So we are VERY interested to see what you all are doing with them. What fun designs are you coming up with?
What better way to find out, than with another give-away?
So if you are a blogger, face-booker, or flickr-(um) “flickr-er”? or whatever, you have a chance to win yourself a $100 gift certificate to Karen’s Cookies! So between now and October 20th (2012) decorate some cookies using our new Frame Cookie Cutters (use any or all of the 2 designs and 2 sizes) and post your decorated cookies! We don’t care if it’s a blog, facebook, flickr, or anything else, as long as you can provide a link where people can click over to see your work. Also, provide a link on your post to these cutters. (This URL will allow them to see them all: http://www.karenscookies.net/Karens-Cookies-Exclusives_c_112.html )
After you’ve posted, simply leave a comment on THIS blog post with a link to your pictures. Please make sure your link goes directly to the picture(s) you are entering, rather than the home page to your blog, facebook, flickr, etc). After the deadline (Oct. 20th) we will randomly select one of the links to win the $100 Gift Certificate. (Everyone who posts a link to their cookies has an equal chance!)
If you’re trying to promote your blog or web site, this is also a great chance to get people clicking over to you as well.
So there you go. We can’t wait to see what people come up with!
UPDATE:
These cutters sold out faster than we could have possibly imagined. They have beat any other product we’ve ever introduced into our store. We re-ordered them immediately after realizing how fast they were going. If anyone would like to enter this contest, please email us through the karenscookies.net web site and request a template. If you don’t mind printing that out and cutting out your cookies you’re more than welcome to enter that way!
Karen
So remember when we unveiled our first custom cutters? We had such a great response, and we were blown away by your enthusiasm. In that post, we asked what other cutters you would like to see, and MANY of you said you would like to see some fancy rectangle and square cutters for messages and filler cookies. That was back in April, and later that month we were in Louisville with many of you, and the request was (strongly!) reiterated.
Please fast-forward 5 months.
Guess what we have? (finally)
Yay! We have two sizes of squares, and two sizes of rectangles.
There are seriously ENDLESS ways you could decorate these. I did just a few examples to get your creative juices flowing.
Are you seeing some potential?
I left most of them blank so you could imagine different things written on them.
Oh, and because I ruin them when I write on them.
But imagine what YOU could write. Maybe a wedding monogram?
Or a regular old everyday monogram?
Or a big THANK YOU for being awesome.
You need these. Comment below for a chance to win one of 10 (TEN!) sets of our four new cutters. Please include your name and email address (use the email address box in the comment form so it’s hidden. Otherwise all kinds of crazies might email you) so we can contact you if you win. Please comment by Friday, September 28 by 7pm Pacific time. I will use random.org to pick 10 winners. International entries are accepted.
For those of you who want to place an order, we have a coupon for 15% off your entire order– including sale prices! Use the coupon code happyfall15.
Thanks for reading! Sorry I’ve had a long absence (again). I appreciate you still checking in!
I have wanted to design my own cutters for… well… pretty much forever. I have a hard time finding cutters that match the ideas in my head, so I’ve always wanted to make my own. I’ve kind of dragged my feet about doing it for one reason or another. Mike has encouraged me to do it for a long time, and a good cookie friend encouraged me recently, so guess what? I finally did it! It’s so exciting to see it go from an idea in my head to a cookie cutter and then on to the actual cookies that I had visualized for it.
Narrowing down the ideas was the hardest part. I have endless ideas, but I could only start out with a few, so I painstakingly narrowed it down to three. I’ve always thought there needed to be a cute baby cutter out there. Not just a baby head, not a crawling baby, not just a baby onesie, but an actual baby wearing the onesie (or whatever…). So my first design is….. (drum roll please!)
A baby! I wanted him/her to be easy to decorate, simple, but customizable. Here’s how I decorated it.
I wanted to be able to do some easy cute toes and NO HANDS. I’m not a fan of drawing hands. This is a super simple design.
You can add some clothes.
Awww, poor baby! What’s the matter? (Mike drew this one for me, and I translated it to cookie)
There, that’s better. Jammies and a binky and all is well in the world.
The second design is one that I’ve wanted for a long time. Wilton used to have a pretty decent one, but it was discontinued a while back, and it just seemed like there was a need for a plain old girl. Not a gingerbread girl, but a GIRL that you could decorate all different ways. So my second cutter is….
A girl! And along the same lines, my third cutter is….
A boy! I had basically the same requirements for the boy and the girl. I wanted them to be very customizable, and like the baby, I didn’t want to have to do hands. Also, I wanted to be able to have them hold things like soccer balls and bouquets. So here’s what you can do with these guys:
These guys are obviously soccer kids, but you could do any sport. Basketball would be very similar. Mike helped me figure out how to do hands without having to do hands. You make them hold something and just put some round circles for fingers. Easy! So it’s not a Rembrandt, but it’ll do for a cookie.
Football, ballet, Karate. Notice how you can just tuck their hands behind them if you don’t want them to hold anything?
Luau! I would just like to point out that that hula girl is a self portrait. ha ha!
And finally (for now!) a bride and groom. I’m going to work on more designs and do some decorating tutorials for these guys, but this will have to do for now. Oh, and sorry about the lack of cultural diversity in these kids. I was decorating late and was lazy so I used all the same color. Next time I’ll be more culturally diverse.
So do you want some of my new cutters?
I’m going to give away a set of all three to 10 lucky blog commenters. Just post a comment (maybe you could tell me what you would like me to do for my next batch of cutters!), and I’ll choose 10 at random using random.org and send you the cutters. Contest ends at midnight Friday, April 6, and I will announce the winners on April 7 (because that’s my Mom’s birthday). 🙂 OH– and if you are going to Spring Fling, you will be receiving a set there. You can still comment on the blog post, but please make a note that you will be at Spring Fling so that I can choose another winner. Good luck! And thanks for putting up with my long absence!
Karen's Cookie Blog 