Candy Kiss Gnomes

With Christmas on the horizon I have been as busy as I can while still battling with this Sciatica.  Not a very patient person, I am not accustomed to slowing down so it has taken me more time to accomplish my tasks.  It used to take me one evening to decorate my tree and this year I spent 3 days between ice and Ibuprofen.  I have made a couple of batches of cookies and have more to make and I did get my cards out...who sends cards?  ME, but this will most likely be the last.  For one thing, I needed to let some people know our change of address and that brings another story.  We have had this address for 4 months and I had a dear friend tell me that I put the wrong return address on the card she received....How many others?  Yep, time to quit!

Yesterday my favorite daughter came and we decorated cookies together---mostly she did the decorating.  I found a Candy Kiss set of cookie cutters at Hobby Lobby. (she had shown me photos of triangular shaped cookies earlier and these reminded me of that similar shape.)

 As I got these out of order, bear with me. We made a royal icing with Wilton's meringue powder and water, whipped in the mixer and then added powdered sugar.  That's not necessarily an easy task as you can see that it snowed sugar all over me, the counter and even the stove.  I had a cake decorating teacher once say that if I couldn't write my name in my range hood with powder sugar that I wasn't doing it right.  I did it right yesterday.

 So as much as I tried, I still got these out of order.  See the kisses shape?  Erica colored the icing and she added a caramel flavor. She drew on these with an edible marker and in the bottom photo she was beginning to outline and continued to flow the icing on the hats. She thinned the icing and actually painted the face color on. When it was dry, the hats, beard, and blue coats were added as each color dried a bit.

 She added the nose, eyes and mouth and they are adorable.  We also decorated mushrooms that she made with a mold that she had ordered and I will post those pictures next.

I also received a package from a dear friend in Saratoga.  She had asked for pictures of the house and knows how I like to decorate.  When our son came to pick up some things in Cheyenne before we moved, he took all of our antlers, our elk antler mount and some other Wyoming rustic things that we didn't think we would have room for.  One thing this friend noticed was that I didn't have any antlers lying around.  We spent so many years hunting and they always reminded us of good times.  She reminded us that we needed a few and she insisted that she would send some.  I will post those pictures later also...Thank you Ginger!

"In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips." ~ Salman Rushide