Baked Goods | Birthdays | Cookies | Holiday

Squad Goals

9 December, 2019

It was recently my Mother-in-Law’s (MIL) birthday. It was a birthday divisible by 5, so my Sister-in-Law (SIL) wanted to do something unique so she planned a girls’ trip for all of the “daughters” and mom. Technically, my MIL has two children by birth, but then, of course, she has a Son-in-Law (SIL) and a Daughter-in-Law (DIL, aka me). Two of my SIL’s childhood friends are also considered daughters in our Hawthorne sister crew. (Love, Love, Love them). 3 of the 4 of us live in Virginia, and one lives out on the West Coast.

My SIL had another brilliant idea to make t-shirts for everyone to wear on our trip to Williamsburg. We passed a few ideas back and forth and settled on bold “MOM daughter #SQUAD” design. It’s been a while since I’ve made a heat transfer design. Aside from cutting the backing material instead of the vinyl on the first pass, all went smoothly. I especially love how brilliant the gold sparkles shine!

Once I made the t-shirts, it was a natural choice for Cookie designs. I wanted to bring us a sweet treat. Something understated but sentimental and directly intended for mom.

I’m still really digging using this hexagon cutter. Maybe the novelty will wear off in a few weeks, but for the moment, I am obsessed with the shape. At first, I thought I would pipe directly on the cookies (like I usually do). My inner-perfectionist had a different idea. While my cursive is neat and it is undoubtedly legible, it didn’t quite “POP” the way I had envisioned.

So I got creative, and I engraved the cookies from a stencil before piping on them. It was MUCH more effective though I did have one cookie that I didn’t flood as fully as I should have. (So many lessons to learn along the way).

The last details were to add a couple of Holly Berry clusters and some red beads around the edge, and then I brushed them all over with some luster dust. (I LOVE when things sparkle, another trend for me right now). 

We all had a fantastic time on our trip, our shirts all fit, and the cookies were delightfully demolished! (My favorite compliment).