the cookie kiln

once again it has been months since i have blogged.

and again, not because we have had nothing worth blogging about, 

quite the opposite actually. our life has been beyond busy.

on a daily basis i think about multiple things that i should blog about, 

not because anyone else would want to read about it, 

but because i know that someday i will want to remember it.

so today i had a little down time and i decided that i would do a little blog update.

several months ago, with a little (actually, more than a little) encouragement from my husband,

 i decided to open a part-time, custom sugar cookie business out of our home.

my husband came up with the name,

 'the cookie kiln', 

which i thought was rather clever, 

as a kiln is just an extra-large, extra-hot oven for baking pottery.

i created a facebook page, 

www.facebook.com/cookiekiln

so that i would have somewhere to post pictures of the cookies that i had made

and to have a place to direct anyone interested in seeing my cookies.

i honestly didn't think that i would get many orders at all, 

and in a way i hoped that i wouldn't get many,

 as i am fairly exhausted after working 50-60 hours a week as a nanny to 5 very active children.

but i thought that i would just give it a chance and see what happened.

i have been overwhelmed with the number of orders that i have gotten, 

mostly word-of-mouth by friends and family.

it has been a very fun, tiring, and incredibly exciting few months.

i honestly never could have hoped to see this kind of response 

without actually marketing my little business in any way...

 facebook and friends are amazing things. haha.

we are praying about the next steps to take in growing this little business. 

but for now i am just enjoying all of the fun, creative orders that my clients have been sending my way.

i will post a few of my favorite orders from the past few months.

i actually made these little onesies for a baby shower last fall.

it was after this shower that my husband really started pushing me to try to make a business out of my baking.

i LOVE paisley!!! 

so i made these for a sweet mommy who was  in the hospital on bedrest,

awaiting the arrival of her baby boy.

these little paint palettes were for a 6-year old's art-themed birthday party

i thought that these little birthday cake cookies were pretty fun.

and a great option for those who dislike cake.

i had several easter cookie orders. 

they were a little time-consuming because of all of the colors, 

but they were SO much fun to make.

and these guitars were for a highschool student's senior thesis presentation.

he actually made that guitar, which i thought was really awesome! 

i had 2 bachelorette party orders the same weekend. 

i thought that they were pretty fun. :)

and i never would have imagined that an upside-down heart-shaped cookie cutter 

would have made such adorable lingerie.

these cute little mommy and baby giraffes were for a baby boy shower this past weekend.

mother's day cookies-

 i did a mother's day cookie give-away on my facebook page.

i ended up giving away 3 dozen because there were too many deserving moms nominated

that i felt like i should give more than one of them an opportunity to win.

another mother's day cookie set

and this was probably one of my favorite cookies that i have made.

i love paisley, and turquoise and seafoam are my favorite colors.

so that is a little bit of what has been going on inside my kitchen walls.

there is so much more going on in our lives beyond the walls of my kitchen,

but i will stop for now.

and just because i am feeling extra generous this year, i thought that i would give away one more set of a dozen cookies on my blog. 

send me a comment either on the blog or on my facebook page telling me about a mom 

(either your own mom, or a friend who is a mom)

that you think should win a dozen cookies.

i will have the random drawing wednesday evening.