Okay, okay so I have totally neglected you all! I am soo sorry.. I have been super busy just like you... but I finally snuck away to share some stuff I have been busy with!
Before I get to my son's and my most recent project can I wish you all a HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!?
ANY SPECIAL PLANS?
My husband and I never make special plans, not because we hate each other or anything, but because we get super busy around the most important times, whether it be because he has come into a ton of work (which we love) or its party time at school.. blah blah blah.. :)
SOO, my son made some very cool Valentines Cookie pops for his classmates and teacher this year. I am so bored with the simple mass produced china made valentines they have at the store, they have no appeal to me anymore...or did they EVER?
SOO I thought why not bring the kids cookies!?
...I have had lollipop sticks hanging around for a long time and I wanted to make some for my little nephew's birthday party but just wasn't able to, SO we made these sweet HEART POPS ;0
With the help of my
cricut expression
and some simple shapes and cute paper, we also made the "valentines" to attach to these pops.
Now I want to share with you the process, I also want to gloat and share the fact that my son can now follow direction without veering too far =).. with little guidance my son did a GREAT job. He will be turning 7 this month. So if you have any kids this is a fun project.. even if its too late for valentines day, you could make flower cookie pops for Mother's Day... or perhaps some cute springtime
Easter cookies
... and if your the Irish at heart some
green clovers
.
ANYHOW enough rambeling ... we started with a fresh sugar cookie dough which we rolled between wax paper straight out of the mixing bowl (this is one of my biggest time savers, no one has time to chill the dough then roll it out with flour and then chill it again!). Once James rolled the dough we froze it; TIME SAVER! Just look at this little stud rolling that dough! Not too thin james!!
I'll share my recipe and other tips soon enough, please subscribe to make sure you get that information!
NOW, after we froze the dough for about 15-20 minutes we started to cut out the shapes (freezing is another time saver but you could also forget about the cookie dough and still come back to it days later, hello it's frozen; it will last forever...well not forever just enough for you to get to what you need to do).
Once the shapes were cut we placed the lollipop sticks into the ends of the hearts, yes we violated the cookie dough something fierce, but so worth it!
Once they were all probed we slapped them back into the freezer for another 15-20 minutes. Oven is on and heated to temp, we put them into the oven for about 9 minutes. The key to the cookie is they not brown (if I ever refer to a cookie as burned it means I browned them: to a crunchy cookie lover my burned cookies are heaven) I only wish I could sell my browned cookies ;).
Once they have baked for 9 minutes and they no longer glisten in the oven they are done! Mommy removed them from the hot oven while he set up the tent for his Saturday night camp out in the living room, they sat out untill cooled. We had tons of stuff to do that night so we ended up icing them the following morning after Mr. Camper woke up.
So we started with our outline in royal icing colored just right.
Now I had long and short lollipop sticks and I've got more of the short BUT since we wanted to add a tag on the stick I chose to use the longer (I think they are about 6 inches).
So once we added the outlines we were able to use our flood icing and fill them up!
That's my little guy's chubby fingers :)
Here he is with the cookies
I am so proud of him being patient and of having the skills like his mommy :).. and he is VERY PROUD of himself!
hhe loves to show off!
So after we iced them we added our sprinkle of choice and allowed them to dry.
Once they dried I decided to use a small plastic favor bag and close them and tied red and white ribbon.
Here is a list of links on the things I used
Lollipop sticks
Favor bags 
Sprinkle 1
sprinkle 2
ribbon
paper of your choice
tape- I used my new
ATG gun
(I LOVE IT) but a small role of tape or even double sided works!
some heart die cuts, contact
me if you would like to purchase
heart button
apple brads
some
ink
for around the die cuts (makes the pieces pop)
glue dots
..and I think thats it.. oh wait LOVE AND PATIENCE!
I used
wild cards
cricut cartridge for my heart tags (I used the liner feature for the heart card button and cut them at 6 (I did not use real dial size) so it actually cut at a 3 inch heart...
James picked out an adorable polka dot paper and we cut out 20 something hearts.
we inked Rouge ink around the edges and I printed the "to" and "from" with a
zig black ink
and added some lines for James to print his class 'mates names on them. On the back I inked a white heart just to add an image since James wanted too :)
I have an adorable
heart paper punch
that I used to punch (avoiding our writing) holes for the sticks.
When the icing dried we added the favor bags and then tied a bow to hold that cookie inside there.
As you can see from the picture above we slipped the heart valentine on the bottom of the stick.
Then we worked on the teacher's valentine! I have to say I was worried about his teacher this year since she seemed really strict, BUT it turns out it is just what James needed for 1st grade and we are on the same page with him and our passion to make James successful! I <3 Mrs. Bauer!
So we had to make her heart pops special, she gets a bouquet!
I used NO template, just cut a long rectangle and swirled it together and taped it where I thought it would look nice ;) FREE HAND boys and girls! Then I punched a heart in each side, threaded the thick ribbon through, tied a simple knot and taped the ribbon end to the inside of the cone just to make sure it didn't pull too much while my son is carrying it to school and rip out the punches. Oh yeah, then we added a valentine to the back
Stamped the cutest little
elephant stamp
with white pigment ink and James added his note :). I cut a flower from the
accent essentials cartridge 
in a 1.75 inch and then the patterned paper in a 1.5, inked the outsides to make them pop and taped those together. Used that glue dot to add the button (it will NEVER fall off because of the all mighty glue dot) and then I add some pop dimensional stickers to put it onto the heart. On the back of the heart we put a small apple brad so that Mrs. Bauer could see it poking through the cookie pops and make her smile
..and ON TOP of all that simple crafting :) I cut the tops off a kraft box .. punched heart holes in a pattern and added a ribbon to opposite sides to make a carrying vessel for James' cookie pops :).
Now here it is, this is where I ask you not to call me Martha because it is NOT a "Good Thing" it is a fantastic thing, and probably something that we will try to outdo every year now :)
I only hope that my son grows up to be a very romantic young man and takes the time to smell the roses and MAKES the time to treat his lady very well! (JUST to clarify he will not have a "lady" until he is 35+, he can't date until then)
Until next time which I hope is very soon, I'll say good day!
XOXO
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!
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