Cookies, Cupcakes, and an MRI

Just in case you didn’t know… it’s Friday!! Again! Holy moly the time is flying by in these parts, and I feel like I have so much to tell you!

First, I’ve been working on my cookie decorating! I’m definitely more of a cake decorator, but I really love how creative you can be with cookies. Plus, I can mail them! It’s pretty hard to put a cake in a box and FedEx it to someone, this way if I have a friend that I want to send a “I’m thinking of you” card to, I can also include a sweet treat.

So I know the Cupcake Cookie isn’t super original, but I do think it’s super cute! I have many friends who “like” cupcakes, but are honestly more in it for the icing and would much prefer a cookie! I also have a few friends, two to be exact, who may or may not be guilty of buying canned icing and putting it on their warm, freshly baked cookies! So in reality, these cookies are dedicated to them! They know who they are :)

Next on the agenda is the winners of the Pin Wheel Cupcake Topper giveaway! As promised there are two winners, one randomly selected from the blog and another from Bertie’s Bakery Facebook.

The Facebook “Liker” who was randomly selected was: 

Reem Paulus! You should totally check out her Facebook page as well, great work posted there! http://www.facebook.com/CakealiciousByReem

And the Winner from my comments was:

Robin @ Bird on a cake! Her blog is also something else! Great work by this baker/blogger as well!

Lastly, here are a few things that grabbed my attention this week. Pretty sure you’ll like them too!

These cookies were posted by A Dozen Eggs Bake Shoppe, and while I think the shamrock and flag are cool, I beg to wonder why those sweaters are in the back??? LOOK at those sweater cookies! I’m wildly entertained and impressed by the idea and execution! Well done, well done!

Next up is blogger Lizy B.I literally just booked my tickets to Florida with my sister the other day, and basically all we are going to do for a week is read, sun tan, read, sun tan, read… well you get the point. So where does Miss. Lizy B. come into all of this? I also just bought the whole lot of Hunger Games books on my kindle. I plan on reading them all in one beach vacation! These cookies blew me away! What great work, I love the painted symbols!

Lastly, but certainly not least:

“Good Lord” is what I said when I read the title of this blog. The District Chocoholic posted “Birthday Cake Brownies” and I knew I was in for it. If you haven’t checked out her blog, she is the chocolate diva! Seriously, she is a chocolate connoisseur and can tell you all about different kinds, and the chocolate shops in our area! Lots of good information found there!

Okay that’s it for now! Hope you have a great Friday! Most of mine will be spent at the hospital/ orthopedic specialist as I finally agreed to get an MRI/Arthrogram. More on that later :( Wish me luck! 

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DIY FRIDAY: Pinwheel Cupcake Toppers

Yes it’s Friday! I love Fridays, and because they put me in such a good mood, I’m going to share my steps to making these super cute cupcake toppers, AND then I’m going to give them away!

Yup that’s right, there will be TWO lucky winners of these cupcake toppers, but before we get ahead of ourselves with the giveaway, lets figure out how to make these cuties incase you don’t win!

Step 1:

Cut out 2”x2” squares of what ever color double sided paper you want! (Double sided paper just means paper that is going to have either color or designs on either side, instead of just white…unless that’s what you want of course!)

Step 2:

Cut diagonal lines starting from each corner going into the center about 1”. You do not need to flip over the paper, I just wanted to show you my two sided paper!

Step 3:

Now fold the first corner (A) into the center of the square. Don’t crease this fold, just kind of bend it so it holds its shape. Do this to each “A” corner on the squares.

This is what your squares should look like once you have molded/folded each of the A corners inwards.

Step 4:

Now take each pinwheel and cut a small slit in the bottom of one of your folds. This only has to be big enough to slide a toothpick through. I like doing it this way because it hides the toothpick and glue, and it just looks a little bit cleaner. If you do not have a blade to do this with, no worries we can just glue the toothpick to the back. 

Step 5:

Open up all of your folds and slide the toothpick through your newly made slit. Hot glue toothpick to the center of the square.

Step 6:

Using little dabs of hot glue start re-folding in each “A” corner and folding them there until the glue has cooled and the fold is now permanent.

Keep going all the way around.

Step 7:

Once all the corners are folded in and glued, add one more dab of hot glue and adorn the pinwheel with any thing you like. I used fake pearls that I had saved from an old necklace I used to love! But you could use buttons, pompoms, or even paper circles from the left over paper.

See wasn’t that easy?

Now, I know exactly what some of you are thinking “Wow, that was informative, now how do I get my free pinwheels?”. Well here’s what you can do. There will be two winners of the Pinwheel Cupcake Toppers.

The winners will win a set of 12 Pinwheels, and I will mail them out pronto!

1: One winner will simply be random selection of all of your comments left below!

2: The second winner will be randomly selected from readers who have “Liked” Bertie’s Bakery Facebook page. So if you have already “Liked” me, you’re already in, if not what are you waiting for??? (And no need to leave a second comment below, I got ya covered in all the page-likers.)

3: I know I know, I never said anything about a third option. But I have to admit, I do not understand Pintrest and that makes me a little sad. I mean I “get it”, as in I fully understand why and how it has gone so viral, but I haven’t really figured out how to get my work “Pinned”. So if you are one of those “pinners” and you pin either the first or second picture from this post (I imagine you would then link back to my page as well?) then you may leave a second comment for a bonus entry! Is that cool?

***Entries Close 11:59 Tuesday, March 6th ***

Lastly, if it seems like you guys enjoy this give away, then I’ll be sure to do another next week for St. Patty’s Day! Not pinwheels but another type of cupcake topper I have up my sleeve!

Thanks for reading, have a great weekend!

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Friday Freebie!

This is the first installment of Friday Freebies, and it came after a long debate! The Boss and I have very different interpretations on what a “Freebie” is, and therefore it is highly possible that you and I could also have a different understanding. So I hear by declare this explanation as how its going to work for Bertie’s Bakery Freebies!

*I consider the Freebie Friday section a place where people can come to download or copy something useful for FREE, or, sign up for something and receive it in the mail for FREE.

*Freebies are guaranteed, and again… FREE! Therefore you don’t have to do one of those internet scavenger hunts, in-depth linking festivals, or forced comment to get what you came for. Just take it and run :)

*I will try my very very best to make these interesting and useful! However, since they are free, please don’t yell too loudly at me if you don’t like. Pretty please.

Okay, there’s the explanation, and without further ado, here are the goods!

What is that you say? Free Cupcakes? No… but a free template to print to make your very own cupcake wrappers! I have made my own cupcake wrappers on several batches of cupcakes lately, and with such great feedback I thought this was the perfect project to start off the Freebies!

Let us start with WHY would a person go through the effort of making their own cupcake wrapper? Well I think it’s quite obvious (as per the photo above). I have spent more ol’ time and money searching for the “perfect” cupcake wrapper for a specific occasion and then after the cupcake is baked you can’t see the color or pattern anymore!!

So for my last two batches of cupcakes I decided I had had enough and I was taking charge of the wrapper design! Now you can too!

Above is the PDF template that you can download, print, and cut out; just click the picture! This allows you to have a pattern to trace onto a card stock or design paper of your choice! Here are the easy steps to go with!

1) First step is to trace!

Trace out the template on to the back of your printed images of colored cardstock.

***Tip: if you are trying to fit 5 wrappers onto one page, start tracing from the top down. It is okay to slightly overlap the very bottom edges to make it all fit because the bottoms will be folded under later!

2) Then Cut!

As a time saver, carefully cut out the same sides of each wrapper and the top edge! Then you will stack them together so the top and (one) side match up perfectly. Now you can cut 3-5 wrappers at one time!

3) Snip some more.  Still holding your wrappers 3-5 thick, go ahead and make slits on the bottom half of the wrapper so you can seamlessly fold the bottom in! (Exact slit markings are on the template)

4) Fit wrapper to the cupcake.

Now wrap your paper wrapper around the base of the cupcake, tape it in place and fold in the individual pieces on the bottom!

5) Take lots of pictures of your creation!! 

That’s all! Four very quick and easy steps! It will take you more time to pick out the perfect cardstock a Michaels than it will to make these!

Well that’s all for this Freebie Friday! Now get away from your computer and go bake some pretty cupcakes!!

********House Keeping Note********

The winner of the SmartBar giveaway was lucky commenter #21:

Unfortunately “gajkelley” doesn’t have an e-mail address attached to their Blogger profile. If this is you “gajkelley” shoot me an e-mail with your info and you’ll be enjoying a fresh batch of SmartBars next week!

Happy Friday!

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