It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

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And my kitchen's on its way to looking like a cookie factory! Right here we have Chai Spice Gingerbread Rounds with a variety of decor.

I thought I'd save myself some time Sunday night (these are for me, not for clients) so I bought Wilton Cookie Icing at Michael's instead of making my own multiple batches of different colored royal icing. Well, it was a pain anyway. I was not thrilled w/ the cookie icing bottles. They were much too runny. I ended up pouring some into a bowl, adding powdered sugar to increase the stability, and then using a piping bag. SO MUCH FOR TIME SAVING TACTICS! And I had such wonderful dreams of cute little faces and fabulous designs. I guess it'll just have to wait until next time!

On a side note, the taste of the cookie icing was just fine if you're curious. So in that regard, it's alright. Just not if you want quality control of your design!

One more thing. You might be like "Chai spice gingerbread rounds? But how can I make chai spice gingerbread rounds myself?" Easy. Add cardamom. The spices in most gingerbread recipes are already pretty close to chai. What really clinches it is adding cardamom. I used Martha Stewart's gingerbread recipe from her Baking Handbook and added 1.5 tsp of powdered cardamom. It added a very wonderful flavor. Just enough to notice, but not too much to over-power. However, you can add as much as you desire! Your cookies, your rules!

Current project...

Buy it, use it, print it, tape it... (to the tune of Daft Punk "Technologic")

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As some of you may or may not know, I have another side business. I'm a graphic designer in my real everyday life and my other business (aside from my full-time job) is as a paper goods designer--Sweet Bippy Papers. My best sellers are the recipe cards, hands down. So anyway, here at the Sugarlush kitchen/Sweet Bippy Papers factory (otherwise known as my apartment), I'm busy working on some Christmas wrapping tags. My plan is to post them in my Etsy shop as a printable PDF. I might also post them as real, physical, pre-cut tags with adhesive. I'm not quite sure yet. But what I DO know, is that I hope to have these puppies up in my shop by Friday. That'd be ideal. There are also two more designs (a green & a blue), but that'll just have to be surprise for when they're posted! ;-)

*UPDATE: They're now available! Check them out here.