Halloween Treats & Sweets

Hello, there!

It's Papertrey Ink countdown time and you know what that means... group posts!

We're counting down the days until August's release and today the design team is bringing you loads of Halloween inspiration with this month's new Halloween Treats & Sweets set.

I was super excited to bust out some more homemade baked goodies for this one...

and I also added in a semi-homemade treat, too.

Lots of sweets options here at the ol' blog :)
Because, let's face it... sometimes you've got the time to go all homemade and sometimes you don't.

The beauty of this project is that the Halloween Treats & Sweets stamps do all the decorating for you!
Seriously.

The idea is that the sugar cookies (in the bigger bag) and the dipped Oreos suckers (on the right) are just plain cookies but the bags they're wrapped in provide the Halloween faces.  So no tricky drawing with icing, etc!  All you need to do is stamp to cute-ify these cookies!


For the sugar cookies, I went super, super simple with solid royal icing.  I went with gray for the cat, spider, and bat cookies, white for the skeleton cookies, and orange for the pumpkin cookies.  The packaging allows the cookies to show through a bit so the the color and shape end up forming the base for the little critter faces.

The process was very similar to my first cookie project.  The basic steps of baking, outlining, and filling are the same so check it out.

I used the same cookie recipe (from Bee In Our Bonnet) and went with simple circles to serve as the "faces" for all of the little Halloween critters. 

I switched the icing to Sweet Sugarbelle's version this time around.     The consistency of the icing worked out better for me with this recipe.  Sweet Sugarbelle also has a great tutorial on the actual icing process as well. 

{I love, love, LOVE her tips for preparing the icing and using a spray bottle to thin down the icing from outlining consistency down to flooding consistency.  I'll be using that tip until the day I die and give up crafting and cookies for the dessert bar in heaven.}

I definitely wanted to keep the cookies simple.  They're meant to be given as Halloween treats, and, let's be real here, I know they wouldn't last long :) But just because they're simple doesn't mean they can't be all glittery, right?

So, I added a little pearl dust to each one.

Perhaps I was drawn to it because it's essentially Pearl Ex for cookies :)
No Versamark needed, though, haha!  Just let your cookies dry completely and brush the powder on.

In the picture below, you can see the difference between the pearly gray cookie and the non-pearly gray cookie.

I baked the cookies one night, then whipped up the icing and got them all covered the next morning.  Truly, it was pretty easy so don't be scared.  I baked and iced 2 dozen with pretty minimal effort. 

If you're not into homemade cookies, you could always go with the Lofthouse brand iced sugar cookies that are always out for the holidays. 
Now for the fun part :)

I stamped Papertrey's medium glassine bags with each of the little critter faces then slipped the cookies inside.  I flipped the top of the bag down on the front side just for a little extra detail.

That left the perfect little spot for a stamped sentiment and some stitching to close everything up...

Really digging the mix of fonts on the sentiments in this set.

And the Treats & Sweets dies... good grief they are stinkin' cute!  I think the extra details totally make the critters. 

Love the little spider legs here....

We'll come back to those cutie pie critters in a second.  For the moment, let's consider the semi-home made chocolate dipped Oreo treats.

Blech.  Sounds terrible, right? ;)

Riiiiiight.

Here's what I used....

Note the Double Stuf Oreos.
{As in Oreos with twice the yummy deadly goodness inside.}

Gluttony is not the only reason for this dessert choice.
Oh, no.
It's actual common sense.
I swear.

The extra thick layer actually makes it super easy to put the sucker stick in without breaking the cookie apart.

See?
Sweet logic.

Once you're cookies are all ready, it's time to dip 'em. 

To get the colors I needed, I used two different methods.  I already had the almond bark (available in the baking aisle of the grocery store) so I used that for white.  I figured I could just purchase orange and gray candy melts at a craft store but I figured out pretty quick that gray is apparently not a popular candy melt color and, therefore, not actually made.

Oops.

They do, however, make candy coloring, so I used a bit of that in the almond bark to come up with gray.
It was super simple.  (Important to note... you must use coloring labeled for "candy" use; not plain colors made for icing.  The regular colors will react with the candy melts or almond bark and cause the texture to seize up.)

To cover the oreos, just heat a bit of the almond bark or candy melts in the microwave.  The goal is to get it hot but not too hot :) Hot enough to spread over the cookies, but not so hot that you melt the oreo stuffing.  Do yourself a favor and stick the oreos on a stick in the freezer for a few minutes first.

I used a spatula to draw the liquid over the oreo, making sure to catch the stick with the almond bark.  Then I just dragged the backside of the cookie across the edge of the cup and tap, tap, tapped the stick on the edge until everything looked smooth and pretty on the front.

To let them dry, I just stuck them in a weighted bowl like so...

What I learned with the different products is that I *much* preferred the almond bark to the candy melts for this project.  It seemed to melt better, cover better, dry better, and taste better.  In the future, I'll just purchase the candy colors and use almond bark instead the candy melts.

And now... for the fun part again...

A little gaggle of Halloween critters :)

I used Papertrey's small glassine bags for this one.  Just stamp the little face on the bag and punch a hole in the bottom for the stick to go through.  {Put a piece of cardstock behind the bag when you punch... totally helps you to get a clean punch.}

Slip the cookie in and stitch across the top. 

I added a little sentiment flag to each made with the double ended banner dies...

And the little tiny dies for the bat wings, spider legs, and cat ears... love 'em.  The stamp set has stamps to add the details to the die cuts... so, so cute :)

And good grief, I think this is the cutest little skeleton face I've ever seen...

Only made cuter when there's two of them...

Or two little pumpkin faces...

Or bats with wings...

Or spiders with legs :)

And, of course... the little kitty cat.

I couldn't decide whether to do a scary black cat (gray) or a sweet dressed-up-for-Halloween kitty (white), so, of course, I did both...

And... of course, I stuck everything in the freezer to save for Halloween.

Or not :)

In reality, making these little treats coincided with the Great Potty Training Escapades o' 2011 in the Witty household.  And when I promised Noelle a special treat for progress of any sort (I was reaching desperation mode here) she immediately said "Hookies?  Hookies?"

As in, "cookies! cookies!"

So trust me... these cookies are already being used as treats & sweets in this house :) 


To see all the Halloween cuteness that the rest of the team came up with, check 'em out right here...
Nichole Heady
Betsy Veldman
Erin Lincoln
Maile Belles
Lisa Johnson
Dawn McVey
Heather Nichols
Melissa Phillilps
Michelle Wooderson
Danielle Flanders

Happy haunting!



 

{Halloween Treats & Sweets Cookies & Dipped Oreo Pops}

Stamps - Halloween Treats & Sweets

Ink - True Black

Cardstock - True Black, Smokey Shadow

Dies - Mega Halloween Treats & Sweets, Mini Halloween Treats & Sweets, Double-Ended Banners