31 Holiday Tradtion Ideas

I thought this post from last year could use a little bump. There are a lot of ideas in it to make this Holiday season extra special. Hope you enjoy it.


31 Holiday Tradition Ideas

I'll be back with new ideas soon!

{One Eyed Monster Cookies}

Bean loves to dress up. He's very into drama, he's been in his drama club at school since 6th grade, he attends drama camp, and he performs in a local kid's theater in the summer months.

He hasn't actually Trick or Treated since he was in 5th grade, but dress up? YOU BET.

When he was little my favorite costume was this one

I mean, c'mon! My little stinker.

When he started choosing his own costumes, they were, well, not the norm. Like, seriously, what 8 year old begs to be D'Artagnan for Halloween? Just mine.

When he was 13 he wanted to be The Dread Pirate Roberts for a Halloween Dance. I'm so proud.

When he was 14 we went to the Ohio Comic Con. He wanted to be Doctor Horrible. Awesome.

I can't even begin to tell you how many people asked for photos of him. It was insane.


This amazing re-creation was made by my talented Mother in Law. (along with the skunk and D'Artagnan- as well as many others through the years). Rule 1 here. Tina doesn't sew. Ever.


And this, just last week at our Youth Group Fall Fest...

V from V for Vendetta.


There have been many, many other costumes in between, from dressing up for Ren Fest, to Eleven for our Doctor Who party, to Ron Weasley for our Hogwarts parties, to all his costumes for plays... He does enjoy a good disguise.

One thing he never dressed as? A monster. No idea why, but he never, ever dressed as anything creepy or spooky. Probably why my Monster cookies are cute instead of creepy, eh?

These guys are totally fast and easy. A great project for your little ones this halloween (or anytime, monsters are always in season!). Kids will love rolling these in the jimmies!

This starts with a basic Snickerdoodle cookie. You will tint the dough, then, instead of rolling in cinnamon and sugar, you will roll in jimmies. These could be any color you want, I just really liked my purple jimmies. I even think they would be totally cute if they were rolled in the (very easy to find) rainbow jimmies! Top with a big dot of buttercream, then with buttercream tinted black, draw on your pupil and mouth. Give him a lopsided grin, give him a wiggly mouth, big grin, little grin, it's all up to you!

Easy, no special skills required.

Done!

And lookit how cuuuuuuute.

However, Dear Monster, no matter how cute you are... you are going in my belly!

Sorry, not sorry!

NOW, for more eyebally goodness, step on over to Bakingdom and check out the Soft & Chewy Googly Eye Cookies  that Darla made! You won't believe your EYES. (I HAD to say it).

Tina

PS, tint these puppies green and roll in green jimmies and you have Mike Wazowski!


You can find lots of great jimmies at Bake it Pretty.


One Eye Monster Cookies
by Tina @ Sugar Bean Bakers

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening (I prefer Crisco)
1  1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2  3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
food coloring*
jimmies

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cream together butter, shortening, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Add food coloring and mix until well blended. Shape dough (about a tablespoon) into balls. Roll balls in jimmies. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets (or parchment/silpat lined sheets). Lightly flatten. Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until set but not too hard. (I baked mine 8 minutes)

Allow cookies to cool completely. 

Make up a batch of  buttercream. Use this to pipe** on the eyeballs. Pipe the pupils and mouth from buttercream tinted black.

*I recommend gel colorings

**Wilton Tip numbers: Eyeball- 1A,  Pupil- 12,   Mouth- 13

.

slightly adapted from this recipe found at www.allrecipes.com.

{Bunny Feet Cookies}

Easter is a crazy busy time of year around here. I'm sure it is at your house too. 

The Bean's birthday is always close to Easter (April 9), so since the whole fam damily is already here for Easter dinner, we just have his family party the same day. His huge, massive, 20+ teenager blowout comes in May when it's warmer and drier in Ohio, cause, yeah, they aren't all partying in my house.

No.

Anyway, I have much to do today (treats for 15 Easter bags, sculpt more fondant items for the Bean's birthday cake, make Hot Cross Buns), but I had to take a second and post these for you.

Cause I love you.

These are made with a basic rolled sugar cookie dough, buttercream, plain sugar, and pink chocolate (or white chocolate tinted pink).

To get the foot shape, I used a cheap Easter egg cutter that I squished it a little. For the toes, I used the medium flower cutter in this set by Wilton. 

I think that the little toes the flower makes are super cute, but I'm fully convinced that these would be cute just with the egg shape if you cannot locate the flowers.

After that, I melted up some pink chocolate, and piped toe pads and paw pads onto parchment paper.

As those dried, I iced the cookies in a buttercream, and topped with tons of sugar!

Cause sugar.

Once the chocolate was dry, I peeled them from the paper and placed 3 toes and 1 pad onto the cookie. I used the back, flat side of the chocolate. 

And that's it! Bunny feets!

Delicious, delicious bunny feets!

Hoppy Easter!

(Yeah, I just went there.)

Hope you have a fantastic Easter filled with sugar and joy!

Tina

Bunny Feet Cookies

Needed:

Rolled Sugar Cookie Recipe

Buttercream Recipe

Cookie Cutters

More Sugar for Topping

Pink Tinted Chocolate