Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Cookies





Every August for three years I've made a gift basket for the county fair that takes place close to where I live. The rules are simple:

4 kinds of cookies
6 cookies of each kind

None of the contents of the baskets are tasted. The whole gift-basket thing is basically an exercise in packaging. (And making durable cookies. Or at least learning how to glue and tape broken pieces of food together.)

I won't tell you all the rules for cakes, essays, beer, spices, paper-mache sculptures, fudge, quilts, bread, woodcarving, scarecrow-making, gourd growing, blackberry arranging- and goodness gracious, photography! 
(Don't get me started on that- I'll discuss it later. The photography part of the fair is my absolute favorite place. Seriously. I think I'll just camp out there for a week until the fair is over.)

Anyway.

The baskets are usually themed.
My theme for this year is "flower garden." Not terribly original, but I'm pleased with the results:



I got these amazing plastic bag gift bags a few years ago. I finally used the last of them to wrap up my cookie pops. (And yes, they ARE cookie pops. I stuck the "stems" into florists' foam hidden in the bottom of the basket.)


DSCN2038 
OK, so the frosting on the mushrooms got a little squashed. But I still love the color combination. (Plus they taste wonderful with all the cinnamon and chocolate...)


The chocolate biscotti look kind of unappetizing, and I'm still wincing at that squished polka-dot...but I'm done! Which makes me happy.
The fair starts next week, so sometime later I'll get to go and see if my stuff is still in one piece!

The drop-off date is Saturday, and since I'll be gone until Sunday night, my helpful grandpa is going to deliver the basket and my photos.

Speaking of photos....

Never mind.
I need to finish packing. Louis and I had a contest today to see who could pack the lightest. He won, of course. 


This is the only bag I'm taking. With a few things on the side;) I love my Pindar bag.


All for now,

Natalie

6 comments:

Meg said...

Oooooo... My mouth watereth yea verily for the peanut buttereth cookies.

Sandie said...

Cute idea, Natalie! Love your header. It's so pretty. :)

Autumn said...

Love the gift basket! :)

The mushrooms are truly awesome! You had better win... ;)

~Autumn

Elizabeth J. said...

How cute and creative!

Joy said...

They look great! Love the
idea.

Samantha said...

Thats cool,
I did our local fair for 2 years.. i just baked cookies and stuff like that :)


Samantha