Haul - Cookie Cutters, Decorating Supplies & More

Our 15 year old emerged from her room one day in early December sporting "new" makeup and teased hair (which was pretty radical for her and also for our fairly conservative eyes) and she happened to mention she had picked "the look" up from a tutorial she watched on YouTube. I didn't give the tutorial part a whole lot of thought at the time, but a few days later, she attempted a (not wholly successful) smokey eye look - again after watching a tutorial. Sometime over the Christmas holiday I decided to check out what's out there on makeup and ended up watching several YouTube tutorials on hair and makeup. I just decided that before I got all excited about her "new look" that I'd make sure I wasn't just entirely out of touch - after all, I am 45 now - maybe things really have changed that much. I picked up some new tips and fresh ideas for me too as well as some videos from some younger folks on what not to do that somewhat supported our more conservative parental view.

Along the way, I became hooked on videos of "hauls". The makeup artists/stylists actually do videos showing what they purchased and even review the products. Just since Thanksgiving and particularly since New Years, I've picked up quite a few new cookie cutters, decorating supplies, and other goodies for my kitchen and I thought to myself "why can't I do a haul post on the goodies I've picked up?". So here it is, albeit not in video format, here are photos and (sometimes) descriptions on my recent purchases. I have refrained from going all the way back to Thanksgiving, but I am including a couple great finds from prior to Christmas that helped me fulfill my very first order!

I picked these up at Walmart along with a couple of squeeze bottles to use for my flood icing. I needed a good sized star for the cookies we were putting in the goody bags at the resort.

I found this set at my local Ben Franklin - I think I paid $8.99 for the whole box. I really needed the large tree shape for the goody bags, but my kids used some of the other cutters when they made cookies for Christmas. I also found some beautiful sugars to decorate the cookies with.

I purchased these online from the Cookie Cutter Company. Their prices are really good and I placed my order on January 1st and received my order by the end of that first week in January. I was impressed that they got them shipped to me so quickly, even over the holiday!

I ordered these from Copper Gifts. I have a project in mind and the squirrel, sadly, turned out to be a bit too big - but it was a learning experience and he's extremely cute, so I'm sure I'll find a use for him eventually. I also placed my Copper Gifts order New Years Day and recieved my order by the end of the week. Excellent service!

I ordered all of these (including the next couple of photos) from Off the Beaten Path. My oldest daughter has a thing for Moose so I ordered the moose cutters for an as yet undetermined project for her. I ordered the Penguin just because it's so stinkin cute and the kangaroo cutter was so we could make cookies for our Australian student visitor from last year. Her birthday was yesterday and we meant to send them for her birthday, but with the power having been out for a week, I'm way behind on my projects now. The remaining cutters are for another project I have in mind. Somehow I managed to order 3 of the same moose head cutter - so I guess I'll be putting them away for a gift or my first giveaway...hmmm...

I've been wanting some of these evenbands. If you're not familiar with them, they are bands that you slide onto your rolling pin so you can roll your cookie dough, pie crust, or whatever to the correct depth. I haven't gotten to test them out yet becuase I have a monster rolling pin that is too big for them. But I plan to test them out as soon as I pick up a new rolling pin.

Finally, these were purchased on clearance for just $1.85 for the whole set. Yes, the whole set! This whole cookie thing started for me when I was searching for a skull cookie cutter so we could make Dia de los Muertos cookies. But I realized we wouldn't get the cutter in time and it led me all over the internet looking for instructions on making your own cookie cutters. I found instructions, but also found a much easier first cookie design to try. But now, we'll have a skull cutter for next year - I can hardly wait!

Finally, I've been wanting an indoor grill and I picked this up recently at Costco for just about $25.00! I've used it so much already, I absolutely love it!

It's made by NordicWear and it's grill on one side, griddle on the other. Hopefully you can tell from the picture that it takes up 2 burners on my stove. We used it quite a bit while the power was out (hooray for a gas stove!) to cook up some of the items from the freezer that I had purchased on that same Costco shopping trip.

Well, there you have it, my first haul post! This was a pretty long one, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway. Please share your thoughts - if this is a type of post you enjoy, I'll include more in the future, if not, then, well, I won't.

Until next time, happy cooking & baking!