To ALL the bouquet ladies,
With all the sincerity of my heart, I give you a standing ovation and a very loud bravo! for all your hard work, passion, talent, and the drive you ALL put into the making of your bouquets and yet you continue day after day and order after order without missing a beat.
The reason I say this with more respect. As someone who had tinkered with the big single cookies (hand paintings) for several years (before CC) the last year Ive spent a whole lot of time in CC reading forum after forum about the beautiful bouquets you make. I thought how hard could that be I had some of the basics, and thanks to hundreds of help questions I thought I pretty well had the makings of stepping outside my comfort zone. You all made it look soooo easy and I thought what the heck, what more would it take to try it myself.
A single call, a friend wanted some bouquets, 6 cookies was all she said, I couldnt get a word out of my mouth due to me sucking in my breath and almost swallowing my tongue. 6 bouquets? Yup, she needed 6 for door prizes at a business meetings next week . This call was on Friday, I asked what day she needed them. Thursday or Friday was said.
I reminded her that I have never done them before and she assured me that she had all the faith in the world in me and knew she would not be disappointed. I have never taken an order that large in a short period of time less then 2 weeks. (due to designing the original image) I was really spooked. Something told me dont do it but the other side said dont disappoint her. Oh well, Ive wanted to give it a try so now it was put up or shut up time for me.
I sat down and put numbers to paper, 6 x 6, including the center piece cookie, plus.plus. then I figured the amount of time in each cookie. Holy Cow! What did I do to myself. I didnt take into consideration that I had to work my second job 2 of those day, so I was minus 2 days. Not counting the day almost wasted since I had to drive 75 miles outside our small town to get to the necessary supplies I would need, (cookie cutters, filaments, cookie bags, ect.)
Well, in the land of Bouquets.It takes a greater amount then what I was ready for. By Monday I was in tears. Yes, real tears. While I was waiting for the cookies to come out of the oven I was working with some of the cookies to see if I was going to get them to stand up. The discouraging fact of why I never made a bouquet was I could never figure out the balancing act. I was short of placing my garden stones in the bottom of the pots to keep them up right. Every attempt I made the cookies were top heavy always wanting to fall forward or backwards. They were lopsided, wont stay in place and spun sideways in the Styrofoam holes.
I was afraid I was going to let down a good friend because the cookie Gods were against me. I was going too fast and trying too hard so I stopedand yes cried some more. (big baby) I was having the biggest solo pitty-party I ever threw.
No I dont have hot flashes only power surges. 
Tuesday morning I go to work. I called my friend back and asked her if she reallllllllllly wanted a 6 sets of bouquets or a bouquet with 6 cookies. I pronounced it very clearly this time. Before she could answer she had to hang up for a customer. Needless to say my friend never called back, my stomach was in knot and I was feeling very ill thinking about going home and fight my dragon of cookies. By the time I made it home the family cleared out like the bugs you see when you kick a can over They were gone. I knew now it was those monstrous cookies or me and there was no way I was going to bow down to crusted pile of doughI never looked at the other 36 that were facing me.
I sat at the table pulled the flowerpot towards me. I took the largest cookie and held it over the pot like a sword. I said, God, its in your hands now, this makes me or breaks me. Before I knew it My bouquet was finished and it never wobbled.
Hearts, flowers, birds or bees, this was divine intervention with NO intention of doing that again Not until someone asks again.
In conclusion, the order turned out to be for 6 cookies in a bouquet. Knowing I finally figured it out I really didn't care. I sold the other 5 for 5 extra dollars and made a good profit.
May the cookie God stand behind you in all that you do. Your amazing in my eyes.
I have the right to edit. I'm tired 
*applause applause* Bravo and congratulations to you! You did it! That is amazing. Just from reading this I can only imagine how difficult it must be to make cookie bouquets. Cookie dough doesn't get along with me so I'll just leave it alone. Congrats again! 
Yea...glad it worked out for you. By the way...how DID you get those pots not to tip over with the cookies standing up in them?
cindycakes,
Like my DH who believe duct tape fixes everything, I broke out my trusty old glue gun. The miracle gadget for decorators.
I glued the styrofoam ball to the bottom of the pot. Doubled the glue amount for extra security. Then I hot glued small sections of the tissue around the styrofoam. This way, I was not fighting the paper like I had the first time.
I then took the center cookie and inserted it into the middle of the ball.
Check for balance here. If it leans either way, re-adjust it to where you have the balance. Once you get the balance remove the cookie and add some hot glue to the center of the stick and re-insert it back into the ball. This does not hurt the stick since the glue will remove easily. I done this method with each cookie.
When you insert the second cookie it should be placed to the side a little farther in front of the center cookie. It will naturally be off balance. Just keep a hold of the flower pot until you get the third cookie in. Then carefully let go. Build from there...adding a cookie in mirrored images such as fron to back.
I am sure there are other ways to do this. As for the glue I didn't worry about cookie and glue touching. The cookies were wraped and the glue was far enough away.
Good luck and best wishes.
You did an absolutely marvelous job! I would lay money down that noone would ever ever guess that it was your first time!
I use floral foam... but the thought of styrofoam and a glue gun sounds a lot easier to me (and cheaper too)!
Thanks for teaching me a trick, and I'm glad all your hard work paid off with a bouquet you can be right proud of!
Are the bouquets you did the valentine bee cookies in your album? Those are really amazing and I can see how you would have no problem selling the extras ... I would have happily bought one from you. I hope you charged a lot of $$. Great, great work!
If nothing else (and I'm sure there's other things), you are a fantastic story teller!
thank you all for your kind comments I can not tell you how much I sit back and laugh about it all now. I told my friend that her bouquet came up to $150.00 for the blood, sweat and tears. Heat from oven, and blood when I couldn't see the ribbon from all the tears and I cut my finger instead.
Yes, my "dragon cookies" are in my album. I wanted to display them like a mounted animal head. The only thing is the eyes on those bees keep following me. *grin*
What didn't show up were the 2 chocolate chip cookies in the back. They were smaller then the show cookies. I also added a small package of 6 tiny peanut butter cookies drizzed with white chocolate.
Since there weren't six show cookies like I have seen most of you do I asked to $25.00 (I've been listening to you in the forums) and I got it on the first 2, with no questions asked. The rest of them when I quoted 25.00 they gave me 30.00 . So I ended up smiling the rest of the day.
If nothing else (and I'm sure there's other things), you are a fantastic story teller!
Lindsayu, my sister just sent me an email and said the exact same thing. LOL
I use floral foam... but the thought of styrofoam and a glue gun sounds a lot easier to me (and cheaper too)!
I was going to use floral foam too but they were too expensive. I know it grips the sticks better by I was being a tight-wad. I am never too far without my trusty glue gun, it fixes every thing.
Good for you! $25 - 30 sounds good. And the next time (oh, sorry, you're probably not ready to think about that yet), they'll go even faster because you've got the design work already done, so you'll have more profit from your labor. Next you should think about charging a design fee for some of those really unique and one-time use original designs.
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%