Easter Cookies and a Free Printable for Easter Cookie Bags

It's almost Easter! I went today and bought candy to make an Easter basket for my son. After this weekend, he will receive one more Easter basket from his parents and then be off and away to college and finding his way in this world. It's weird how everything is down to the last 13 months with my "baby" boy! Our daughters are already grown and living their own full lives and all to soon, Nick will be too. Okay, enough of that! Can you tell I miss him already!

So we returned from vacation in Palm Beach, Florida Sunday night and by Tuesday I was already baking cookies. I was excited to try out my two new Easter cookie cutters from www.coppergifts.com! In all I used 18 different Easter cookie cutters for many designs. At the bottom of this post, make sure to check out the Easter printable tags that I made for my cookie bags. For my baking friends, you can download the printable for your own cookie bags too.

So here's the cookies that I came up with for our Easter family festivities this Sunday. I did a little experimenting too. Lately I've been really liking the definition that outlining brings, so I made almost all the cookies in an outlined version and also a non-outlined version so I could see which I preferred and also get input from my kids as to their preference. My daughter likes every cookie outlined and loves the detail. My son doesn't care and just wants to eat cookies ;-)

My favorite are the sheep. They were my favorite last year too. They are just so darn cute. There are some with pink faces and some with black faces. I made one special little lamb with dots for his coat instead of the swirly details. As a glaze icing gal, that took quite a bit of time since glaze doesn't really stand up. I had to come back to the cute lamb 4 times for different dots, but he was worth it. So tell me do you prefer the ones that are outlined or the ones without the outline? Mellissa and I have chosen the outline for our preference. Again Nick just wants to eat the sheep and doesn't care if there is detail ;-)

My newest cookie cutter from Copper Gifts is the huge bunny in egg. The cookie measures 7.5 x 4.25! Woo-hoo that's my kind of cookie! They were really fun to make too. So do you prefer the one on the left with the outlining or the one on the right without outlining?

Next up is some large bunny head cookies. I decided to outline all these because they were just to darn cute that way... Thanks to SugarBelle and to The Painted Cookie for guiding me on how to finally get the pink cheeks right using luster dust.

and some smaller bunny heads...

and then I made only TWO of these very special chocolate bunnies. I gave one to a friend and I hid one away for Nick to enjoy on Easter. This cookie is about 10 inches tall! They aren't really chocolate, but I used chocolate brown colored icing, so they look pretty authentic.

I also made some bunny profile cookies that were really cute and I thought they would be my favorite, but when I added the whiskers, I didn't like them quite as much. I'll have to figure out another way for next year. In the meantime, do you like the one on the right with the outlining or prefer the one on the left without the outline? I've decided I prefer the one with the detailed outlining as it just makes it pop a bit more, but I also like the softness of the one without the outline...

Now our bunnies need some carrots, so I made a couple varieties. I like the one with the outline, but I think Nick preferred the one without the outline... as if he really cares...!

and smaller carrots. On this one I preferred it without the outline.

Moving on to Chicks and Ducks. On both of these, I preferred without the outline better, but Mellissa liked the ones with the outline better.

and the rubber duckies too

so this is when I've started to figure out a pattern of my preference... have you figured it out yet?

I could be wrong, but I think I've realized that my personal preference on outlining is that if it is a simplistic set of colors like two colors or a simple pattern that doesn't have much detail anyway, I seem to prefer without the outline. When it is a more intricate design with more colors, I love that the outline makes it pop and show the detail much better. I think that's what I've learned from doing these Easter cookies in two ways. What do you think? While you ponder that, here are some Cross cookies. I haven't mastered Loren's beautiful roses found here: The Baking Sheet's Rose Making Tutorial. Did I say I haven't mastered them? Honestly I haven't even tried! I'm a wimp and she does them so beautifully. I'll just watch in awe for now! So in other words, yes I bought these little flowers and stuck them on the crosses :-)

so yes, I bought these cute duckies too...

Another new cookie cutter that I ordered from www.coppergifts.com is the new marshmallow bunnies cookie cutter. I bought the small one and decided it would look more authentic to smoosh two of them together like the real marshmallow messy ones. I decided I like the non-outlined ones best as they look more authentic. Everyone in my family, except for my mom, don't like the actual marshmallow bunny candies, but these cookie versions are pretty yummy. Hubby especially likes the cookies that have lots of sanding sugar on them!

and of course there has to be spring Tulips for Easter. I used my brand new Disco Dust in Amethyst Purple from winning a contest hosted by SugarBelle and KarensCookies.net to decorate these.

and lastly I attempted to make the absolutely gorgeous Easter eggs that LilaLoa made. Have you seen them? Click on her name, you just have to see them. They are beautiful. Anyway, my crazy, type-A, difficult brain just couldn't make my hands do wild lines, so I had to compromise and do a very basic pattern, but they were still fun and colorful and I'm really happy with them.

So I made lots of Easter cookies and did lots of experimenting too.

and here are the cookie tags I promised. Click below the pictures for the link to where you can print them out for your own use if you'd like.

 I haven't figured out how to make the picture itself a link to the download. I know how to do it in HTML, but not on the user-friendly blog :( Feel free to leave me a comment telling me how in blogger, if you know! Anyway, to download these cookie tags for your own use, go here: Easter Printable Cookie Tags 2

and to download this one for your use go here: Easter Printable Cookie Tags 1. You probably know how I feel about re-creating the wheel. I think it's silly if someone has already put in the time and effort to create something and then not share it for others, so I hope you're able to enjoy these cookie tags!

Happy Easter everyone!