We are continuing with our Christmas in July theme here at This Bittersweet Life!

Decorating sugar cookies with your kids during the holidays is a fun family activity that results in a fun mess.  Think of atomic bomb of royal icing going off in your kitchen.  But sometimes you need that "wow factor."


Some of my fondest memories are making sugar cookies with my daughters when they were young.  You know, when Rudolph got a green nose instead of a red one or when the snowmen had three eyes. We have a collection of some really great vintage cookie cutters too, such as a scottie dog, a chicken, an entire set of card suits (my mom bought these and I don't know where she got them).  But I would pull out every cutter even if it wasn't a traditional Christmas shape.

I used a butter cookie recipe and while the taste was pretty good, getting the cookies to not spread was a tedious affair.  We had lots of misshapen Christmas cookies, so Rudolph's green nose and the snowman's three eyes didn't really matter in the end.      

As our family grew older, we enjoyed decorating Christmas cookies just as much but wanted ones that kept their shape and to make them pretty.  We wanted the pretty "grownup" sugar cookies without sacrificing taste.


Thanks to our addiction to Pinterest, and my addiction to all things cooking and baking (I have boxes and boxes of cookbooks yet to unpack) I found a sugar cookie recipe that claimed they wouldn't spread during baking.  During my searching, I also came across another post about how you should use European butter to keep your cutout cookies from spreading.  European butter has less water content than American butter and the water is part of what causes the cookies to spread.  So we of course used European butter when making our cookies.  (You can find European butters like KeriGold or Plugra in your local grocery store.)

I was already living with my mom and taking care of her.  It was her second to last Christmas when we decided to try this recipe.  In order to have a more controlled explosion in the kitchen, we opted to only cut out two shapes and we only made two two colors of icing--blue and white, so really we only colored one set of frosting.


I even got myself a fancy rolling pin that has different depth gauges so your dough is rolled out even and is never too thick or thin.  I was ready to make these cookies!

Unfortunately we were dealing with my mother's oven.  It was an electric from the mid to late 70s.  This oven was was nearly 40 years old but boy was it a trooper.  Just before that Thanksgiving one of the coils broke.  We really did not want to have to replace my mother's oven at the end of her life.  Plus it was built into a brick wall.  I was totally freaked out.  But our repair man did some digging to find a coil that would fit as the manufacturer no longer made that coil.  And bless his heart, he did!  After that, the oven became psychotic.

The psychosis of our oven related to temperature and while I had an oven thermometer to gauge what it really was, it would often change as much as 50 degrees whilst something was baking.  While cookies are more forgiving than cake, trying to make cookies that don't spread can be deadly in a 50 degree temperature change.  Needless to say, we watched closely while baking, adjusting the "temperature" or even propping the oven door open with a wooden spoon.  We had to be right there the whole time.


But in the end it was worth it!  We got perfectly shaped cookies ready to decorate.  In the end, my mother proclaimed that these sugar cookies were way to pretty to eat (though they did taste delicious). But I'll note that she said that about Rudolph with the green nose and the snowman with the three eyes.  That is was Omas are supposed to say.  But about these, she really meant it.

The following Christmas season we made only snowflakes as taking care of my mother became more time consuming.  But my brother came from Texas this Christmas so I still wanted something pretty.  This year we did light grey and white royal icing.  I have to say that the daughter far exceeded the mother in the skill set.  She decorated the cookies this year (the ones in all the photos for this post).  Perhaps I was patient enough and a good enough teacher.  My heart swells with pride!

We obviously didn't make any the holiday season we were "homeless."  My younger daughter's tiny galley kitchen in her apartment just wasn't suited for the atomic explosion of any of our holiday baking, much to the chagrin of my sister-in-law.  That year I got store-bought goodies.  Though I did bake something for my office.  My oldest daughter exclaimed how highly unfair that was and I just said, "Suck it up, Adrienne!"


The first holiday season in our new house we hosted 20 family members from my ex's side of the family for their annual family Christmas party--including my ex and his lovely wife. So of course we had to have a dessert smorgasbord, because what good was our new giant kitchen island if we didn't use it for our atomic holiday baking explosion?  We had everything from my daughter's easy chocolate truffles, to our family recipes of Austrian and German cookies, the family German cheesecake, fudge, chocolate dipped pumpkin cookies and of course the sugar cookies.  We even had a hot chocolate bar and made flavored chocolate stir spoons.

But after a year of not making the cookies, I forgot a step.  I was so mad that my brand new gas oven was making my cookies spread!  The spreading wasn't too bad, but I remember the very first ones we made in my mother's psychotic oven didn't spread at all.  No.  I was really mad because we finally perfected our macarons in that new oven and it should have worked like a charm on these sugar cookies!  Then my daughter kindly reminded me that rather than just putting the cut out cookies in the fridge to chill, we actually put them in the freezer.  They weren't frozen rock solid, but they had a good chill.  After that, cookie perfection returned to our kitchen!


In the end, our family really loved the beautiful sugar cookies.  My daughter's amazing icing skills of course put the cherry on top of the cake...I mean cookie!  The young ones really loved how special they looked and loved the taste.  I think we sent them all home with a few.  The adults all thought we should start our own bakery they were so professional looking.  But my daughter and I are not morning people.  So our own bakery is completely out of the question.

I'm really looking forward to making those cookies again this coming Christmas.  But this time, I won't forget to freeze my snowflakes.


Here is Sweetopia's sugar cookie recipe that we use to make our sugar cookies so you can make perfect cutout cookies too!  And be sure to check out her blog post on her Top 8 Tips on Preventing Cookies from Spreading.

Sylvia

Welcome to Christmas in July here at This Bittersweet Life!  It's been hot this summer and we are in need of a cool-down.  This month, our posts will all be snow and holiday themed because it's never too early to start planning the holidays, especially if you are a DIYer.


Ever since my mom and I knew we'd be moving into a brand new house, we've constantly been thinking of ways to bring a piece of my Oma with us and how we can honor her for all she did for us. Truly, if it had not been for her, and the generosity of my mom's brother, we would not be in this gorgeous new house we now live in.

I've always loved all the little fairy gardens with the cute little houses.  There are acorn houses, castles and beach huts, but apparently, fairies do not ski.  I've never found a cute little snow-themed fairy house, not even in the winter.  And a ski chalet would definitely represent my Austrian grandmother who loved to ski!

This is Chalet Maresi.  It overlooks the town of Schladming, near Salzburg, Austria.  You can see that the bottom of the chalet is white stucco and the top is slatted in wood.  During the height of summer, the flower boxes overflow with beautiful red flowers.    [photo source]

To keep myself busy not long after my Oma passed, I dreamt up a whole fairy-themed outdoor ski chalet dollhouse that my future nieces and/or nephews would be able to play with while visiting their Oma.  I even drew up furniture plans and later, made a fairy bed--mattress and all!  Doing creative things has always been an outlet for me, though I'll admit, I did get a little obsessed with miniatures on Pinterest!  You wouldn't believe all the DIYs that people do and everything looks so realistic.  It's really quite fantastic and you should do your own Pinterest search.  I promise, you won't regret the hour or two you'll "waste" looking at amazing little pieces of art.

But since building a whole dollhouse is a bit of an undertaking, I decided this past holiday season to make a little light up Putz-style house styled after the iconic traditional ski chalets you find all over Austria and Switzerland.  Follow my steps below and you can create your own mini ski chalet!  It's a lot of work with a lot of steps, but totally worth it!

I started out by sketching out my design and deciding on measurements.  I didn't want it to be too small but I didn't want it to be too big either. To start on your own mini ski chalet, you can download my sketch and measurements by clicking on this link.

Here is the mostly finished product so you can see where I'm headed with this.  Isn't it adorable?!  I went back and added a mini wreath to the front door later.

Once I measured and drew my lines, I cut out my sides, roof, base for the house to sit on, the step, window boxes and the balcony.  I then used a craft knife and a self-healing craft mat to cut out all the windows, the balcony rails and a hole in the base so I could put glimmer strings through to light up the house.  I made about a 2 inch circular hole in the base so that I could easily get lights in there but also so that they would stay inside the house and not fall down.

Next, I painted everything in a coat of white chalk paint and set all the pieces aside to dry.  I painted both sides of the pieces so that the inside was white as well and would reflect as much of the glimmer string light through the windows as possible.

Once dry, I measured out the halfway point on the four sides of my house and where the doors would be.  Traditional ski chalets are stucco or rock on the bottom and slatted wood on the top.  After that, I used some Prima white sand texture paste to create the stucco affect on the bottom of the four sides of the house.  (You can also buy stucco for dollhouses, if you would rather use this.) I used a pallet knife to spread it on, allowing the smears of my pallet knife to remain to add more texture and to give the house an older feel.  Make sure that you only apply the paste up to the halfway mark and to skip the areas where the doors will be.  Using the edge of my pallet knife, I ran it along these marked lines to create a nice edge to the paste.  This will make it easier to glue on the wooden slats  and doors around those lines.  Once you've applied the texture past,  set the pieces aside to let them dry.

I didn't take photos during the process but hopefully these after-the-fact photos will help you along your way.  This is a close up of the "stucco" which is a coat of sand texture paste and white chalk paint.

To create the wooden slats, I used wooden coffee stir sticks.  I like them because they are thinner than basic popsicle sticks and looked more true to scale for the size of my ski chalet.  To color them, I used Tim Holtz distress stain in walnut stain.  This particular product is discontinued but you can buy Tim Holtz's distress spray in walnut stain and then pour some into an empty dauber bottle like this one from Stampendous.  I just daubed and rubbed the stain on stir sticks after having cut off the rounded ends with a pair of sharp scissors.  I made sure to cover the sides and edges with stain too because I knew edges would peek out.  This is a messy process so make sure you are doing this on a sheet of wax paper or a non-stick craft mat to protect your working surface.  You also might want to wear gloves if you don't want your fingers to be stained brown for a day or two.  It does wash out as Tim's distress inks and stains are all water based, but when you cover sooooooo many wooden stir sticks, you get a lot of ink on your fingers!

Once the white sand texture paste was dry, I painted it with white chalk paint again.  This step really makes it look like stucco!  Once the chalk paint and my stained stir sticks were dry, I began using hot glue to adhere the stained sticks to the sides of my ski chalet.  To give it an authentic look, I made sure to cut the sticks to different lengths, staggering them just like you would see in a wooden floor.  I'd add just a little daub of stain to the cut ends and then glue my sticks on, starting at the "stuccoed" end and working my way up.  Of course I continued to stain more stir sticks as I went.  I didn't want to stain too many and end up not using them.

This shows the balcony and upper level covered in stained stir sticks.  It also gives you good close up one of the doors.

To create the doors I used balsa wood.  You can find this in your local craft stores in the wood craft section or the dollhouse section.  This wood is super soft and easy to cut with scissors.  It's so soft and airy, it's almost like foam!  I cut out the window using a craft knife and self-healing craft mat.  I used the same Tim Holtz distress stain to color the pieces, though it ended up looking darker just because it was a different type of wood than the stir sticks.  I was okay with this though.  I think it makes the ski chalet look more realistic.  I even added little door knobs by gluing on small round gold beads.  Glue the doors to the side of the house

To create the frosted windows, I used some scraps of vellum I had from an old project.  This vellum had white streaks in it that makes it look frosted.  If you can't find vellum like this in your local craft store and want that effect, just use some white chalk paint or acrylic paint and dry brush it on to basic vellum.  I cut out pieces slightly bigger than all of the windows so I would have room to glue them to the inside of the house.  Vellum is pretty tough, so you can glue it down with hot glue or any other good glue that you have, like Glossy Accents.  You want to make sure that these pieces of vellum are nice and secure as it will be hard to re-glue them once the house is together, depending on how big a hole you cut in the base.

A close up of the lower level windows and door on the front of the ski chalet.  At the very end, I went back and added a mini wreath to the front door.

To finish the edges of the windows, I stained some more stir sticks, cutting them to length and then creating miter joints at the corners.  It was a little bit of a guess and check method, so be prepared to waste a few stir sticks here and there.  I hung on to all my larger wasted pieces until the bitter end just in case there was something I needed them for later.  Attach these "window casings" with hot glue.

Next I painted the stair or stoop pieces a charcoal color acrylic paint.  I wanted it to look like cement but didn't want it to blend in with all the other white on the house.  To add an icy element to the pieces, I dry brushed some white chalk paint on.  I also painted the balcony and window box pieces with brown acrylic paint.  

Now that you have the four sides of your house covered its time to glue it all together!  I re-marked where the edges of my house sides should sit on the base just to make sure I got it nice and centered.  Then, I glued together the base pieces with a hot glue gun.  Next, I began gluing on the sides then I glued together the balcony (I stained a few more stir sticks and glued to them on to create the top railing of the balcony), window boxes and stoop then attached them to the front of the house.  After that, I glued on the roof pieces, making sure that the roof jutted out more to the front to shade the balcony.  When glueing it all together, don't worry if the edges don't meet perfectly, we'll take care of that in a minute.  But you do want the pieces to meet as close together as possible.

This gives you a good idea of how I finished the corners of the house so they looked nicer.

To take care of the raw edges where the sides meet, I stained a few more stir sticks.  I glued them on to each side so that the stir sticks on either side of the corner would meet and form a nice looking, finished corner.

On to the roof!  To make the wooden beams, I glued stained stir sticks together.  To get them to fit with the angle of the roof, you will need one side to be shorter than the other.  I did this by using a craft knife and self-healing mat to slice a thin strip off one wooden stir stick.  It was a bit of a guess and check method for the measurements of these all around--slice and check, slice and check.  When you get them to fit just right, glue them to the underside of the roof on the front of the house.  To cover the unfinished edges of the roof and to add that traditional element of gingerbread to the chalet, I used some pinking shears to cut a scalloped edge along a long strip of balsa wood.  Then I used a craft knife, ruler and self-healing craft mat to cut the strip to the correct height.  Stain these pieces and then glue them on to the edges of your roof.

Here you see a little of the gingerbread on the edge of the roof and the wooden beams under the roof.

To create the chimney pipe, I cut a small length of a plastic straw, snipping it at an angle on one end to glue it to the roof and snipping 3 tiny triangles into the other end to create the holes for exhaust to escape through while leaving enough material there to glue the cone-shaped top on.  For the top of the chimney pipe, I cut out a small circle from some white cardstock and made a small snip from the edge to the center.  This will allow you to create the cone shape.  Cover the straw and the circle in foil, keeping it as smooth as possible.  I used Glossy Accents to adhere the foil on the straw and cardstock.  To create the cone shape of the top, pull either side of the cut together until you get it as cone-shaped as you want then glue the edges in place.  If you want, you can use a small pin or paper flower rolling tool to create rivets in the foil to make it more realistic looking, but this is not necessary.  Finally, glue the two pieces together then glue to  the pipe onto the roof.

The chimney pipe is made of a piece of a plastic straw, cardstock and tin foil.

To make the roof tiles, I pulled out an old bag of cinnamon scented pine cones that I used to wire on to my old Christmas tree.  They were starting to look a little rough so I though this would be a great way to use them.  I used some sharp scissors to cut off the pieces of the pine cone that still looked nice enough then used hot glue to adhere them.  I started at the bottom edge working my way up to the center of the roof, staggering my pine cone pieces so that the pieces on the edge of every other row were cut in half.  Once you get both sides of the roof finished, you just have to cover the very center of the roof with another layer of pine cone pieces.

the roof tiles made of pine cones.

To make the icicles, I piped out some Glossy Accents onto my non-stick craft mat in varying sizes and lengths.  Once the icicles were dry, I peeled them off then used some Glossy Accents to glue them to the gingerbread in various spots around the roof.

I made my own paper flowers but you can find pre-made flowers in the scrapbooking isles of your local craft store or ribbon flowers in the sewing section.  You can even cut off small pieces of faux floral stems to create the look.

To finish it all off I made tiny poinsettias with my Silhouette die cut machine, adding a little batting to the inside of the window boxes before glueing the flowers down with hot glue.  I also made a sign using a piece of balsa wood, a bead, cardboard, brown acrylic paint and a think black marker.  I glued it all together then down on the base.

Here is a good shot of some of the icicles and bistro lights.

To make the skis I followed a tutorial I found online.  It is in Italian but the pictures are direction enough.  If you have a little bottle brush tree, you can add that to one of the corners of the base as well with some hot glue.

And last but not least, I added some tiny bistro lights I found in the scrapbooking section of my local craft store.  You can add the little colored Christmas dollhouse lights if you want, but since my Oma always loved white lights because it looked like ice and snow, I used these.

My skis and ski poles before I glued them down.  All you need is some coffee stir sticks, stain, acrylic paint, wire, beads, tin foil, snaps and some hook and eyes.

Once everything is glued in place, I glued white quilting material to the base (you can also use white felt, but this is what I had on-hand), letting the top layer wrinkle to create snow drifts. I also used my Prima snowflake paste and a pointed pallet knife to add some snow all over the house.  Once dry, turn on a set of glimmer lights and push them through the opening on the bottom and hide the battery box in the base of the house.  And there you have it!  A little ski chalet for your Christmas decor!

Here is the backside of the ski chalet.  This gives you a good view of the vellum used to make the windows and more of the wood slats.

It took me many days to complete but I am so proud of this little work of art!  I did go back a few days later and glued a mini wreath to the front door.  I happen to come across it in my craft supplies and thought it would be perfect.  I know my Oma would have loved this mini ski chalet.  We display this ski chalet in the guest room decorated in an Austrian ski chalet style in honor of my Oma, Ruth.  In fact, on the sign I named my little house "Ruth's Ski Chalet."  During the holiday season, we bring the house upstairs to the living room and light it up.  Christmas is the time I miss my Oma the most, not just because it is the holidays, but because we celebrate Christmas like the Austrians do--on Christmas Eve.  It is the one of the most precious traditions we have kept in my family and will do so for years to come.

A close up of my sign.

The finished product, before I went back later and added the wreath to the front door.

The finished product, unlit and with the wreath on the door.

One last picture of the roof looking from above.