Late last year, I took at look at the home page of my website – mischiefmaricookies.com – and nearly hurled. From boredom.

It looked drab and tired, even.

Time for a makeover. Make that an extreme makeover.

The website redesign

The first program I ever used to design a website was GoLive CS2. I think I can hear my web designer friends snickering right now. Well, Wolf got a very good deal on the Adobe CS2 package and at that time, GoLive came with it, so I taught myself how to put a few pages together, code what needed to be coded and uploaded to my host. The experience was tiring and my respect for legitimate designers grew exponentially.

When Wolf asked me to design his site last spring, I came across a website design product called Rapidweaver which I think is only for mac users and is geared toward mac users who have either outgrown iWeb (the site builder on macs) or who outright abhor iWeb. I kind of fall between the two groups. Rapidweaver isn’t perfect but if you’re looking for a WYSIWYG editor, it beats iWeb hands down. It comes with many more design options, and if you don’t like the templates in the original bundle, there are plenty of third party developers making some really impressive Rapidweaver themes as well as plugins that make Rapidweaver function even better. For mischief mari cookies the site, I bought the Create theme by Elixir Graphics. At around 20 bucks I think it’s a steal. It was really easy to modify and what I liked most was being able to put different pictures in the header on every page.

And did you notice the silly monkey in the header image? He’s the same monkey from my previous post where I showed him sitting in a fruit bowl. We tried a bunch of different angles and setups, but the monkey and the fruit bowl weren’t happening. I don’t really know what gave me the idea that he’d be any better off hanging out with some artichokes, but there ya go.

Kung Hei Fat Choy! Happy Lunar New Year! It’s the Year of the Rabbit.

In case you missed it at any point, the animals of the Chinese Zodiac are what really started my cookie decorating mania. With this Rabbit, I’ve now completed 9 of the 12 animals, and here are the two I designed this year that I feel are my best work. I experimented and came up with a few other ideas, but these two guys kept coming back at me and begged me to present them to you. Here they are. After a year in which I struggled creatively – in 2010 I felt like Little Miss Creative Mojo just took off without letting me know – I think I’m getting back on track. It feels good. (to view my entire cookies portfolio, please take a look at either my main website portfolio page, or, my set on Flickr).

About the Chinese Zodiac: not long before Buddha passed away, he invited all animals to join him for the Lunar New Year celebration. Only twelve animals showed up, so to honor them he named a year after each. Many Asian cultures follow this calendar, and my Japanese mother believes in it wholeheartedly. She and my father were, according to the calendar, a perfect match: she’s a Tiger, he was a Horse. According to the calendar, my husband and I are not: I’m a Sheep, he’s a Rooster. But hey, nine years later with a kid and, well, I don’t know. Maybe we’re an exception.

Are you a Rabbit?

If you were born in 1915, 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987 or 1999, then you a Rabbit.

“People born in the Year of the Rabbit are articulate, talented and ambition. They are virtuous, reserved, and have excellent taste. Rabbit people are admired, trusted and afre often financially lucky. They are fond of gossip but are tactful and generally kind. Rabbit people seldom lose their temper. They are clever at business and being conscientious, never back out of a contract. They would make good gamblers for they have the uncaany gift of choosing the right thing. However, they seldom gamble, as they are conservative and wise. They are most compatible with those born in the years of the Sheep, Pig and Dog.” — from the Chinese Culture Center Online (official website)

The Lunar New Year starts on February 2nd and celebrations usually last for about two weeks. If I can make it to Chinatown here in Los Angeles in the next few days, I’ll post some photos and/or video for you!

For an even more detailed description of the Rabbit personality and compatibility with other signs, please read this description from The Holiday Spot.

In my previous post about this year’s Lunar New Year design, I showed a few simple sketches of my forthcoming Rabbit cookie. The next step: trying those sketches out with icing. I usually do it in plain old white icing on wax paper, mostly to get a feel for the design, and, to see if my sketches will work out. There have been a few occasions when I’ve drawn a picture and haven’t been able to pull it off with the icing, usually because I put too many details into too small an image. Or, because my icing rendition bore no resemblance whatsoever to the original pencil sketch. Or, because I’m just a ding-dong.

This one looks pretty possible. So far. Yay.

Next: The cookie with the Rabbit, I believe.

Coming up with the design

I actually started working on my Year of the Rabbit design a couple of months ago and did a decent job. But that’s all it was to me: decent. When it comes to new designs, I am hard on myself. I want each one to leap out at you, like a rabbit on crack. Seriously. They have to be original, full of electric colors, full of zing, full of personality. They have to have a whiff mischief.

The lackluster job I did gnawed away at me over the holidays. I guess it felt unfinished. I whined out loud (does anyone whine silently, by the way?) about how crappy I thought my work was. Wolf stopped, sighed, and then said: “You always say this when you start a new design. It starts off crappy. It has no mischief. And then you try again. And then you get it.” He took another bite out of his bread with jam and looked away.

So I started all over again, and here’s step one. I’ll go into the next few steps in upcoming posts.

Step One: Designing the Cookie

I always start with an image, never with the cookie cutter. If I start with the cutter, then I’ll limit myself. And probably go crazy.

I looked at a lot of images of rabbits. If you think bunnies are just so super cute, you might change your mind after looking at hundreds of images both on the web and in print. After a while, I started to feel so familiar with all sorts of different breeds of rabbits, it was freaking me out a bit. Those little beady eyes. Those sharp teeth. Those long, floppy ears. I was starting to wonder if they could hear my thoughts.

Anyway, after reviewing bunnies for a few days, I started to sketch.

These were the sketches I started with; and I felt they were what one of my grad school writing professors called “the corner of an idea.” Not fully developed. They looked cartoonish, silly. As much as I like the dude with the monocle, there was something about him that didn’t sing to me. I filed all of this away and decided to let the idea marinate in me l’il head.

A little while later, I sketched again. I decided the rabbit’s face had to be a bit longer and the ears quite straight. No floppiness in these ears. I want the final expression of my rabbits to be on the serious side. A bit somber. Why? Well, if your art is an extension, an expression of how you’re feeling at the moment, then that’s how I feel right now. So  this is what I’ve come up with.

]]> http://www.mischiefmaricookies.com/blog/year-of-the-rabbit-part-i-coming-up-with-the-design/feed/ 3 http://www.mischiefmaricookies.com/blog/lemon-squares-an-encore/ http://www.mischiefmaricookies.com/blog/lemon-squares-an-encore/#comments Fri, 07 Jan 2011 20:06:40 +0000 mischief mari http://www.mischiefmaricookies.com/blog/?p=1781

What do you do when you have lemons? I make lemon squares. Carole Walter’s lemon squares. Which I’ve made before and written about here. In case you forgot or something.

The lemon squares are just as scrumptious-looing this time around. Trust me.

One of our neighbors has a beautiful garden. Well, it should be given the amount of time she puts into it. As much as I envy her her green thumbs – mine are black because everything I plant dies – I admire her efforts even more. Recently I noticed her meyer lemon tree and my heart just sank. It is covered with luscious lemons. Mine? In the back of our garden in the shade, struggling just to keep the unripened fruit on its branches. It really needs to be transplanted to a new place, or, we need to get the neighbors to cut down the trees on their lot to give it more sun. But I doubt either of those things will happen. So I have go around begging for meyer lemons from people who have them. It’s a bit humiliating, this begging thing. But I love lemons.

Everyone has a nice citrus tree. Except for me. Sigh.

Lemons are everywhere here in Southern California. I’m caught up in a love-hate relationship with them because I see beautiful lemon and other citrus trees thriving around the ‘hood. Ours? Well, I just told you. They’re not happy. I kind of walk past them quickly when roaming the garden for fear they’ll start screaming at me that they’re not doing well and it’s all my fault.

Back to my neighbor’s Meyer Lemons. I could have swiped a few when she wasn’t around. But I don’t want to get into the habit of stealing fruit from neighbors trees. Remember how I stole the figs from our nextdoor neighbor? This time, I put Mimi in a nice dress, walked over and asked politely. I got a bag full! Woo-hoo!

The lemon squares turned out really well. Our neighbor’s lemons are Meyer lemons, which means they’re a bit sweeter than “normal” lemons (Lisbon, Eureka lemons) because they’re much less acidic. When explaining to Wolf the difference between “normal” and Meyer Lemons, he shrugged his shoulders and mumbled through a mouthful that it didn’t matter. The lemon squares are awesome. That’s what matters.

You can find the recipe here, in my earlier post, or, in Carole Walter’s book, Great Cookies.

Have an okay weekend.

Right now, I feel like an ordinary bug. I want to be a butterfly.

I’ve got a few guest blog posts coming up – one on Melissa Dinwiddie’s really wonderful new site, 365 Days of Genius – and in submitting my information and getting my posts together, I realized something a little embarrassing: I haven’t changed a thing at mischief mari cookies (the site) in a long time. Not since…2008? Is that right? I cleaned up this l’il blog here early last year, but I’ve caught blog look fatigue since and I think this area could do with a little freshening up.

So, I’m starting to put together a nice new site that will include a flash slideshow of my portfolio, and I’m going to look for some inspiration to make the blog look a bit different. I recently found Jessica Swift’s site and blog; now, it seems that gal’s a pro when it comes to designing stuff. But I sure wouldn’t mind having my web space look as charming as that. We’ll see what we come up with.

got design ideas for me? you could win some mischief mari cookies!!!

And oh. Here’s a sweet idea: why don’t you, my mischies, give me suggestions for the blog’s redesign? For ideas used, I will give you a box of mischief mari cookies. Seriously. But the suggestions have to go beyond, “Hey Mari, I’m sick and tired of your stupid banner with the Jane Austen cookie.” I mean, if you’re going to suggest something, then please give me colors, inspiration, zing, social media tips, functionality, and all that other stuff. And don’t be afraid to criticize; as long as it’s constructive, I’m all ears. Hey, this is your space, too!!! Got it? Off you go now. Come back with supremely awesome suggestions.

And of course, of course! if you make great suggestions, I’ll sing your praises here, on Twitter, Facebook and to anyone else I encounter. Oh, you know I will.

One last thing: if I don’t use your suggestions, then don’t cry. I’m not good around people who cry. We’ll still be friends.

Cheers, mari

You came in without hardly saying a thing. One minute it was 2010, next it was 2011. Isn’t that how it always happens?

I’m glad it’s a new year. The past year wasn’t a bad one for me. It’s just that creatively I felt I was in quite a rut. A dry spell. A lull that was much deeper than just a lull. I’m sure my exhaustion from being a new parent played a big part in all this. But I also think that it was much deeper than that. I woke up many days thinking I didn’t want to bake or decorate or paint or sew or do anything creative at all.

Has that ever happened to you? You just woke up and thought, whatever?

The main reason I started this blog was to share the inspiration and ideas behind my baking and cookie designs. Most of the designs I create are based in some way on an experience that I somehow translate into colored sugar (that’s what icing really is; sugar, water and color). But last year, nothing really sparked my imagination to the nth degree as it had before.

Was I losing my edge? Was I goner? A has-been? Was I losing interest?

I wondered.

I started to go back through my old posts and my Flickr photos and my equipment in my kitchen (turns out I’m running low on Electric Pink gel color paste, by the way. SugarCraft, here I come!) and somehow, the memories of making this dog cookie and these fish cookies and this Scrooge set came back. I then looked at my cookbooks, all of the notes I’ve made on each recipe, the pages of tips and recipes I’ve ripped out of magazines. And of course, all of the files I’ve kept on my computer and backed up on external hard drives. Photos, more photos, scanned pages from rare cookbooks and clippings from newspapers and magazines where mischief mari cookies have been lucky to appear.

Quit? Give up? Be a has-been? No way. Not now.

Hey, I’ve got a book I need to finish. I’ve got tons of stories I’m sure that are just waiting to be experienced and made into cookies. I’ve got posts filled with dread and anguish and joy and pain and tears and laughter. I’ve got more pictures I need to take. I’ve got video – yes, video! – I have to shoot and share.

So. Yeah, the baby’s knackering me out. But I’ve still got stuff I want to do, and that I will do.

So here’s to a good 2011. I won’t go so far as saying I’m fired up and ready to roll. But I’m close.

Cheers.

Last year, I submitted the chocolate cookie recipe that I love most in the world – Carole Walter’s chocolate cookie from her book Great Cookies – along with a photo that Wolf shot for me of my “HOPE” letter cookies. The cookies, of course, were inspired by the hope I felt following Barack Obama’s election to the presidency and the new direction he’d give to this country. Well, he’s kind of struggling, occasionally stumbling. But none of that’s surprising. He inherited two wars that never should have been, and an economy in shambles. No president, no administration, no matter how skilled or popular can simply turn all of that around in just two years. To expect that is just ludicrous.

What IS surprising is that last week the photo editor of the NY Times Style Section sent me an email requesting a high resolution version of the above photo with the recipe for republishing. “Don’t they already have this? And why are they doing this again?” I wondered. But you know, even in this day and age in which social media and internet this and web that and online whatever rules, the NY Times is still, well, the NY Times. If they ask you for something other than your username and password, you respond.

So lookie, lookie! It turns out that eight of the recipes that were submitted by readers last year were baked and tested by NY Times Dining and Wine staff. And guess what? My recipe – oh, sorry, Carole Walters’s recipe! – was the unanimous favorite!

For more on what the NY Times did and how this all happened, please read the Diner’s Journal here.

Do you know what this means? I have great taste. So there.

And so does the Dining and Wine staff at the NY Times.

This also means, of course, that there is still great hope in this world. Really, there is.

Wolf’s lovely photo and the full recipe for these knockout cookies are here at the New York Times.

]]> http://www.mischiefmaricookies.com/blog/mix-roll-cut-bake-decorate-repeat-in-the-ny-times/feed/ 7 http://www.mischiefmaricookies.com/blog/one-happy-gingerbread-man-ready-to-travel/ http://www.mischiefmaricookies.com/blog/one-happy-gingerbread-man-ready-to-travel/#comments Tue, 14 Dec 2010 19:56:55 +0000 mischief mari http://www.mischiefmaricookies.com/blog/?p=1699

Why is this guy so happy? Perhaps he’s on his way somewhere…with some good friends to keep him company on his voyage. To Northern California.

More ginger-spiced goodies to come.

Oh, I’m just getting started. I just baked a little army of these guys. And a forest of trees. A galaxy of stars, too.

Next: decorating these men. I mean, I can’t leave them naked.

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