Prelude To A Cookie!

Long ago and in a land that seems so very far away, I was a young woman who wanted nothing more than to be a stay at  home mom for our two baby boys while they were little and growing up.  Luckily for me, my husband was (and is) super supportive of my dreams and desires, so together we financially made many adjustments to our lifestyle in order to make that happen.

After our second son was born, I was becomming itchy to be creative in a capacity other than dreaming up fun ways to keep my children entertained.  I found I needed something fun and creative for myself personally to do and I especially needed to develop my own identity and sense of self, once again.  I truly loved being the stay at home mom I always wanted to be (and felt my kids needed) but I also knew that my boys would benefit even more from having a happy, self satisfied mom at home with them too.   Who knew that a simple recipe for salt dough would be the magic recipe that would shape my life creatively for the next 25 years and counting?

I found the directions for making salt dough rope bowls in some women’s magazine back in early 1988.  It sounded like a fun and easy project and something I could try one day while the boys were taking their prized afternoon naps.  As soon as I got the dough mixed and ready to roll, I was in love with the salt dough.  There was no turning back.  

Days later, I immediately went from making dough ropes to adding food color to tint the dough and then modeled it into different shapes like fruits, vegetables and assorted food items that could be used as refrigerator magnets.  Never mind that they were WAY to heavy to stick to the fridge by themselves, let alone hold anything else like pieces of paper.  At this point, that part wasn’t important.  It was all about the looks and not so much about the function, plus I was willing to make the necessary changes neeeded to have these magnets proudly displayed on my fridge

A friend of mine at the time (someone I had come to know from the school bus stop) had learned of my new hobby and had offered to take a basket of my new and improved (smaller and lighter) magnets to the beauty salon where she worked.  Of course I had said yes but didn’t hold out much hope that anything would come of it.   The next Saturday evening, on her way home from work, she stopped by my house with an envelope holding $69 from the sale of those salt dough magnets.  You mean I could actually make money being creative in my own home doing something I thoroughly enjoyed?  Are you kidding me???  Needless to say, I was hooked on the idea and for the next 17 years, I had a career as a salt dough artist. 

Over those next early years of working with salt dough, I started fashioning my pieces smaller and smaller and before long they became whimsical jewelry items designed for fun and frolic.  Soon I’d be crafting my salt dough into whimsical shapes, baking them in the oven and then painting them into designs that held no limits.   Hmmmm, sound familiar?

 At one point,  I was in 8  “Country Sampler”  stores located in Illinois and Indiana and a few small, but local craft stores.  If I had to venture a guess at how many items I’d made over the years as a salt dough artist, I would venture to say that it was well into the 300,000 mark and believe it or not, we still have boxes and boxes in our basement,  loaded with salt dough jewelry items that my husband and I can’t seem to part with.  To me it’s kind of like looking at baby pictures of my boys

Here is a picture of a very small portion of the designs I’d created over the years I’d worked with salt dough.   These items bring back such fond memories of such a sweet and wonderful time in my life.  I owe a lot to these little guys and I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I enjoy showing them to you.  I just know you’ll see similarities in my Kudos Kookies cookie designs today.

 I’m now proud and please to tell you that I’m heading into my 4th year being a cookie artisan with my company Kudos Kookies.  I am totally loving my work in the edible art arena.  I can’t tell you how many times while I was doing the salt dough that people would ask if my pieces were edible.  “No, sorry” I’d have to say “they’re not cookies”.   Fast forward to today… now when people tell me that my items look too good to eat I just have to laugh!   Well folks, guess what?  I’ve combined my passion for food, painting and whimsy all in an EDIBLE taste treet you’ve been waiting for.  I feel I’ve come full circle…in a round about way!  lol… :)

Fondly yours, Renee

Tagged as: cookies. painting, creative, fun, jewelry, salt dough, whimsical