When I first started selling cookies, I charged $18 a dozen.  Yep, you read that right!  $18 for 12 cookies that took me an eternity to make.  Would it shock you if I told you, even now, I think that was a fair price?  (Keep reading, I promise I'll explain)

When I first started making and selling cookies, I had all sorts of technical difficulties.  Icing bleed, sloppy writing, piping that broke, unoriginal designs, uneven thick cookies...and on and on and on.  I started selling cookies before I even knew what I was doing.  I was so thrilled with my first creations that I was ALL IN!

Fast forward a few years, and a ton of learning.  I look back at my cookie journey and I'm proud of where I have come from.  When I first started, I wasn't worth what I charge today.  I see so many new cookie bakers enter the world of selling and expecting to charge high prices for their work, and struggling to find customers.  I see local bakers posting on buy/sell/trade sites with prices even lower than $18!!!   I am NOT even criticizing the beginner at all!  I was THAT baker! But looking back at my beginner cookies, even though I was slaving over them for a stupid amount of time, they were worth a measly $18 (in my opinion)! The question is, what are they worth?

On the flip side....are you creating amazing cookies and not selling them for what you are actually worth?  Do you feel guilty charging THAT much?  Are you a people pleaser? I SO get it.  I'm still somewhat of that baker.  Insert eye roll at myself.  I LOVE creating cookies and being a part of peoples events, I probably don't charge as much as I should.  I'm still learning and pep talking myself daily!

Side Note: If you are a beginner, don't give up!!!  Don't think that it'll never become easier.  Don't talk yourself out of trying something new that might work better for you! And I promise you (speaking as someone who went through it all), that with practice you will get better and you will be worth SO much more than $18!

Four years ago, a friend peer pressured me to attend a cookie decorating class.  I spent nearly $75 in supplies and I was a tad excited.  I went in hopeful and left incredibly frustrated.  I had sat through a two hour class and learned nothing, except I was terrible at cookies.  The instructor was using big terms like "flood"and "pipe".  And, for someone who didn't even know what royal icing was, I was completely lost.  I came home with some so-so cookies and a ton of irritation.  I shoved the $75 worth of supplies in a cabinet and walked away.

A year passed and I could have cared less about cookies.  But, while planning an Alice in Wonderland party I stumbled on some cute tea pot cookies.  I pulled those supplies out, scoured youtube videos and was determined.  I made some sad teapots and clocks, but the difference this time was, I had enjoyed the process and I was hooked.  For months I watched tutorials, read blog articles and experimented.  March came and I wanted to try my hand at St. Patricks Day cookies.  I made less than a dozen, it took countless hours and I was ridiculously proud of myself.  I even posted them on my Facebook page feeling accomplished!

I now post those Leprechaun cookies proudly.  They are terrible to look at, but it reminds me how far I have come.  With determination, practice, research and lots of failures, I am proud of my journey. Every single cookie baker starts somewhere.  Not one single baker wakes up one day an amazing artist of baked goods.  We all start somewhere!  My goal was to always improve my craft.  I still read blog posts, I continue to watch tutorials and learn new methods.  Everyone can always accomplish more.  If you are just beginning on the journey of decorated cookies, don't give up!  Keep piping until you discover the right consistency.  Continue to sketch your cookies until you can finally envision what you want to create!  I gave up cookies after my first try at it, but I came back much more determined and ready!  Just keep flooding!

Do you ever take time to remember why you love making cookies?  Do you still love to make cookies?  This holiday, I took a two week break from it all.  I didn't bake, whisk, flood, package...nothing.  I didn't even provide my family with Christmas cookies, and they survived.  I needed a break.  I was tired of answering emails, I was tired of scheduling pick ups, I was tired of piping mustaches on nutcrackers.  Simply put, I was tired.  So, I scheduled a break.  I had an automatic response to all inquiries and I just walked away.

In that time, I discovered how much I missed it.  I love to create.  I love bringing sketches to life.  I love the photos customers send me of their celebrations.  I love that I have a few groupies under the age of 7 who just really like my cookies.  

Sometimes, we get so caught up in the "business" side of things, that we forget about WHY we do cookies.  I've been asked by several people lately if I still love doing cookies.  I always answer the same, "the moment I stop loving cookies is when I will walk away." I still love it, the entire process of it (minus the clean up, nobody actually loves that).  If you are in a place of NOT loving cookies, take a break, walk away for a bit and re-energize.  You may miss out on a few orders, but I have always believed that you need to love what you do.  And right now, I love doing cookies.  

With the end of the year, and the beginning of a new fresh start, I wanted to look back at 2016 one last time.  I look back at the orders I filled and all the celebrations I was (well, my cookies)  a part of and it is almost too unbelievable.  How did I possibly do all of that, while caring for my family, volunteering for a few projects, take several trips, and still have time for laundry?  The past year had a lot of bumps for me and a lot of times it would have been easier to just hang up my apron. Literally.  But, I never did. 

In 2016, I traveled to McGoo U and met some amazing new cookie friends.  I laughed so hard while I was at Real Media and even met the "Spanish Me".  The lovely lady that did my Spanish voice overs was so sweet and it still cracks me up seeing me dubbed.  I taught my very first cookie class at two different Cookie Roundups and made relationships that I am so thankful for today.  I learned how to be better at cookies than I was in 2015.  This year, I learned that I am fairly good in a crisis and can indeed go for well over 28 hours without sleep in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma.  I learned that my cookie friends are so much more important than any cookie, any competition or whatever else might get in the way.  I learned that even when people can be ugly, there are so many more that are amazing and kind.

I'm tucking 2016 in my past, but I'm holding onto every lesson learned very tightly.  

With the end of 2016, I'm looking forward to what the new year brings.  Here are a few of my favorites from this past year! 

Comparison.  We all do it!  We see a fantastic cookie set online and we oogle and ogle over them.  We admire them, and then automatically think about our own work.  When I first started in this cookie world, I scowered facebook completely amazed at the cookies that existed.  “How could I ever do something that amazing?”  “I’ll never be that good.”  For months, I compared myself to other cookiers and began doubting everything I did.  I got stuck in the cycle of replicating others work rather than finding out who Andrea really is.  I was too afraid to take a chance and see what I could actually create.  I let comparison steal the joy of cookies. Fast forward to now.  Two and a half years later.  I started a website and blog!  Are there already amazing cookie blogs out there?  ABSOLUTELY!  I could list at least a handful of amazing ones off the top of my head.  Are they established and fantastic looking?  YES!  I tried to talk myself out of this idea a dozen times…..and here we are.  The sneaky little thing called comparison could have stopped me in my tracks, yet again.  Is it scary to step out and take a chance, completely.  But if we get stuck in the sinking hole of comparison, we will never find out who we are as individual cookiers.  We’ll never discover our own style or possibly a new technique!  Take a chance, stop comparing yourself to other bakers and just create!