They get a plane ticket to Los Angeles?!

Before this month, I could’ve said the following during a game of never have I ever:

Never have I ever been flown out by a brand; decorated cookies LIVE in front of people (not counting my mom, my roommates, or my cookie class attendees); turned around 100 personalized cookies and 3 vlogs within 3 weeks; and been on a red carpet at a celebrity after party. But no longer!!

Exactly a month ago, my jaw was on the FLOOR of Steadfast Coffee (and so was my cake bestie @mads.eatz’s, who I was coworking with) when we saw Netflix slide in my inbox to ask if I’d come to LA in 3 weeks to decorate cookies LIVE WITH 30 ACTORS.

My typical cookie-making mode is usually alone at 3 AM in my PJs, headphones on probably watching a Netflix show, and hyper-fixating on teeny tiny icing details for 3-10 hours. Not quiiiite the vibe they were looking for, if I had to guess. So, I had to figure out not just how to scoot my booty and my cookies over to LA, but to do it with ✨poise✨on camera✨with celebrities✨

No big deal right!!!

It was one of those “well obviously I have to do this” feelings mixed with “HOW THE HECK AM I GONNA DO THIS?!?!” (i.e. the life of every entrepreneur and artist ever.)

As one of my friends said, “everything about this is absolutely f***ing insane.”

Here were the cookie-conundrums I had sift through, like an old, clumpy bag of powdered sugar:

• Will TSA let me through security with 100 bags of royal icing?? (answer: not unless they’re frozen. to a checked bag with an ice pack they go!)

• How can I meet an actor, decorate their on-the-spot cookie requests, and surprise them with a personalized cookie IN UNDER 10 MINUTES?? (answer: outline ‘em before, I guess?!)

• What the heck do I charge for this?? (answer: bring in partnerships manager genius, Becky!)

• How long will it take to decorate 30 unique “character” cookies for 30 different people since I’ve only ever done that many for *checks portfolio* TAYLOR SWIFT?! (answer: 40 hours!!)

• Will four 14x14 BRP boxes fit under my plane seat as a personal item?? (answer: no. so thank you JESUSSS for a non-full flight so the cookies could get some first class treatment with their own seat!

• How long will it take me to plan, film, script, and edit 3 vlogs within 1 week of the event?? (answer: 80 hours!!!!)

…aaand you get the idea.

By the grace of GODDD, the Netflix team, and my incredible contractors + friends who jumped in to help, it went without a hitch in LA!! You can follow along with the three recap vlogs here:

PART 1 (making and traveling with the cookies)

PART 2 (decorating a cookie with the actors)

PART 3 (surprising the actors with a personalized cookie)

You can probably tell from my energy in the videos, but y’all I had SO. MUCH. FUN. DOING. THIS!!!

Don’t get me wrong, it was an insane insane INSANE amount of work. (150+ hours in 3 weeks!!! that’s 2x more than my biggest project to-date which was for TAYLOR SWIFT). (plus I for sure had a crash out at BNA when I narrowly missed my flight after working for 40 hours straight with only 4 hours of sleep 😵‍💫 #instagramvsreality fr)

But these intense projects almost always reveal and remind me why I do this.

Usually that looks like, “wow, I really do love decorating intricate and colorful cookies” or “wow, I love the flexibility of working for myself” or “wow I’m so amazed at the doors God opens that I have such little to do with.”

This, being such a unique project, brought about a different excitement and inspiration. (Along with the ones above, too!)

While the life of an artist can seem like it’s the most introverted and solo act (YOU are the only person with the particular skillset you’re selling, after all), I believe the best art is created within the context of community, not outside of it.

Whether I’m “parallel playing” at a coworking space with friends, chatting with my roommates while editing an IG video, or (semi)watching a movie on FT at 4 AM with my boyfriend while we’re both working the night shift, I create better art simply existing around people.

Sure, that could be my extroverted tendencies. But still, I could write a whole separate Substack on the gift economy, or the balance of creating art for yourself vs for others, or the beauty of derivative art (which is lowkey all art IMO).

While nerve-wracking overall, I was surprised at how easy it felt to chat while decorating with the actors that day. There were silly jokes and serious questions. Cookie masterpieces and cookie flops. Talks of favorite albums and weird TikTok accounts. Cookies, yet again, proved to be a connector, an equalizer, and a barrier-remover.

Somehow I left an 100+ hr work week and a 7 hour day of being “on” feeling…energized? (And you seriously thought you weren’t an extrovert girl??)

My simple takeaway from this project with Netflix? It’s FUN to make art for + with other people!!! And I’m hopeful it could be the sparkly start to many more projects like this :)

what we’ve been celebrating in august!

Here’s a little peek at what else has been happening in CookieLand lately!

🍅 enjoying an East Nashville holiday (Tomato Art Fest) + an excuse to throw back to my sister’s Italian Summer baby shower cookies last year

🧈 my butter doormat glowing in the summer sun :-)

💿 BAKING FOR HILARY DUFF (AKA THE LIZZIE MCGUIRE) and celebrating her 2 sold out shows in nashville

🌺 decorating cookies with y’all at my “hot girl summer” cookie class!!

👯‍♀️ just so overlapping in LA for ONE day with (Nashville) bestie Michelle and getting to go to the Netflix afterparty together!

☁️ baking for Megan Moroney round 2 and celebrating HER 2 sold out shows in nashville!

🍪 getting an honorary girl scouts sash!! BRB crying 😭 (also I neeeed to go see the Cookie Queens movie, who’s in??)

september books + fall availability notice!

Heads up! September-December is my busiest season of the year, so my availability is much harder to pin down and more limited for custom orders. (Due to: every artist ever going on tour, brands with Q4 campaigns, holidays abounding, and lotsa fall events! Sheeeesh.)

What does that mean for you? These emails will go out later in the month, the majority of my dates will likely be blocked off, and I’ll be leaning more on my waitlist than my formal order form.

Okay, what’s the waitlist?

While my order form collects alllll of the details to go ahead and book your order, the waitlist collects just the basics to mark your interest on my calendar. (I’d love to give that priority space to one of y’all rather than a rando haha.)

I often have many pending projects this time of year, so I’ll reach out to you if they drop and I have space. Completely unavailable dates will not be listed. I’ll also reach out if my availability for sure fills up.

If you need to lock down a cookie order for your celebration ASAP, I’m probably not your girl at this time. But if cookies for your celebration are a nice-to-have vs a must-have, this is for you! I would LOVE to celebrate with some of you as my schedule allows. <3

Here is my September availability as it stands:

• Sep 4 & 5 - unavailable (I’ll be seeing Harry Styles in NYC weeee!!)

• Sep 11 & 12 - join waitlist

• Sep 18 & 19 - join waitlist

• Sep 25 & 26 - join waitlist

join the waitlist for september!

october books open tuesday, august 22nd at 7 PM CST!

Like the above section, I will announce on that day what October dates are available / unavailable, as well as share a link to my order form or waitlist. Click below to add a reminder to your calendar!

get reminded for october books!

Love y’all soooo much! Thank you for being such a big source of joy for me in getting to create cookies for you, share reflections with you, and get to do these crazy Netflix-esque projects because of you. Until next month!

-Emily <3

Hi friends!

Somehow I blinked and I’m already making my August bullet journal calendar? What da heck! I’ve really been enjoying the slower pace of the summer, but excited to ramp up soon for the fall. First up, here’s:

what I’ve been celebrating in july!

1 | teaching a cookie decorating class in Nashville THIS SATURDAY! ❤️‍🔥👙🌞🌺 Name a better way to soak up summer than sipping a prickly pear iced coffee and decorating some vibrant summer cookies?? Yeah, you can’t. Ticket sales close tonight at 11:59 PM so get em while they’re hot! Tickets available here.

2-3 | enjoying beach vistas and tiki cocktails and vacation with my fam in Florida! Even managed to come away with a bit of a tan. (which is only possible as a year-round pale girlie via trial by fire (in other words: sunburn fading into a tan))

4 | a hot new cookie set has entered the villa! I loved whipping up some vibrant love island cookies for Michaels to capture this season’s most iconic memes. It’s the tiny avocado toast and the sprinkles-as-sand for me.

5 | sharing the fullll scoop of how I went from being a teenage fangirl to celebrity cookie artist!! I’ve wanted to make a storytime like this for SO long and I’m so glad the 10 year anniversary of my first set of artist cookies gave me a chance to do it.

6 | creating a vibrant (word of the month, fr!) colorful favorite-things cookie set for a fav client! Pics coming to the grid soon!

7-8 | enjoying colorful bouquets and sunsets and soft serve. Don’t mind if I dooo.

9 | at long last, getting to launc an application for some back-end admin support!! Thank you so much to those who applied or shared with friends. I’ll be reviewing applications the next few weeks and reaching out for interviews early August! Hopefully my next newsletter will be introducing y’all to a new team member. 🥹🥰

august books are open!

Yippee! It’s party time for y’all August celebrators! 🥳

If any of the available dates have filled up with inquiries, I also have a waitlist! You’ll be redirected there to let me know you’re interested in cookies. As my availability can sometimes shift after my books open, I’ll reach out to you if space opens up. Completely unavailable dates will not be listed.

Here’s my availability for August and what you’ll find on the order form!

• August 7 & 8 — limited availability

• August 14 & 15 — unavailable

• August 21 & 22 — unavailable

• August 28 & 29 — available

place an order for august!

fall availability notice!

It’s about that time of year, can you believe it??? September-December is my busiest season (artists are on tour, brands have Q3 campaigns, holidays abound, and y’all got lotsa parties!) so I want to give y’all a heads up that my availability tends to be both sparser and harder to nail down. (For example, I might book for 0-2 available weeks vs 2-4.)

I looove getting to create orders for y’all and be a part of so many special events!! And this process is the best way I’m able to do so alongside other big projects. I appreciate y’all and your understanding more than you know!!!

That being said, I will most likely be unavailable for Labor Day weekend (Sep 4 & 5), so I’m opening September a bit later than usual:

september books open tuesday, august 25th at 7 PM CST!

Like the above section, I will announce on that day what September dates are available / unavailable, as well as share a link to my order form! Click below to add a reminder for September books to your calendar.

Get reminded for September books!

SO grateful for y’all and the ways you celebrate your people and lives so abundantly! See you next month (or in that order form!) and hopefully with a new admin gal by my side??!

x Emily

Sending out a bit of a different email than you’re usually getting about my books because…I’m looking to hire some contracted admin help!

If you’re on this list, chances are that you share my values of collaborating with vibrant people, creating beautiful things, and making people feel seen. To help CITK run as smooooth as butter and take things to the next level, I’m looking to add a contracted team member that has those same values but different skills than myself.

I’m calling this role the “Cookie Coordinator” to assist me in administrative day-to-day decision making, client communication, and back-end system creation. I’ve been thinking of them as my behind-the-scenes “showrunner” who can ensure the pieces connect so I can focus on “directing.” (This role doesn’t involve any making of cookies or social media content) It is contracted, remote, and for 5-10 hrs/wk with opportunity to grow.

Perhaps this person has a full-time job and want a side hustle to use their organizational gifts; they’re a virtual assistant who enjoys creating backend systems over client-facing creative work; or they simply love being in small businesses, without having to build one entirely themselves.

If this sounds like anyone in your network, (or yourself!) I’d be so thankful if you’d share this job application with them. See below for a photo summary as well!

cookie coordinator job application

Appreciate y’all so much!

-Emily 💖🫶🏼

Without further ado, here’s…

what I’ve been celebrating in june!

1 | it being TEN whole years since I baked my first set of artist cookies for the band Oh Wonder! 🥹🥲😭 I have LOTS to say about this anniversary…so good news for you!! If you’re curious about how I got from giving cookies to security guards outside tour buses to being welcomed backstage at arenas…stay tuned! I’ve whipped up a bunchhh of fun content to share in the next few weeks on my Instagram. Isn’t bb 16 year-old Emily so precious? Obsessed with her delusional fangirl ideas.

2-3 | Alex Warren’s new album announcement and getting to bring him his own set of cookies backstage at Bridgestone Arena!! (reveal video coming sooon 🤭) I also had the double joy of working with my friend Sara on this cookie set since she’s on tour with him right now doing socials. Creating with friends? Amazing. Seeing your friends find their passion and doing what the love? EVEN BETTER!!

4-6 | the most beautiful trip to California and Hawaii with my boyfriend Caleb and his family! I saw redwood trees and a volcano (!!) for the first time, drank many fruity cocktails, saw an abundance of sorbet-colored sunsets, and shockingly even got a little tan. (Where my pale girlies at?!) Truly a trip for the books!

7-8 | my dear artist friend Haley Hughes coming through Nashville and creating the most whimsical, moody, feminine cookie set inspired by her gorgeous artwork! I’ve been a patron of Haley’s work for a while—yet again, collabing with artists and friends will never not fill my cup SOOO much!! I surprised her with a few cookies at last year’s Porter Flea, and this year she gave them as freebies to people who spent $50+ at her booth at June’s Porter Flea. Did you happen to snag one? LMK! Sooo excited to post the closeups so y’all can see all the fun n funky details we included. (Also, did I watch the entirety of Off Campus in one sitting while making these?? Maybe. Don’t txt.)

9 | a new soft serve place opening up downstairs (see: dangerously close) to the coworking space I work at. (p.s. I’m there right now…will I be lured into another sweet treat tonight? only time will tell…)

Pst! I had space open up for one order this week (ideally Friday pickup)! If you’re interested in cookies this weekend, submit an order form asap! 💘 (Father’s day maybe? Or omg I would killll to make “you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love” cookies PLEAAASE)

july books are open! + new waitlist heyooo

Yippee! It’s time for all you summer birthdays and (pool) party people to jump in that order form. 🤸‍♂️✨

I’m also trying out a new feature this month! As my availability can sometimes shift around even after I open my books, I’ve created a waitlist for dates that fill up with inquiries. That way if anything drops and space opens up, I know to reach out to you!

Completely unavailable dates (i.e. I’m out of town or definitely don’t have space) will not be listed. If submissions for all dates are full, the order form linked below will stop accepting submissions and link to the waitlist instead.

Here’s my availability for July and what you’ll find on the order form!

• July 3 & 4 — available

• July 10 & 11 — available

• July 17 & 18 — UNAVAILABLE

• July 31 — Friday pickup only; availability pending; join waitlist

place an order for june!

So you can start planning ahead, mark your calendars because…

august books open tuesday, july 21st at 7 PM CST!

Like the above section, I will announce on that day what August dates are available / unavailable, as well as share a link to my order form. I know for certain I am out of town and unavailable on August 1st. Click below to add a reminder for August books to your calendar!

add a reminder for august's books!

That’s all from me! Hope y’all are getting tan and eating lots of soft serve 🫶🏼

x Emily

We come prepared with notes on the last month—Amelia referencing her floral Papier journal and myself a curated Notion page—and after an initial casual yap sesh over iced coffee, birria tacos, or Korean wings, we dive in. We share about our wins and answered prayers, how we’ve been fairing in work, relationships, and creative pursuits, and what’s coming up in the next month. It’s been such a delightful practice to examine all the beauty that often goes missed when I’m racing through my days, and to be a witness to hers too. Plus, as mentioned, it’s a great way to protect time on the calendar with a dear friend.

The first question we start with (and my favorite) is “what are three adjectives you’d use to describe the last month?” My adjectives for the last month were: encouraging, precious, and supported. What would yours be? Let me know in the comments!

(P.s. I was at a party last week and a few folks told me they appreciated my questions. I replied: “Want a pro tip? Steal ‘em from other people!” So, take this as my invitation to steal this (alibeit very simple) question and/or monthly practice. I highly recommend!)

If you’re a visual person like me, here’s what my encouraging, precious, and supported May has looked like:

may in the kitchen!

May in the kitchen has been full of:

1 | Baking a huge order of cookies for Meta (!!!) including hand-painted cookie gradients and tiny profile pictures. This was SO fun! See the process of how the cookies came together here.

2 | Updating my IG profile pic for the first time in 4 years thanks to @ohyeahtippy 💅🏻

3 | Mixing up some cookie magic for a fellow artist & entrepreneur friend, Bex Interiors’s, new brand launch event. (more pics coming soon!) 👑

4 | Decorating not one but two cakes for friends this month!! I am quite content in my cookie lane, so you know it’s out of love when I’m messing with buttercream haha.

5 | Cookie-fying some gorg products for CVS ✨

6 | Gifting my grandparents with their own custom cookie set for the first time ever as a belated birthday / early anniversary (58 years!) :’)

7 | Celebrating with so many of y’all! Including some murder mystery x wedding cookies for Candice King, many graduation cookies, and some “rata-two-ille” birthday cookies coming to the feed 🔜

And as for life outside of cookies…

may out of the kitchen!

May outside of the kitchen has been full of: ample iced coffees, a roadtrip x hometown trip with my bestie michelle to see her home in dallas, my niece’s baptism, ample spring bouquets, a fresh haircut, a visit to my grandparents, and cake!

june books are open!

Yippee! It’s time for all you summer birthdays and party people to jump in that order form.

I am unavailable for the first week of June (going to Hawaii and California WOOO!), which means my next available dates are:

• June 12 & 13

• June 19 & 20

• June 26 & 27

place an order for june!

So you can get prepared for next month, mark your calendars that…

july books open tuesday, june 16th at 7 PM CST!

Like the above section, I will announce on that day what July dates are available / unavailable, as well as share a link to my order form. As of now, please note I will definitely be unavailable July 17 & 18th. (going to the beach!) Click below to add a reminder for July books to your gCal:

add a reminder for July books!

That’s all from me! Can’t wait to see what celebrations y’all have planned! And don’t forget to let me know your 3 adjectives for the month in the comments :)

x Emily

Happiest of Spring days to you all! I’ve been enjoying a sweet and steady month in the kitchen creating cookies for y’all. Since my other business to-dos and client work narrows my capacity most months, I really enjoyed the rhythm of baking for so many of local friends. It warms my heart!! 🥰

Before we dive into logistics for May, here’s a glimpse into the kitchen + little snippets of life since we last chatted:

spring in the kitchen!

Spring in the kitchen has been full of: soft evening sunlight cascading into the kitchen, welcoming new babies into the world, niche Nashville interests in cookie form; cherishing wedding celebrations, and a few new cookie cutter shapes from my 3D printer I think will be in the rotation quite a bit now (see: top middle white plaque, bottom middle red diamond, and bottom right wavy rectangle).

And as for life outside of cookies…

spring out of the kitchen!

Spring outside of the kitchen has been full of: an abundance of four leaf clover hunting (duh), iced coffee and warm bread, friends’ shows, floral beds and floral dresses, and so much soft sunlight!

May availability update —

I you remembered from my last email blast, today is the day for May books opening, woo! While March and April have been soooo delightful with their ample space for customs, sadly I can’t say the same of May. 🥲 Here’s what to expect:

• I will be opening orders for the Belmont graduation presale tonight at 7 PM CST. Yippee!

• Unfortunately I am not available for any other orders or dates in May, nor any extra-personalized graduation sets for Belmont graduation. :(

May is one of my big busy months—as I’m sure it is in your world too!—so this was the call that made the most sense with my one-woman capacity. For those of you with celebrations in May, know I am partying with you from a distance. 🫶🏼💃 And I would LOVE to collaborate in the future to bring some cookie magic to your next special occasion.

Now for y’all Belmont Bruins, here’s what to expect:

• The presale includes a set of 3 designs—congrats [graduate name], a diploma, and “class of 2026”—for $100/dz. (Including orders of just 1 dozen!)

• Order minimum is 1 dozen and maximum is 5 dozen.

• Pickup is available on Thursday May 7th from 2-8 PM, and Friday May 8th from 8 AM - 4 PM.

• With my very fun new order form comes the ability to open/close submissions. So this link will change from “submissions are closed” to the open order form tonight at 7 PM! It will close again if I have sold out.

order graduation cookies!

Here’re some examples of previous year’s cookies:

june books open tuesday, may 19th at 7 PM CST!

I will announce what dates are available/unavailable that day as well as share a link to my order form. As of now, please note I will definitely be unavailable the first week of June. (I’m going to Hawaii !! 🌺🌊🍍) Add a gCal reminder for June books below:

Add to your calendar!

That’s all from me! I’ll see y’all Belmont Bruins in the order form at 7 PM and everyone else on May 19th for June’s dates. :)

x Emily

1 | Well I obviously couldn’t not make Harry Styles themed cookies, duh! My favorites from the album (no one asked) are Pop, Dance No More, and Paint by Numbers.

2 | I’m in the Nashville Scene?! Whaaa! Read the article here, or find a free copy at your local Nashville coffee shop! “Cookie in the Kitchen portrays the lives of friends and celebrities through edible art”

3 | I cookied for two incredible Dualtone artists who just dropped new and very beautiful albums— Langhorne Slim and The Brook & The Bluff!

4 | I made some extra-special cookies to love on a Make-a-Wish gal, Heidi, while she was a photographer for a day! Read all about how the Nashville community showed up to love on her here.

5 | I cookied the cookies to end all cookies: Girl Scouts! This was SUCH a fun collab. Dream cookie team fr!!

april books are open! woo!

Y’all know how this goes by now! Click on into the link to access the order form for April and scheme up your dream cookies.

The dates I have availability for are:

• April 10 & 11

• April 17 & 18

I am unavailable for orders on:

• April 3 & 4

• April 24 & 25

I’ll be replying to submissions on Thursday to confirm your spot on my calendar. Can’t wait to see what celebrations you’ve got cooking up next month!

access april's order form!

may books open tuesday, april 14th at 7 PM CST!

Woo! My exact availability will be announced that day as it may change in the next month. But as of now, here’s what I’m expecting:

• Likely unavailable for May 2 & 3, May 29 & 30

• Graduation presale on May 8 & 9 (expecting high demand for graduation orders)

• Regular availability for May 15 & 16, May 22 & 23

Alright that’s all I got for y’all! Chat soon!

Emily <3

You’re probably the first phone call a friend makes after she gets her dream job. You’re planning your Christmas decor and birthday party approximately 6 months out. You’re the first one to RSVP to your neighbor’s housewarming party. You’re in the Instagram comment section of parasocial bestie’s pregnancy announcement saying “CONGRATS!! you’re going to be the best mom ever 😭.”

I don’t have to tell you twice that celebrating is not just worthwhile but essential. Life is too short and too scary to not take advantage of life’s delights—big or small—with utmost fervor!!

Even if you’re more frugal with your cheerleader energy and prefer to rally for the big moments, I can confidently guess one thing about you: you love your people HARD.

Because that’s the truth about celebrations. They’re really not about The Big Thing. They’re about the people that are a part of it. They’re about marking a moment in time, honoring your community, and delighting in abundance. Why else would would we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a wedding, say, where most of the expenses are going to be enjoyed by the guests?! They’re as much “about” the couple starting their life together as they are about the community they exist in and are supported by. If you’re going for a return on your investment, celebrations would never look “worth it” on paper. And isn’t that kind of the point?

While I’m usually playing the support-role for y’all’s celebrations, I had my own foray into celebrating and party-planning a few weeks ago.

ICYMI, February 6th marked FIFTEEN whole years of Cookie in the Kitchen!!

I could’ve brushed it off and waited for 20 years, or 25, or simply passed it by. But something about this particular moment in time called to me. So I put on my dreaming hat and schemed up a plan. While I promise I *have* grown in my ability the last few years to not be so all-or-nothing…I mean, I HAD to go all out for this. The celebrations entailed…

1 | Throwing a Big Ass Party in Nashville at Forevermore Coffee to celebrate my business pals, clients and friends! Complete with a mandatory red and pink dress code, duh. 💓❣️

2 | Hosting another (smaller but still big deal) party in Atlanta at Monday Night: The Grove to celebrate CITK’s day one clients, cheerleaders, and consultants! (Also: hard launching boyfriend in the kitchen hehe. Say hi to Caleb!!)

3 | Toasting to these communities (you were there in spirit, too!) for the ways that y’all’s love and support has enabled me to live out my calling so vibrantly.

4 | Baking a cookie with every attendees name on it so they all got a lil taste of the CITK love!

5 | Refreshing my color palette and fonts up to speed with my current style: helloooo vibrant colors! Magenta has entered the chat. 🙂‍↕️

6 | Creating an updated logo to improve legibility! Obsessed with the way the icing is coming out of the piping bag now hehe.

7 | Getting a jumpsuit custom chain stitched (by Ranger Stitch) with “The Cookie Girl”!! No like, I will never get over this, I think it’s the coolest thing I own???

8 | Decorating a new set of CITK themed cookies for my website and socials! The last time I did one of these was SIX years ago (that’s over 1/3 of the life of CITK!) and it was a blast getting to capture my brand with my current cookie style and skills.

9 | Shooting a TONNN of new brand photos with Em, aka @ohyeahtippy, aka my fav Forevermore barista. :-) Y’all she freaking CRUSHED THESE PICS. I can’t wait to share ALL of them so soon!!!

But that’s not all…

I might as well rename my business Celebration in the Kitchen by the way February has got me celebrating alllll month long. Somehow the timing very magically lined up where in the background of these parties and photoshoots, far away in CEO Land™, something else was coming together.

If you’ve been reading my newsletters the last few years, you’ve probably heard me bemoan my frustrations and apologize over the messy state of my booking process. Cleaning this up has not only been a need of mine for…maybe all 15 years?! But but a dream all the same: To have a process for ordering cookies that is both FUN and functional for my clients and myself.

To make light of much work, for the last year I’ve been working with Julie Sellers of Ellevated Outcomes (a small business strategy firm) towards this goal. Sometimes this felt like a delightful creative puzzle to solve together and other times like a doctor working on your foot to help with your back pain. (“I guess it’s all connected but what are we doing over there?!”) I’ve been so grateful to have Julie’s expertise, wisdom, leadership to guide and support me through it!

So without further ado…

I have a new order form!!!

— and an updated booking process coming your way for April!

Here’s the old order form if you want to see the glow up, and here are all of the features I’m geeking out about!!!! You can now:

• Select an available pickup date on a calendar view

• Answer new fun questions about the style and inspo for your cookie set

• SELECT A COLOR PALETTE?! hello!!!!! I’m OBSESSED.

• Tell me why what you’re celebrating is important to you

• Upload multiple inspiration photos at once (a functional dream)

• See descriptions, example sets, and selection-specific pricing WITHIN the form!

EEEEP!!!

When I started working on these updates with Julie, I told her my goal was to match excitement with expectations. And that a cherry on top would be this process being described as FUN. I filled out a sample form to test it out myself, and even I had a blast dreaming up my fake cookie set for my roommate’s butter themed birthday party haha. I’m so pumped for y’all to get to play around with it yourself.

Speaking of, March books are OPEN for all four weekends in March! Head on in that (new) order form, woo!

P.s., anyone want to order Harry Styles / KISSCO themed cookies next week?? 👀 I’m dying to create a themed set!

see the form / place an order for March!

Then, after submitting a form, you’ll get an email with super clear expectations of what will come next. Eventually these will live on my website as well, but for now, here’s a teaser of what will happen if you place an order!

1. You’ll get an email from me within 2 business days confirming the details of your order and recommending any adjustments. Please check your spam if you don’t hear from me by then.

2. After confirming your preferred pricing tier and design requests are aligned, I’ll send you an invoice via Square that will be due within 48 hours.

3. Once paid, your order is officially confirmed on my calendar! Woo!

4. We’ll dive into any thoughts or questions regarding the designs and creative direction. Plus, I’ll send you the location and details for pickup in East Nashville.

5. 2 weeks before your date we’ll confirm a pickup time, I’ll work my cookie magic, and then…

6. It’s cookie time!!! 🍪✨🥳💋🧚🏼‍♀️💓🌟🤸🫶🏼

And, an improved timeline is coming for April orders and beyond!

TBH I’m a little late on writing this email, so more on this later hahaha. But here are the high points!

• I’m aiming to open my books at the same time every month, so it’s not a guess as to when an email is coming! I’ll be doing so in the middle of the current month for the following month, so there is more advance notice before your celebrations.

• I’ll be updating my order page with clearer steps on the booking process, so you know exactly what to do to prepare, what to wait on, and when it’s time to book.

And, I’ll be opening my books for April on March 17th at 6:00 PM CST! Add a reminder to your calendar below :) As a heads up, I will be unavailable the weekend of April 24th & 24th.

set a reminder for April books!

Alright, it’s time for March books to open (sorry to be a few minutes late!) so I’ll wrap it up. Thank you all for celebrating these milestones with me, and I’m delighted to celebrate your milestones as well. So much to celebrate! WOOO!

x Emily

Popping on here for a brief heads-up that I am opening my books for March celebrations tomorrow at 6 PM CST! YAY!! This is extra exciting for two reasons…

I have availability for all 4 weekends in March! 🥳 I will be booking for:

• March 6 & 7

• March 13 & 14

• March 20 & 21

• March 27 & 28

AND stay tuned because I have a special something up my sleeve apron launching tomorrow!!! I’ve been absolutely DYING to share this with y’all OMG. It’s fun, beautiful, a LONG time coming, and should make your ordering experience TOP tier. I’ve been cooking it up for quite some time and am so excited it’s finally ready to share with y’all :-)

If you’re planning to order tomorrow, here’s your homework:

• Check your schedule to see which pickup date would work best for you

• Review my pricing tiers to find which tier sounds good for your budget and preferred level of detail

• Brainstorm ideas and gather inspo for your cookies! i.e. round up inspo photos, do a little Pinteresting, or make a list of possible cookie designs.

• Set a reminder for tomorrow at 6 PM CST! Better yet, here’s an invite you can add in as an calendar event: (First time I’m trying this out, so lmk if it doesn’t work!)

Add to your calendar!

See you sooooon!

x Emily

Despite the brutal cold and dismal gray, I’ve come to learn to like the quiet of January. The freedom to move slower with the pace of winter—to contemplate the year to come and examine the year that’s past—all feels like a soft gift after the intensity of the holidays. So please forgive my Substack absence (Substacence?) the last few months!

I’ve taken to claiming January as a “CEO month” where I can lean into that alignment of environment and action. And y’all, it has been a BLAST. Not just because I’m not expecting myself to keep at a crazy pace when the world is so sleepy, but because I get straight up GIDDY when I get to wear my CEO hat and not just my cookie apron!

Here’re some highlights from the two since we last chatted…

from cookie’s apron —

1 | Decorated perhaps my best set of album cover cookies for MTV yet?! The details go CRAZYYYYY

2 | Joined in with other bakers online to create an “icing not I.C.E” family Christmas card cookie—and had my heart warmed and faith restored by there being not. one. single. negative. comment. 🥹 love y’all fr

3 | Cookied the most iconic set of Swiftmas ornament cookies for Betty Crocker's TikTok

4 | Finally shared this vlog of my “cookie marathon” week (ICYMI: back-to-back cookies for Sabrina Carpenter, Paul McCartney, Leon Thomas, and 24 hrs in NYC for an event with TikTok) that my friend Georgia and I had the BESTTTTTT time EVER editing

5 | Taught one of my favorite (if not the favorite??) Christmas cookie class at prickly pear coffee! It was SOOO fun. Thank you guys for joining!!

from cookie’s CEO hat —

1 | the biggest thing on my CEO agenda for January has been…planning a party for Cookie in the Kitchen’s 15th anniversary on February 6th (that’s tomorrow)!! TRUST. y’all will hearing about and seeing many photos from this 🔜

2 | Reviewed the wins in CookieLand™ from 2025 and set goals for 2026! I’ve been dying to do this every year and am so glad I was able to do it this year. With the help of a friend, I named that my overall buckets of goals are: enjoy (personal wellbeing), sustain (CEO satisfaction), and grow (creative fulfillment). My CEO brain is sooooo happy to have it sorted and organized!

3 | I’m using my 15th anniversary as an excuse for …new brand photos! (my last shoot was 4 years and 2 eras of eyeglasses ago oops) and y’all aren’t READYYYYYYY ‼️

4 | … a limited edition speciality drink with Forevermore Coffee! Come by Feb 6-14th for the “Call Me Cookie” — a delish sugar cookie latte with raspberry cold foam and a mini cookie for the first 50 people ❣

5 | …a slight update to my branding and color palette with a new set of cookies! Pics dropping tomorrow on Instagram!

6 | and the grand finale of my CEO spoils, which will be particularly exciting for you all: A new and improved order form and ordering process is coming your way soon!!

I’ve been working towards this since (well, ever, but more specifically) last April when I signed on with Ellevated Outcomes. In the words of my strategist Julie, “WOW. You hit this out of the park, like I knew you would. It is clean, simplified and engaging for the client, and… so you. I love it.”

I’ve still got some technical pieces to fit together before we fully launch it. But I can’t WAIT for y’all to see it! See the gallery above for a teaser of one of my favorite additions to the form: a color palette selector (!!!!!) 🤩

february books update!

Yet again some Substacence apologies are in order as I definitely intended to check in with y’all sooner! Sadly with my anniversary celebrations and rescheduled January orders from the ice storm, I do not have capacity to open up for custom orders this February. 🥲🥲

To those of you with February celebrations, I am SO deeply sad to miss out on collaborating with y’all as I LOVE getting to dream up cookie magic together. 💔 The great thing about celebrations though is that they don’t stop: there is always more to celebrate!! So please do stick around as I would be delighted to work together to bring a future event / special occasion to cookie-life.

March orders are looking much more likely, so I’ll be sending out info about that in a few weeks once I get through the anniversary celebrations. (Did I mention I’m also planning a second party in Atlanta?? 🤪)

Alright my friends! It’s t-24 hours until I’ll be setting up tinsel and cookies and red and pink decor everywhere. So I’ve got to get back to cookie-ing and party planning! I appreciate y’all being here SO deeply—many more sentimental words about 15 years to come later—but tl;dr this business wouldn’t be what it is without my community. What a gift you are!!

Chat soon!

-Cookie <3

Before we dive into all of your delicious December details…here’s what you missed on: CookieLandTV!

(P.s. remember this is a totallll highlight reel—there’s much more reality and humanness behind the scenes :))

cookie in the green room

Fall in Cookie Land = concert cookie season! I mean does EVERY single artist I love plan a tour from the months of Sep-Nov??? I’m not complaining though! The lineup this year has been SO much fun. Check out your favs below!

It was round two for these artists:

💋 Sabrina Carpenter (or see last year’s set!) — p.s. you might wanna check out slide 10 of this post 😲

🍀 Conan Gray (or see 2019’s set!)

🕰️ Laufey (or see last year’s set!)

📺 The Lumineers (see 2020’s set!)

…and my first time baking for a few more!

🇬🇧 Paul McCartney (HELLO??!?!)

🕺 Sombr (Is he really 6’7”??)

🐾 Leon Thomas (who got nominated for SIX grammys?! INSANE)

fall in the kitchen

1 | If you liked last year’s 3D laptop cookies…MTV and I came back with another set of cookie music videos!!

2 | Witnessed Sabrina Carpenter perform Tears for the first time and Conan Gray hit the Vodka Cran high note in front of my eyes a the VMAs. Don’t txt.

3 | Obviously celebrated The Life of a Showgirl release with swiftie cookies 🫶🏼

4 | Sent cookies to Tom Holland?!?!? HELLO

5 | Taught a v spooky cookie class at Live Nation!!

6 | Cookie-fied my favorite cookies in the world, aka Levain Bakery!!

7 | Cookie-d an instagram mutual, @rosieroaming!

8 | Went to NYC for 24 hours (wild) for a holiday event with TikTok??!? (even more wild)

9 | Celebrated a college bestie’s wedding in Austin, TX! The COLORRRRSSS

fall out of the kitchen

1 | Visited a baker bestie’s new bakery, Saint Street Cakes, in Brooklyn!!

2 | Enjoyed the dregs of red & pink summer flowers :)

3 | Celebrated my bestie Michelle with a “Laura Ingalls Gone Wild” bachelorette in Nashville HAHA (The “going wild” included a murder mystery, TJs wine, and a 11 pm bedtime lol)

4 | Savored the best creme brulee of my LIFE at Hopfields in Austin, TX. (Can every bar pls have such a stellar dessert menu???)

5 | Scream-sang to Sabrina Carpenter last week!!! One of my favorite shows EVER—a theater girlie knows how to put on a SHOWWWW.

6 | Was imbued with inspiration and delight at Ellevated Outcome’s client appreciation event, where we learned all about creating moments that matter <33

7 | Had the best almond croissant of my life at Mama Bread in Nashville

8 | Unexpectedly met another baker bestie, MK aka Whisk Chick at the TikTok event in NYC!!

9 | Hosted a WHMS backyard fall movie night!!

december books are open!

*Mariah Carey voice* It’s tiiiiiiiime!!

Before you head into the order form, here’s the 411 on my waitlist —

As some dates book up sooner than others or if there’re pending orders on my calendar, I may add you to the waitlist! You can choose to opt-in to the waitlist and specify what date you’d be comfortable staying on there until. It can be tomorrow or the day before your event date. Completely up to you!

Not interested in joining the waitlist? No problem! You can specify that on the order form, and I’ll let you know right away if I’m able to take your order or not.

Here are the dates that will be on the order form!

• December 5 & 6

• December 12 & 13

As a reminder, I will NOT be taking orders for:

• All of November

• December 1-4

• Dec 14th through January 15th

I’ll be replying by the end of the week to confirm my ability to take your order! Can’t wait to hear all about what you’re celebrating this winter, woo!!

access the order form for december!

Chat soon,

-Cookie <3

As most fall seasons tend to go, it has absolutely flown by with a number of exciting cookie projects and business projects. With the holidays coming, I’m sure November and December will be no different!

While I’d usually share a little gallery of the highlights. . .ya girl is on a tight 👏🏻 schedule 👏🏻 for one of my busiest absolutely INSANE weeks of the year. As my friend Katie told me last week:“you have to be crazy to say yes to all of that.”

Stay tuned on Instagram to see what I’ve been dubbing my “cookie marathon” this week. (It might be nearing Taylor Swift week levels of insanity—though very much aiming for 0 all nighters pls 😩)

So I’ll keep this Short N’ Sweet with updates on November and December bookings! ;)

november and december availability! —

Re: November — I will sadly not be taking any custom orders this month. :( I’ll still be spending some time in “Cookie Land”. . .but I’m saving up my custom order capacity for December so I can take on a full load for y’all’s holiday celebrations! Speaking of which..

Re: December — My books for custom orders will open Wednesday, November 12th at 6 PM CST! You’ll receive another email from Substack with the link to my order form at that time.

Here’re the dates I will be booking for!

• December 5 & 6

• December 12 & 13

I will NOT be taking orders for:

• All of November

• December 1-4

• *Dec 14-25th* — If you’d like, you can order early and add heat sealing, which will keep the cookies fresh for 2 weeks.

• December 25th through January 15th.

If you’re a visual person, here’s a screen shot from my order page calendar:

If our dates align—yippee! Here is your homework before Nov 12th:

• As the holiday demand can be quite crazy, go ahead and set those alarms for November 12th at 6 PM CST. While I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to accept every order, just know I’d love to take as many as I can!

• Review my pricing page to find a tier that suits your budget + preferred level of detail! If I’m able to take your order, we’ll chat to confirm the tier is aligned with your request, or I’ll recommend changes if another is better suited for your ideas.

• Gather your ideas and inspiration photos! If I’m able to take your order, we’ll dive into this more, so the specifics can still be taking shape. At this stage, I’ll need at least an “elevator pitch” and a few photos to know what you’re looking for.

But wait, there’s more!

If you’re in Nashville on December 18th, I’d love to see you at a. . . Christmas cookie decorating class! 🥁

I’ll provide all of the cookies, icing and supplies while guiding you through decorating 5 delicious Christmassy sugar cookies. The class will be held at Prickly Pear Coffee Co in The Gulch from 6:30-8:15 PM. See the beautiful crew from last year’s class below. :) More event details are on the ticket page:

get your ticket here!

That’s all for now! Send thoughts & prayers as I dive into my cookie marathon lol 🫡 See y’all again on the other side on November 12th!

-Cookie <3

What delineates the seasons of your life?

Perhaps it’s as clean cut as a date circled in red on your wall calendar such as January 1st, your birthday, your moving date to a new city. Maybe it sneaks up on you in less-obvious ways like cracking opening a new journal, swapping your winter and summer wardrobes, or the first proper family lake trip.

The academic year was my bookmark for a while—each year of college sliced right along the dieline of August to May. Along with the title change of freshman to senior, entirely different living spaces, friend groups, and classes clearly differentiated the settings and tone from year to year.

Now three years post-grad, the seasons of my life have become a bit softer around the edges. They’re less like a TV drama and more like a sitcom, where characters and plot flow from one season to the next. I guess that’s a side effect of adulthood as well. There are so many NEW experiences within the first ~30 years of our life, all which give an opportunity to chunk your life into sections with, while the latter years are generally more consistent and familiar.

While springtime breathes life and stirs change into the air after winter, I believe August/September is a season marker in and of itself. Everyone has returned tanned and filled with stories from their summer vacations; back to school begins; new commitments and small groups start back up; there’s breathing room in the less-humid air to dream about the last few months of the year; routines call back after the listlessness of summer; and the noise of the neighborhood awakens as people emerge from their air-conditioned bubbles to enjoy slightly-less-sweltering-and-less-buggy afternoons together.

I could get drunk on that feeling, especially when stirred up with the delicious end-of-day shadows that glisten through chartreuse leaves on 75° evening walks.

To create a personal marker of this shifting of the seasons, I take a “CEO week” every year in August. I step away from the emails and the cookie making and the day-to-day to reorient to my vision and push the needle on some back burner projects.

This year’s CEO agenda included:

1. About 8 locked-in hours fiddling on spreadsheets: I track every hour of every step of every cookie order I create (which includes almost 500 (!!) orders in the last 3 years) so I organized and aggregated it!

2. I mapped out my ideal year and ideal week! With a non-traditional schedule, the latter truthfully threw me for a bit of a loop. (That’s been a tough cookie to crack foreverrrrr.) But the ideal year was super enlightening.

busy isn’t a bad word

What was so enlightening then, Emily?

Layering what I studied from my order data over my yearly calendar showed clear trends of seasonality, like small lights guiding a walkway blinking on when dusk turns the sky from periwinkle to purple.

Summers tend to be quieter on the cookie front: fewer holidays, fewer events as people are traveling, and fewer concerts for favor of outdoor festivals. Sounds about right.

But once September hits, it’s a different story. Basically, it is nonstop-firing-on-all-cylinders-insanity-for-four-months-straight-until-Dec 31st. Fall events are happening like crazy, about every artist known to man decides to tour, and brands want to find unique ways to spend the last of their marketing budgets by the end of the year.

Logically, I knew fall was a particular busy time in Cookie Land™. But since busy weeks can come at any time, I didn’t realize how much the volume —both in noise and mass—increased on all sides of my business these months. Combine that volume with an unusual schedule and working as a solopreneur? Sheesh. My assessments of capacity, and therefore my ability to make decisions, just about smokes from overexertion.

(Suddenly my annual crash out at the end of October wondering “what the heck was that???” and barely getting the chance to catch my breath before being thrust into holiday craziness made a whole lot more sense! Who would’ve thought!)

Me from Sep-Dec for real:

Now busy, intense seasons are not inherently bad or good. They’re part of life! After all, Ecclesiastes 3 says, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” Even nature has busy and slow seasons.

Busy is not a badge of honor nor is it a bad word.

Busy just means there are more options and opportunities vying for your finite resources of time, attention, or money. The stakes feel higher and the decisions less obvious. You often have to say no to good things to say yes to better things. (Or, simply decide to say yes to something.)

There are many tools I’ve learned to center me in seasons like this. But one of my favorites? People!

We all need people to lean on when we feel flooded. People that can sit with us and point us back to truth. Friends who let us come as we are. Advisors whose experience or expertise we can learn from. We all need perspective, and as my counselor once told me: “perspective must come from outside of ourselves.”

Heading into this year’s busy season, I’ve been saying that it feels kinda like that scene in an action movie where some-Tom-Cruise-adjacent-actor has about 20 seconds to catch his breath in a sunken boat filling with water before it goes underwater and he has to figure out how to escape.

Entrepreneurs are like directors of a movie (and like mothers, probably): we must simultaneously keep our eye on a million things in order to build and direct the entire vision. We especially need perspective. We need our man on the outside!

leading heart-first

Excitingly, this season, I have a my (wo)man on the outside. Enter my small business strategist: Julie from Ellevated Outcomes!

You may remember me talking about my decision to hire Ellevated Outcomes back in April. Within the last 5 months, Julie has expertly lead me through the tenuous waters with the goal of building balance, stability, and eventually, scalability into CITK.

We boldly began our journey with the choppiest waters of them all: pricing, capacity, and calendar. *gasp*

As she and I have explored the depths of strategy to assess where the holes in the boat are, what’s working well, and where there is room to grow, she has likely gotten tired of hearing me bring up the same thing again and again...

You!

The heart of my business is people!

Julie knows that if any of our ideas lean away from connecting with my people—or as we refer to y’all, “CITK’s ‘1000 true fans’” :)—I don’t want ‘em! Thankfully she knows entrepreneurs bring not just facts but feelings to the table, and is an expert in weighing both of them.

I could totally nerd out here about all the business and mission and strategy things, but why try to explain something when Taylor Swift has already perfectly articulated it?

Like most people, Taylor and Travis have been occupying a good bit of my headspace—and this quote from her feature on his podcast so perfectly captures the way I feel about our strategy decisions.

“I’m in the business of human emotion. I would so much rather lead heart-first in something like this. Because for me, this is not ‘I want to own my masters because of its returns.’” - Taylor Swift

I still remember the moment in my senior entrepreneurship class when it dawned on me that my job isn’t really making cookies. Nor creating art, even.

It is partnering in the divine work of seeing the beauty in people and reflecting it back to you through moments of celebration.

Balance, stability, and scalability are ultimately a means to an end: tools for me to do that job description well—and do it sustainably! Which leads me to…

💖 custom order updates! 💖

As of August, it’s officially been 3 years of full-time cookie-ing—can I get an ow ow?! (and somehow it will be 15 total years in February???!!! HUH)

My overall goal these 3 years has been to see what shape this business takes without the constraints of school, then shape it so it can best grow and scale beyond just myself. Not for the sake of “returns,” but again for the sake of people: celebrating and inspiring more people through cookies, both clients and employees alike.

Like a garden that’s grown wild, there’s unexpected beauty to discover and delight in…yet also much to prune so it can be a place of enjoyment and not chaos.

Julie and Ellevated Outcomes have been such a delightful pruning partner in this stage of business. I’m so excited to show you some of the trellises we’ve built the last few months, so this garden can continue to flourish and grow!

1 • updated prices & pricing descriptions

Same tiers, new look!

With updated descriptions, y’all can easily assess which tier best captures your particular celebration and cookie vision—and know what overall effect to expect when I bring that vision to life! The prices have gone up so that the steps from 1 vs 2 dozen and tier vs tier are a bit wider as well.

Tag yourself! Are you the exceptional celebrator, memorable party planer, or above-and-beyond gift giver?

see updated pricing here!

2 • updated order page

Also same funky order process, new look! Haha.

I don’t pretend to think my order process is particularly straightforward…while Julie and I soon get to pruning it, I thought I could at the very least break it down into some digestible bite-sized steps for y’all!

see the new & improved order page!

p.s. please clap because I did the VERY hard task of doing only *one* part of a back burner project (updating my website) while somehow not getting carried away (and subsequently overwhelmed) trying to do the entire undertaking all at once. Cheers to that!!

3 • capacity is full* for sep/oct, due to concert season

While Taylor Swift can somehow fly to Sweden in her off days to write and record a whole album in between Eras Tour shows…I’m just a girl! One set of concert cookies can take me out for an entire week.

Excitingly, there are many incredible artists coming to Nashville this fall I’m hoping to cookie for! I’m super eager to give my full attention to internet deep dives and piping tiny icing nail polish on cookie pop stars.

Because of this, my capacity is full for the fall. But…

4 • *I’ve developed a waitlist for sep/oct!

…I would LOVE to celebrate with you all and accommodate where I can! So that I’m able to take some custom orders rather than none, I’m rolling out a waitlist for September/October.

This way y’all can get in line for your pending date while my remaining availability is still sorting itself out. The waitlist does not guarantee an order, but it puts you in the best place for one!

I know many of you have to plan ahead for your celebrations and budgets asap; if the waitlist is not best suited to where you are at right now—I totally understand! I would be delighted to celebrate with you at another time when the logistics click. (What a gift there are so many things to celebrate and this is not our only chance!)

If you’re vying for your own custom CITK cookie set, please check out the waitlist form below! Details of how communication and timeline will work are right at the top. I will not be sending out another “books open” email for Sep/Oct as I usually do, so go ahead and fill her out!

🧡🩵 Pst! I am planning to do a presale for The Life of a Showgirl release woo! Exact details are TBD, but you can submit the waitlist form for that too :)

check out the waitlist!

Thank you dearly for being here and caring for the heart (and the human!) behind this lovely business. It’s a real gift to spend my days surrounded by color, celebration, and creativity. I hope the changing of the seasons brings more of those lovely things into your life too!

-Cookie <3

P.s. don’t forget to follow along on IG at @cookieinthekitchen to see what concert cookies and craziness ensue in the next couple of weeks!

cookie’s crumbs 🍪✨

in cookie’s airpods

what I’ve been listening to recently

My friends Gracie & Eliza, aka the twin sisters behind Lighthearted, dropped a FABULOUS indie folk record a few weeks ago. They just NEVER miss. Do yourself a favor and queue this bad boy up. Also, our mutual friend Madison Rensing, who shot my cookie magazine cover for NYOTA magazine, shot the album art! I love when my friends make beautiful things :’)

in the cookie jar

an old cookie set I haven’t shared photos of yet

Okay I actually *have* shared this cookie set already, but it’s been a few years and they deserve more hype! My client requested all things 90s + 90s sitcoms for her 30th birthday, so of course we went ALL OUT. She even drove 4 hours from Atlanta to pick them up. 🥹 Do any of these spark nostalgia for you? My fav is the Sabrina The Teenage Witch poster!

current cookie cake crush

an cookier a cake gal I’ve been obsessed with recently

I simply MUST shoutout my bestie Mads aka @mads.eatz!! She has been absolutely slaying the kitchen down with her fabulous cakes for all the Nashville cuties. She’s a whiz with flavors and with her piping bag; her creative cake styling truly never gets old. If your celebration needs a cake in Nashville (it does) or you want to add some more fun ‘n color into your feed, check her out!

in the oven

an idea or project that isn’t fully baked; a sneak peek of what’s coming!

CITK’s 15th birthday (say WHAT) is coming up early next year, and I’ve been noodling on some ways to celebrate. Aside from my own 16th birthday almost a decade ago (say WHAT x2) I haven’t ever thrown a Big Party™. So obviously yr 15 would DEFINITELY be a delightful excuse to celebrate in person! Very much in brainstorming phase—share ideas if y’all have any! Maybe new merch? A cookie swap? Dress up theme? Watch this space…

cookie’s wishlist

something I’ve been eyeing

While falling asleep one night thinking about the aforementioned party, I had the thought of a red jumpsuit with a chain stitched “Cookie” on the back. HOW FUN WOULD THAT BE COME ONNNN

this but a cookie tho

something fun I spotted that I NEED to turn into a cookie

Rapunzel Roan. Need I say more.

August books are open!

Before you order, here’s the 411 on my waitlist —

As some dates book up sooner than others or if there’re pending orders on my calendar, I may add you to the waitlist! You can choose to opt-in to the waitlist and specify what date you’d be comfortable staying on there until. It can be tomorrow or the day before your event date. Completely up to you!

Not interested in joining the waitlist? No problem! You can specify that on the order form, and I’ll let you know right away if I’m able to take your order or not.

Here are the dates that will be on my order form!

• August 2 & 3

• August 15 & 16

• August 29 & 30

As a reminder, I will NOT be taking orders for:

• August 8 & 9

• August 22 & 23

access the order form for august!

Can’t wait to see what y’all are celebrating this month!

-Cookie <3

I would say to ignore the fact that this email is hitting your inbox at a crisp 9 PM…but if you know me, you know my hours are almost always nocturnal. So so be it!

For as long as I can remember, I have always been my most creative at night. I have distinct memories from middle school, various art supplies from Michaels splayed out on my pink shag rug and a pirated Mary Kate and Ashley movie queued up on my iPod touch (probably split up in a 14 part YouTube playlist), while fashioning my next room decor item / birthday gift / miscellaneous craft at 2 am. For years, my family and I thought I was an introvert because of it. It wasn’t until recently that I realized I’m just an extrovert that wanted to be unbothered LOL.

It’s surprising, given how I love to bask in the sun as much as your neighborhood cat. (I will always pick the sunniest spot to work from in the coffee shop—vownie points if it’s in a corner with a comfy seat.) But there’s something so delicious about the gift of a quiet, distraction-less swath of time to work or create after the sun has set. I’m not the only one who loves it. I personally have a theory that it’s easier to work at night because you don’t have external cues to the passing of time — light changing, shops closing, friends/family coming home from work, typical meal hours, etc. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for the 24/7 hours at Switchyards, my coworking space haha.

Do you do your best work in the early hours or late at night? Lmk in the comments!

Here’s a glimpse into what I’ve been cookie-ing up after the sun has set…

july in the kitchen

1 | had y’all test your music video knowledge with these summery cookies ✍️

2 | made cookies for dolly parton!?! (round 2 at that!) — a gift from belmont for the opening of her new musical :-)

3 | yapped about color palettes, fangirl culture, graphic design and, obviously, cookies with michelle on the kiss my aesthetic podcast! listen hereeee

4 | decided 4 hours before the tight ends and friends show to make a box of cookies for travis kelce, and then saw taylor swift perform shake it off in a room of 1200 people?!

5 | — sent a dear friend from belmont off to her next adventure in charleston with a lil box of cookies! <3

6 | happened to have an extra cookie in the EXACT same shape/shade of blue as this handbook in my small group…so obvi had to make it one lol

7 | helped celebrate my bestie liz kate’s farmer’s market baby shower in cookie stead since I couldn’t be there in person :’)

8 | THE COOKIE GIRL DONE GOT COOKIED by my cookie friend @thumbprints.etc.bakery! the fit check!!! I can’t!!

july out of the kitchen

As for the regular daylight hours, July has been warm, colorful and full of friends! All that I could ask for.

1 | got some film pics back from my club libby lu themed bday party 💖

2 | mooched off of bestie hannah’s pool (everyone needs a pool friend)

3 | took many photos of summer clouds n sunsets

4 | drank many coffees from forevermore

5 | visited bestie bailey in st louis :-)

6 | rewatched the kit kittredge movie (yes it still holds up)

7 | celebrated bestie emma’s 30th at her field day birthday haha

8 | got my butter bookmarks in the mail 🧈

august availability update —

Yippee, August books will open tomorrow, Wednesday July 23rd at 6 PM CST!

You’ll receive another email from Substack with the link to my order form at that time. Here’re the dates I will be booking for!

• August 2 & 3

• August 15 & 16

• August 29 & 30

I will NOT be taking orders for:

• August 8 & 9

• August 22 & 23

See y’all tomorrow!

-Cookie <3

cookie’s crumbs 🍪✨

in cookie’s airpods

what I’ve been listening to recently

This song from The Materialists! I simply need to experience being in love, walking in central park with my baby, while listening to this song through shared wired headphones, you know?

in the cookie jar

an old cookie set I haven’t shared photos of yet

Somehow I managed to whip up these cookies in the middle of my my Taylor Swift / Eras Tour cookie marathon in 2023 (bc miss swift decided to play the same week as Belmont graduation 🫠…it was insane), so clearly they got overlooked in my camera roll! But the story is so sweet. My senior year at Belmont, I lived in a house that got “passed down” through senior in my college ministry, RUF. I think it has had at least 5 generations of RUF girls. One of the girls that lived in it the year after me asked for cookies of the house for graduation gifts for her roommates! SO PRESH

cookie’s wishlist

something I’ve been eyeing

I picked up these incredibly cute mugs at Porter Flea from Stokes Jones Studio—one for me (red) and one for my sister (blue). I told Sam (the potter) how FUN it would be if these were the mugs I got for my bakery one day in the brand colors?! I’d die.

Also between drafting and sending this email, I spotted + impulse bought these butter bookmarks from Pinterest HOW CUTE

current cookie crush

an cookier I’ve been obsessed with recently

I genuinely think my jaw drops every time Abbey aka @angelbakednyc shares a new cookie set. I swear I’ve never seen a simple cookie come out of this girl’s kitchen—talk about a girl after my own detail-oriented heart!

in the oven

an idea / project that isn’t fully baked, or something I’ve been working on behind the scenes

Last week I shared a video of a night in my life (instead of a day in my life). This was a quick trend style, but I’d love to try filming a longer vlog style video of my nights since I’m always working crazy hours. 🤪

this but a cookie tho >

something fun I spotted that I NEED to turn into a cookie

Hi new section! 🍒

July books are open!

Before you order, here’s the 411 on my waitlist —

As some dates book up sooner than others or if there’re pending orders on my calendar, I may add you to the waitlist! You can choose to opt-in to the waitlist and specify what date you’d be comfortable staying on there until. It can be tomorrow or the day before your event date. Completely up to you!

Not interested in joining the waitlist? No problem! You can specify that on the order form, and I’ll let you know right away if I’m able to take your order or not.

Here are the dates that will be on my order form!

• July 4 & 5

• July 18th & 19th

• July 25th & 26th

As a reminder, I will NOT be taking orders for:

• July 11th & 12th

access the order form for july!

Can’t wait to see what y’all are celebrating this month!

-Cookie <3

Happy it’s-officially-summer-as-of-Friday, friends! I hope your summer has been full of yummy fresh food, abundant warmth + green all around, and travels to special places or people.

June & July are generally less noisy in Cookie Land™ than other months of the year, so in theory I’m like ooh this is finally the time I’ll get through all of my back burner tasks! And in actuality…I usually end up making them longer with all the ideas and inspiration sparking around me. (Just me??)

As as small business owner, there aren’t many natural boundaries built into my work. And like most people any human, I have a tendency to think my Big Feelings entirely name what’s going on in my life. Since cookies are on my mind pretty much all the time, it’s an easy mental highway to merge on from “oh dang, I’ve worked a lot this week” to “I NEVER REST AND I’M ALWAYS GOING TO BE PLAYING CATCH UP.” (Or perhaps for *other* people to assume that, when they only see your late nights and highlight reels.)

To help me remember what’s actually true and not fall into total recency bias, I’ve been trying out an hour-long monthly review at the top of each month. I made a Notion page with questions about how the last month went + my hopes/prayers for the upcoming month. Nothing crazy. But last month, it helped me realize that I worked 70 fewer hours (!!) in May than in April, had a ton of meaningful friend time, and got to be creative in a lot of non-cookie ways. Huge!!

It made me think of a girl I saw on TikTok once (I lost the link, rip) who made a “to-done list” that she reads through at the end of the year, to help her remember all of the things she has accomplished or grown in, rather than everything she feels like she’s behind or lacking on.

So! As a nod to all this I’ve been noodling on—and inspired by one of my recent Instagram posts—I thought I’d switch up the format of the newsletter today with what’s been going on in and out of the kitchen…

june in the kitchen

📔 — cookie’d my first ever magazine cover for NYOTA’s ‘art is life’ issue!!

Like whaaaat! Flip through the full issue with the cookie cover here. Or read just the feature ‘Cookie in the Kitchen is Adept in The Art of Noticing’ here.

📸 — had a photoshoot with a Nashville pal of mine, Madison Rensing, for the feature

🏖️ — fulfilled my dream of cookie-ing an Emily Henry book cover for this beach x book collab with Apple Vacations

📖 — cookie’d @sarahann.poetry’s re-release poetry book cover!

⚽️ — donated personalized soccer ball cookies to Tennessee Kids Belong, who celebrate & love on kids in foster care!

📈 — knocked out some unsexy biz stuff, like reviewing my budget (my first year budgeting and I’m very on track YAY!) and making a menu for my artist cookie offerings

june out of the kitchen

✈️ — visited my bestie Anna Keath in Richmond, VA! complete with many bakery/coffee shop trips + linocutting while re-watching daisy jones & the six, ofc

⌨️ — made my (aforementioned) lil monthly review notion page yay

📱 — broke a 3 year long hiatus on my personal instagram—which seems silly but was a huge win for making time for personal creativity 🤸🏼‍♀️

🤲 — may or may not have kinda gotten into slime with my roommate… (see: hosted a DIY slime night + bought some fancy ones online) LMAO

🍿 — watched / loved / haven’t stopped thinking about The Materialists

🌅 — enjoyed many a pink, puffy cloud summer sunset :-)

July availability update —

Yippee, July books will open tomorrow, Wednesday June 25th at 6 PM CST!

Here’re the dates I will be booking for. You’ll receive another email from Substack with the link to my order form at that time.

I will be taking orders for:

• July 4th & 5th

• July 18th and 19th

• July 25th & 26th

I will NOT be taking orders for:

• July 11th & 12th

That’s all from me today, see y’all tomorrow!

-Cookie <3

cookie’s crumbs 🍪✨

ICYMI

any notable updates from last time I checked in!

Spring in the kitchen has been flowering full of life! I finished out April with TONNN of cookies. My friend Connor (aka my best friend Michelle’s fiancé), who helps me bake off cookies on busy weeks, churned 700 cookies out of my oven last month for my TTPD themed cookie class, Belmont graduation orders, and a big order for a Maddie & Tae influencer event. If you snagged one of these cookies, you have Connor to thank! Everyone say thank you Connor 🗣️

I also had the pleasure of making cookies for Megan Moroney, Nashville cake decorator extraordinare Mads Eatz, and as mentioned in my last post, Mari Andrew!

in cookie’s airpods

what I’ve been listening to recently

If you’re in need of a the-evening-sunlight-is-dripping-into-my-kitchen-and-I-need-to-romanticize-my-life playlist, may I suggest this one! Been the perfect Spring > Summer playlist for me these days.

in the cookie jar

an old cookie set I haven’t shared photos of yet

Obsessed with these twin 4th birthday cookies!! I loved adapting the shapes and designs to each kid’s theme and favorite things.

champagne problems solutions

a little win to celebrate!

Back to the BIG bulk cookie month—I somehow survived with my sanity and sleep schedule in tact?! Woohoo! I can’t explain how big of a win this was, especially since this was for SURE the most amount of cookies I’ve decorated in one go. If you ordered grad cookies, THANK YOU so much!! It was truly such a pleasure to celebrate with y’all and cheer on your people. <33

cookie’s wishlist

something I’ve been eyeing

My roommate noticed it’s odd that we don’t have a porch goose to dress up, since it seems like something I’d own. She’s so right for that! I will definitely be on the lookout for one. 🪿

current cookie crush

an cookier I’ve been obsessed with recently

Mixed Sugar aka Camden can do no cookie wrong!! Her delicate designs, hand painted details, and colorful backdrops always catch my eye. Check her out if you’re in Oklahoma or Dallas!

in the oven

an idea or project that isn’t fully baked; a sneak peek of what’s coming!

Beyond excited to show y’all what the below (+ finished) cookies are for. There might be a photoshoot and some professional photos incoming…

June books are open!

Before you order, here’s the 411 on my waitlist —

As some dates book up sooner than others or if there’re pending orders on my calendar, I may add you to the waitlist! You can choose to opt-in to the waitlist and specify what date you’d be comfortable staying on there until. It can be tomorrow or the day before your event date. Completely up to you!

Not interested in joining the waitlist? No problem! You can specify that on the order form, and I’ll let you know right away if I’m able to take your order or not.

Here are the dates that will be on my order form!

• June 6 & 7

• June 13 & 14

• June 20 & 21

I will NOT be taking orders for:

• June 27 & 28

access the june order form!

For those submitting an order form, I’ll email y’all tomorrow to confirm my availability for your order before the weekend. Happy Memorial Day weekend friends!

-Cookie <3

I rolled into my neighborhood coffee shop last week in what my friend lovingly dubbed a “broutfit” (monochrome brown outfit). The barista was STUNNED. “I’ve never seen you wear such little color!” she said.

I had connected with her a few times over our shared affection for pink and red (I wore a pink and red outfit on my birthday and she has pink hair, so naturally it came up), so to show up without ANY color on me was quite a shock. My roommates had commented on the same thing, but for a barista who’d only met me a few times to clock my off-brand color palette was notable to me.

Now my proclivity towards color isn’t necessarily hard to discern. Ironically I was DECKED out in red the next day (red dress, red jacket, red shoes, red bag, red phone case…) and a barista at a different coffee shop said to me, “Wow, you must really love red!” One look at my daily ‘fit checks on my Instagram story and my colorful rug, walls, or outfit are sure to give me away.

Our style has a sneaky way of showing up in ways we don’t always expect or intentionally plan it to. And it reflects something about who we are! It’s why I actually love the favorite color question. It feels like when a friend sees a trinket at a thrift store and texts you “this made me think of you.” It’s fun to notice how people notice you.

I’ve been talking with my social media strategist, Katie, a lot recently about living a creative lifestyle. We don’t think of ourselves as creative people just because we run creative businesses, but because it’s how we show up in the world.

“It’s my special skill! It helps me make matcha in the morning, it’s how I craft my outfit, it’s why I bake sourdough. Creativity is already folded into my life, I’m just shining a light on where it shows up in the non-obvious ways,” said Katie.

A few weeks ago, I attended a writing retreat in the Boone mountains to learn from my favorite author / artist / Substacker, my queeeeeen Mari Andrew!!

The retreat was about “sharing your sacred story.” i.e. breaking down this idea—what art is tucked away inside you that you can encourage to come out? Where is the story within your story?

I am still absolutely buzzing from her wisdom and inspiration. And from getting to surprise her with a few cookies of her art!! 🥹

The first night, Mari had us introduce ourselves and share where we were coming from + our intention (and any hesitations) in coming. The group was about split between those who *do* claimed the title of writer or artist, and those who very much did not think they could claim either.

After a chorus of “I’m not a writer, but…” “I’m not an artist, but…,”one woman in the group shared a story of her 4 year-old nephew, Henry who IS a self-proclaimed artist.

Except he can’t pronounce his Rs, so he’s technically a self-proclaimed ah-tist.

Since when did calling yourself an artist get limited to people who can paint a realistic portrait or write an 100k word novel? Aren’t we all ah-tists after all?!

It makes me think of this quote attributed to Helena Bonham Carter:

We are living, breathing, walking art on display. How cool is that?!

My mom also joined me on the retreat and one of our favorite golden nuggets, bestowed on us by magical Mari, was that, “Your voice is natural to you.” It’s not something you have to go and find somewhere, rather a muscle you’re already using everyday. It’s just a matter of paying attention to hear what it’s saying!

She suggested looking at your journals, emails, or instagram captions as a starting place. Is your tone playful? Dry? Cheeky? Are your sentences long and flowery or short and quippy? Do you think in images or are grounded more in thought?

Where you make the rules—or where you break them—is where you find your voice. It reminded of this recent article about Gen Z’s preference (mine included) to write in lowercase: The death of capital letters: why gen Z loves lowercase.

Mari brought the idea that we are all artists and writers home in many ways. She prompted and pulled different stories from each of us—ones we probably didn’t think on the surface were that interesting—but in the golden light of writing, in art, became sacred.

“Storytelling is being a witness to your life. To sanctify the ordinary moments into something holy. Some of the best, most captivating, stories are unremarkable. And your most interesting moments aren’t necessarily the best stories—Nor are they always fun to write about, even if they’re sparkly! It’s in the questions you keep asking after something happened. It’s in the moments, relationships, and memories that seem insignificant but keep sticking with you. I believe a story will tell you if it wants to be told.”

Whether you claim the title of artist in the fullest extent of the word, or ah-tist feels more like it, maybeeee the art you create is more obvious and more widespread than you think. ;)

June availability update —

Alrighttty it’s cookie time!! Can’t wait to take *your* art / colors / celebrations and propagate my own from it. As Katie said to me this week, creativity begets creativity!

June books will open tomorrow, Thursday May 22nd at 6:00 PM CST! You’ll get another email from Substack at that time with the link to my order form.

I will be taking orders for:

• June 6 & 7

• June 13 & 14

• June 20 & 21

I will NOT be taking orders for:

• June 27 & 28

That’s me signing off—see y’all tomorrow night!

-Cookie <3

As an entrepreneur, it’s unlikely to go your career without someone saying, “I don’t know how you motivate yourself to run a whole business, I’d never get anything done if I worked for myself!”

Sometimes I don’t know how I do it either! Motivation is a slippery beast for most people, and entrepreneurs + artists are definitely not immune to its ebb and flow. If anything, we’re at whim to the changing tides more than anyone else. We are ironically the most AND least disciplined people you’ll probably meet:

Sacrificing for the sake of our passion, creating something out of nothing, or working endlessly towards a lofty goal? Easy money. Getting ourselves to do a thing we should ~probably~ do at some point (maybe), living within a super consistent routine, or operating within pre-determined paradigms for life? Not so much.

Because when you work for yourself, most of your deadlines are made-up, you don’t really have a clear baseline to assess how you’re doing. Plus, it’s easy to talk yourself out of the decisions your past-self made when most often, you’re the only person it affects. Those made up boundary lines can at times help you get across the finish line. But in other cases, they end up loading a plethora of shoulds onto your already full plate.

This isn’t just an entrepreneur thing—it’s a human thing! How do we know what shoulds are worth listening to? The answer isn’t always clear. And it often varies person to person! We need wisdom and perspective outside of ourselves to help us approach an answer, narrow our focus on what’s really worth our attention, and actually follow through with action.

I like to say I have a limited amount of “discipline chips”—kinda like the chronic illness spoons theory. With the motivation I expend on a daily basis of just…being an adult and keeping a whole business running, it leaves few discipline chips towards other areas of my life that may or may not need attention at some point (maybe). I can only do so much!!

Pardon the mixed metaphor, but my dad once told me about how a pool table is never *perfectly* level, so there’s always one corner—the “trash corner”—that’ll be harder to hit into. I like to think of those places I just don’t have the discipline chips to spend as my “trash corner.” It helps me have grace for those areas of my life where getting my a** in gear is just not possible, worth the cost, or a current priority.

I brought up this topic of disciplines to my counselor this week, expecting her to guide me through my CVS-receipt-long, new-years-resolution-esque list of Things I Should Be Working On with practical tools and healthy readjustments. Instead, she looked behind the curtain of my laundry list, and said:

You're probably battling against the shoulds, right? Like, I should get up at this time or I should do this...but maybe part of being in your 20s is that you don't have to. You can delight in it! You can say ‘The Lord has given me this really good gift right now and I'm going to enjoy it!”

I think it's a false voice that says "well, if you were a disciplined person, you would be doing all of these things." That's not necessarily true. Like, just pick one thing and work on that, right? But you don't *have* to become a 5am-wake-up-and-walk-girl. If your current rhythms are not reaping bad fruit, then enjoy where you are! The reality is that if you need to become that person, you will become it.

Gosh, what grace!

It makes me think of a question I’ve been asked a couple times, that is well-meaning but grinds my gears a bit: “How are you going to have a bakery if you’re always working late? Aren’t bakeries notorious for early hours?”

To which I say, “Um WHAT no this is the first I’m hearing of this!! How will I ever make it as a bakery owner????” (Pardon the sass lol...if you know me, you know that one of my ever present trash corners is my sleep schedule.)

No, what I actually say is, “I’ll figure it out when I get there!” Maybe I’ll have a late night bakery to cater to my fellow night owls, or maybe I’ll fall in love with waking to the sunrise in a few years. Either way, as Kristin said, if I need to become that person—I’ll become it!

Nor I or Kristin am saying to throw up your hands towards any responsibilities, desires for change, or attempts towards healthy rhythms. Rather, what I hear in her encouragement—which in fact came after a long conversation about a different area of my life I feel led to expend my discipline chips on—is the grace that you don’t have to do it all.

Meeting with Kristin made me noticed a trend in advice I’ve been given from a number of wise people in my life: they’re always scaling down what I should focus on, rather than scaling up.

As one of those people told me recently: KISS (Keep It Simple, Silly!)

I love the grace and patience these ideas brings to discipline, which usually feels like the opposite: a harsh task-master whose angered you haven’t already figured it out. Rather, it brings our humanness to the table, allowing us to be a people in process with a finite capacity for change. I hope this encourages you in the endeavors you’re expending your own discipline chips on this month + helps you KISS your own infinite laundry list of shoulds goodbye! 💋

May availability update —

Speaking of not doing it all, one of the places I’m expending a discipline chip towards this month is a tough (but important) one!! I won’t be opening up my order form for May. 🥲

With 300 graduation cookies to knock out this week—Phew! Thanks to all y’all that ordered grad cookies woo!—I’m keeping things simple to focus my attention on those orders and the other yeses I’ve given out in May.

If you’re new here and/or have been waiting in the wings to get cookies, I’m so sad to miss out on celebrating with you this time, but know I' would be delighted to work with you for a future celebration!! I deeply love creating cookies for my community; know that I’m working hard on the backend of things to provide y’all with more clearer, quicker, and consistent yeses and nos. I appreciate y’all’s patience and grace more than you know!

Alright, I’m off to Cookie Land™ where I’ll be knee-deep in sugar for the next 72 hours 🫡 Thank you all for being here!

-Cookie <3