Our Valentine's Day Mini Heart Cookies are perfect for sharing with friends, family and sweethearts

Our smiley heart shaped cookies will make the day of whoever the recipient is. Thanks to our new Valentine’s Day gift baskets you can make the holiday special for coworkers, family and friends, or that special person in your life. There are 13 valentines day gift baskets to choose from starting under $15.

Each basket is unique. Take for instance the stimulating basket for coffee lovers. It even comes with a mug. Another great option is the “Tower of Treats” basket that would be a great spread at the office or your home.

Our Valentines Day Tower of Treats features our heart shaped Smiley Cookies, Chocolate Chip Cookies and Sarris Chocolate Smiley Hearts!

If you really want to get creative you can take the time to customize a cookie. Anybody would be delighted with a cookie in their favorite colors, the colors of their favorite sports team, or just something you took the time to design.

Just don’t forget that wise old proverb, “The best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” Also noteworthy to remember is there is a kid in all of us and they’re just dying to reach into the cookie jar. Contact us this Valentine’s Day and we’ll help reach in and get delicious cookies for you and anyone you love enough to share with.

Order a dozen for that special someone, or send a gift basket to friends, family members, coworkers, or college students. Our heart shaped Smiley cookies are made fresh daily with artistry and simple, pure ingredients. Each Smiley Cookie and heart Smiley Cookie is hand-iced–the originals in white with our classic colored smiles, and the hearts in pink with a delicate white face.

Our heart shaped Smiley Cookies are the perfect something sweet for your sweetie!

Our Smiling Sweetheart Gift Basket comes with two dozen heart Smiley cookies, while the Hearts and Smiles Gift Basket consists of a dozen hearts and a dozen of our original Smileys. Take your pick of our Valentine’s gift options, or express your individuality by creating your own custom heart shaped Smiley cookies. Select the icing colors for the face and smile to create a personalized gift that comes straight from the heart.

Our Heart Shaped Cookie Gift Basket is perfect for sharing Valentine's Day love with an office, classroom or family of loved ones!

Finally, since chocolate and Valentine’s day also go hand in hand, consider adding some Smiley chocolates to your order. Made with Sarris Candy premier chocolate, our Smiley chocolates are hand-crafted and individually wrapped. Available in milk or dark chocolate, these sweet little Smileys are the perfect accompaniment to our gourmet cookies.

Our Heart Shaped Chocolate Smileys will make anyone Smile!

Contact us to see our entire selection and find just the right delectable gifts for your loved ones this Valentine’s Day.

One great holiday Gingerbread tradition is decorating Gingerbread Houses!

But did you ever wonder why gingerbread is a part of the holiday season, or even where gingerbread came from in the first place? We found this fun, informative article with all sorts of interesting facts about the history of gingerbread.

According to the story, gingerbread has been baked in Europe since the eleventh century. Depending on the specific location it might be a soft cake, a crisp, flat cookie, or warm, thick, dark squares of “bread.” Although the exact flavor could vary, gingerbread was usually cut into shapes such as men, women, stars or animals.

If it’s often in the form of a cookie, why is it called “gingerbread“? As the article explains:

In Medieval England gingerbread meant simply “preserved ginger” and was an adaptation of the Old French gingebras, derived from the Latin name of the spice, Zingebar. It was only in the fifteenth century that the term came to be applied to a kind of cake made with treacle, an uncrystalized syrup drained from raw sugar during the refining process, and flavored with ginger. Ginger was also discovered to have a preservative effect when added to pastries and bread, and this probably led to the development of recipes for ginger cakes, cookies, and flavored breads.

Gingerbread came to North America with the settlers from all over Europe who brought their traditions and family recipes. The German practice of making and decorating houses from gingerbread at Christmas time was especially prevalent in Pennsylvania, where there was a strong German influence. Many traditional German gingerbreads reappeared in this area, especially during the holiday season.

Gingerbread Cookies from Smiley Cookie honor the long standing tradition of gingerbread on the holidays!

At Smiley Cookie we put our own twist on the classic gingerbread cookie with our gingerbread smileys and mini gingerbread smileys, available in a variety of holiday gift sets. Contact us to check out our entire selection of gingerbread and other holiday cookies.

How about something more unique?

Think back to your childhood: remember how special a simple cookie made you feel? What about a cookie with a smiley face on it? We’re pretty sure a box full of smiley face cookies would make that special teacher adore you even more.

Gourmet Cookies are a great way to show a teacher you appreciate all that they do. With 144 custom color combos, special occasion designs, and six different shapes your options are endless. By letting your child help choose the cookies, the gift becomes even more special.

Also, our cookies are nut free, so they can be brought into any classroom without any concern that they might make a child sick.

Holiday Cookies Make a Great Gift For A Teacher!

Teachers have plenty of mugs. Be ahead of the holiday game and order a custom designed box of cookies for that special teacher today! We take pride in offering a high-quality, great-tasting, fun cookie that just can’t help but bring a smile to your face.

Questions? Just contact us and let us help you make someone’s day just a bit more smiley.

My Ghoul Friday is a great blog for finding creative haunting ideas, “Halloween props and countless creepy pop culture discoveries”. They have awesome sections on projects, tutorials and party ideas which included a directory of fully downloadable files of Halloween party signs and labels that will have your guests howling.

My Ghoul Friday has tons of great ideas on how to make your Halloween more creative and unique!

A Nostalgic Halloween is an amazing blog that focuses on vintage artwork, photographs and crafts that fit under the Halloween or haunting themes. If you’re looking for decoration or design ideas (let’s say you want to make an amazing invite for this year’s party) this is a great place to turn to for inspiration. We especially liked their Trick or Treat Clown piece and the photo of the old school pirate costume below.

This just an example of the great vintage photos and art pieces you can find at A Nostalgic Halloween.

Halloween Fun is great resource for ideas for activities, crafts and party planning around Halloween. Even better, it hosts several Halloween themed online games for kids (or kids at heart!) to get them excited for Halloween, or just keep them busy while you’re decorating your house!

365halloween.com is another great source for all kinds of news that involves Halloween. We really enjoyed their article on a smart phone app that uses GPS to keep an eye on your kids while they’re trick or treating. Very cool stuff!

Frightcatalog.com has lots of great Halloween info including a list of Top Halloween Parties!

Frightcatalog.com has a great blog that it updates regularly and has lots of great info on all things Halloween. We specifically loved their post on the best Halloween Parties which is a great read if you’re looking to travel to some of the world’s coolest Halloween parties or just want some ideas to make your own party that much better.

Smiley Cookie's Gourmet Jack O Lantern Cookies are a guaranteed to be a hit with your spooky guests!

Here at Smiley Cookie, we’ll be featuring our famous Jack O Lantern Gourmet sugar cookies and all of our other Halloween cookie gifts to help scare up some smiles from your guests and trick and Trick or Treaters.

The Origin of Mother’s Day

In the United States, Mother’s Day was made an official holiday in 1914. It’s a floating holiday here in the States, always falling on the second Sunday of May. This tradition was adopted in many other countries in Europe including Germany, Greece, Latvia, Denmark and Finland. But the idea of Mother’s Day predates the official holiday by centuries.
The Greeks celebrated Rhea, the mother of the gods and the ancient Romans celebrated Cybele, the celebration of the goddess Cybele. Even today, Mother’s Day in different countries often matches up with more ancient versions of the celebration.

Food on Mother’s Day

No matter where Mother’s day is celebrated, there are several common themes. For that one day, children and fathers take over the jobs the mothers usually do, cooking meals and generally making mom’s life as easy as possible. These meals often have traditional elements.

Simnell Cake

Mothers Day Cake

This marzipan covered fruit cake is the traditional food gift in Britain from children to their mothers. It’s quite similar to the Christmas fruit cake. According to popular legend, Simon and his sister Nell wanted to make a cake for their mother. One wanted to bake it. The other wanted to broil it. They ended up doing both and bringing the cake to their mother.

French Bloom Cake

In France, Mother’s Day is not celebrated on the second Sunday of May, but instead is celebrated on the last Sunday of the month. A huge family dinner in honor of mother and a special cake decorated as a bouquet of flowers is traditional.

American Traditions

Making cookies is a lot easier than baking cakes. It may be for this reason that cookie baking and gifting is catching on in America, though it hasn’t quite overtaken breakfast in bed or the traditional dinner out. I still think that a plate of bumble bee peanut butter cookies from a 6-year-old is one of the best Mother’s Day gifts, but then again, I might be biased.

Happy Mother’s Day everyone!

Also, you can brighten up your desktop by adding the background image below. Just right click on it and choose “Set as desktop background”.

Start your day with a field full of Smiley Flowers on your computer!

If you look close, you can see the brand new Easter, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day Smileys that we will be debuting in the upcoming months.

Despite hailstorms and tornado warnings, Tom G. and his awesome team were able to get some amazing shots of me being my usual beautiful Smiley self, that you will all be seeing very soon!

Here, photographer extraordinaire, Tom Gigliotti, gets me ready for my closeup.

Peg shows off some of our new Star Cookie designs on the way to the studio.

Peg is prepping some of our new Mother's Day Smileys for some time in front of the lens. Check out the wicked hailstorm raging in the window behind her!

Although I'm naturally Smiley and beautiful, occasionally I need some help. Here Sam is doing some retouches on my latest photos to make sure that I'll look my best on smileycookie.com.

Stay posted for the new designs at this blog or by following me on twitter or friending me on Facebook.

Greek and Italian Easter Cookies

Koulourakia: Greek Easter Cookies

Cookies and sweetbreads are a staple around Easter time in many Mediterranean countries. In Greece, the traditional Easter cookie is Koulourakia. It’s a butter-based braided cookie with a hint of vanilla.

Italian Easter Cookies

The Italians have a citrus flavored cookie made in a similar way. These cookies go by a variety of names: Knot Cookies, Lemon Knots, Anginetti and Taralucci are just a few. They’re tasty, crumbly Easter cookies frosted lightly, and sprinkled with multicolored confetti.

Nordic Easter Cookies

Semla: Swedish Easter Cookies

Semla are not precisely cookies. They get their name from the type of flower from which they are made: semolina. Versions of this delicious pastry filled with almond paste are served from Shrove Tuesday, the last day before Lent, until Easter in many Nordic countries. In Sweden, it’s called Fastlagsbulle. In Denmark and Norway, it’s called fastelavnsbolle, and is sometimes filled with whipped cream or jam rather than almond paste. In Finland, the pastry is known as Laskiaispulla. This traditional Easter bun can be found as far east as Latvia and Estonia.

The Easter Sugar Cookie

The sugar cookie is sort of the blank canvass of the cookie world. It’s easily decorated and so easy to make a variety of shapes with. For this reason, Americans have latched onto the sugar cookie for creating Easter themed cookies in a multitude of shapes. You can find bunny cookies, decorated egg cookies, flower cookies, chick cookies and almost any other shape and decoration remotely related to Easter.

We’d love to hear about your Easter cookie traditions! Maybe see some spectacular Easter Cookie pictures? Feel free to post in the comments section! Happy Easter!

St. Patrick’s day is right around the corner! As always, we have a Smiley Cookie for that.

If you’re looking for ways to show your Irish pride or just love Smiley Cookies, here’s a St. Paddy’s day Smiley Cookie desktop wall paper for you to download.

Shamrock cookies are only one example of our holiday offerings. What’s your favorite holiday Smiley Cookie?