Make your own cookie cutter

If being busy were a sport I would be an Olympian! I love being busy but when it interferes with my blogging...well need I say more? One of my many projects (which I swear I will post them all) was making my own cookie cutter. Why would I do this? Well, one of my family traditions during Easter is an Italian (Sicilian, European??) cookie called Pubaquolovo which means "doll with an egg". Every family that I know who makes this cookie has a different name for it, but this is about my family so Pubaqulovo it is! My wonderfully talented sister made ours shaped like bunnies, baskets, birds, and eggs. She lives in Heaven now. I wont begin to express my sorrow regarding her loss, but God wanted her back and I am more than grateful that she was in my life for the time we were given.
 Making these wonderful Easter cookies is really time consuming because you have to cut each one out by hand. I tried to have the cookie shapes made into a cookie cutter but $125.00 each was a little out of my budget. I found this really cool cookie cutter place called Off the Beaten Path ( I do not monetize so no money or products were exchanged for advertisement) they can be found on-line but even better for me they are located not too far from my house. I visited them and they had this really cool kit.

I was apprehensive about making my own cookie cutter but the really nice people there showed me how easy it really was. So for $9.99 I bought my kit.

You get this plus some special tape and a long metal strip

First step is to measure your desired shape. They recommended using a string but I used a tape measure.

Next you simply measure and cut the metal. No special scissors needed.

Then you just follow your pattern and use the cool tools to make your shapes turn or crimp.

I was amazed at just how easy it was

I took me about 30 minutes to get it done.

I had enough metal to make two different shapes.

when you're done, you just place this sticky two-way stretchy kind of tape onto the metal and overlap the two ends.

clamp it and wait 72 hours or place it in a 200 degree oven for one hour.

Since my bunny was large and the metal is thin I braced my bunny with a cross-bar. This was not part of the instructions but I felt it was needed to make it more stable.

Into the oven for one hour and done!

And this is the finished Pubaquolovo! I love these cookies so much. You can use any cookie recipe you want. I use a special Easter cookie Italian recipe that really requires a video to explain. It uses 5 lbs of flour, over a dozen eggs, and I wouldn't want you to ruin your ingredients. Maybe someday I can learn how to edit video and post one.

This is the other shape I made. I also made egg-shaped cookies but I didn't photograph that one. Silly me!

I hope your Easter was fun and full of family traditions! When I meet up with my Sister on the other side I'm sure she is going to ask me why I didn't come up with this idea sooner!