Cookie Bouquets: How To Make A Great Mothers Day Gift.

This year, instead of giving your mom a boring mothers day gift, how about making her a cookie bouquet? They are really quick and easy to make, and look great.
The best thing about making a cookie bouquet, is that your mom will absolutely love you! Cookie bouquets are appreciated all year round, but they make a particularly great mothers day gift, because your mom will know you have spent time on it, rather than just going to the store and spending 2 minutes looking for some chocolate to buy :)
Many cookie bouquets are basic, and only have cookies in them. I like to add a bit more style to my bouquets, so I'm going to show you how to make a more fancy cookie bouquet, using leaves and candies as well.
You will need:
- 9 Large choc-chip cookies
- 7 Wrapped candies
- Floristry wire
- Cellophane (Any color, although I use clear)
- Ribbon
- Stem-tape
- 15 Leaves
*** Step 1: Wire and tape the leaves ***

Start by wiring and taping the leaves...
You wire a silk leaf by pushing the floristry wire through the silk part of the leaf, behind the stem. Then loop it around, and go back through the leaf, and then bend the wire back down.
To stem-tape the wire, hold it in your left hand, and then wrap the stem tape around the wire with the other hand. Make sure that you stem-tape right up to the top of the leaf, otherwise it will look ugly.
*** Step 2: Prepare cookies to be added to the cookie bouquet ***
You don't need to wrap the cookies, but I like to, because it helps to keep them fresh. I would rather have a cookie bouquet that doesn't have to be eaten straight away, so that people can leave it on the table for everyone to look at, without worrying about the cookies going stale.
Cut the cellophane into 9 squares. Make sure the cellophane squares are large enough to wrap around the cookies.
Next wrap the cookies in the cellophane, and twist the end.
Then wire and tape the cellophane, and snip off any excess cellophane.
*** Step 3: Prepare the candies to be added to the cookie bouquet ***
Wire and stem tape the candies. Depending on the different candies you used, you might have to wrap the candies in cellophane, similar to how the cookies were prepared.
*** Step 4: Fan the cookies out in the bouquet ***
Hold the cookies in a bunch in one hand. Then bend out the wire slightly, to fan out the cookies. This will leave spaces for the leaves, which we will add in the the next step...
*** Step 5: Fill in the cookies bouquet with leaves ***
Place the leaves in the gaps in the bouquet. Fan out the leaves, so that they make a circular shape. Then squeeze the bouquet together a little. (But not too tight, as we still need to put the candies in...)
*** Step 6: Add the candies to the cookie bouquet ***
Fill in any remaining gaps with the candies prepared in step 3. Try and keep the bouquet symmetrical, but don't worry about making it perfect... a little un-evenness will make the cookie bouquet seem more natural.
*** Step 7: Tape the handle ***
To finish the cookie bouquet, just trim the ends of the wires in the handle to an even length, and then stem-tape the handle.
That's it, a cookie bouquet ready to give your mom. Write out a greeting on a mothers day card, and then give your mom the card, the cookie bouquet, and a kiss on the cheek, and I'll guarantee you'll be in her good books for a few months to come!