An Extraordinary find! Arts and Crafts Cookie Box and Letters

My parents recently celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary, and of course I wanted to make cookies for them. I had all sorts of ideas floating through my head, including making a replica Ca D'Oro (see here). I know. A bit ambitious for someone who has never made a 3D cookie project before. I had started to think along the lines of an Arts and Crafts style, as I know this would suit them, when during a rummage in our attic, I came across an extraordinary find!

Stuck in an old box in a far corner, covered in dust and cobwebs, was an ancient, slightly cracked, memory stick. Judging from its condition, I figured it must be at least a century old, and this proved to be so. Nevertheless, it fit my the USB port on my new laptop perfectly and what I discovered on it was not only wonderful in its own right, but the perfect design solution to the Golden Wedding Anniversary cookies!

And here it is, cleaned up, and available for the first time in over a hundred years, exclusively through Honeycat Cookies:

And how perfect that 'LOIS' is the name of my mother! I replicated these designs as you can see on the letter cookie platter above, and then took the Arts and Crafts theme and just ran with it...

I was still determined to have a go at something 3D, so, inspired by a mixture of Sweetambs' and Julia Usher's wonderful tutorials on cookie boxes, I decided just to go for it. I also decided big was better, which was troublesome and required a fair bit of stiff royal icing to hold together, applied in several layers. Taking all the drawers out of the dehydrator and sitting it in the bottom helped to speed up the process. Each side is four inches. Here it is in all its glory:

I used patterns from old Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau wall tiles with a couple of bees at the request of my mother. These were the four sides of the box.

All the bases of the letters and box were flooded with yellow, and sprayed with gold. I ran out of time in the end, and had to buy meringues and turkish delight to fill the box with, but I did spray the meringues gold, and sprinkle gold glitter on the delight.

 

And finally, because I knew no one would be allowed to eat these cookies at the party, I made a bowlful of little number 50s, and another video: