End of Summer Cookies & Grandma's Birthday

For my grandma's 75th birthday, I decided to make her some summer themed cookies.

I've wanted to do a video of the cookie backing/decorating process for a while, so since these cookies didn't have a strict deadline, I decided bite the bullet and try it out on this batch!

Let me tell you, filming this was the BIGGEST pain in the ass. I don't know how people do instructional videos for any kind of cooking or baking or probably anything, actually, because it was ridiculous. New respect for those people, for sure. It slowed the process down SO MUCH. I think if someone else had been filming it or if I had been filming someone else doing it, it would have been a million times easier or faster at the very least. But, I used the only resource I had, me. Hah!

It all worked out. My mom told me I was weird. My dad got in the way. I delayed Connor's dinner after work because I was using the oven. I was up until 2 in the morning finishing up. But it's done! It didn't turn out quite how I pictured it, but I'm learning that nothing looks exactly how I wanted to or how I imagined it in my head. But that's okay. As long as it looks good, doesn't matter to me.

It also turned out to be a lot longer than I thought it would be! I was hoping for between a minute and a minute and 15 seconds, but that didn't happen either. Just too much to include to keep it that short! I even cut out a bunch of stuff too!

Anyways, without further adieu, here it is! Enjoy!

Summer Cookies from Vanessa Rutters on Vimeo.

Family picture after birthday cake.
The lighting was terrible! And there wasn't much time for me to figure out how to set up because they were NOT in a waiting mood! Oh well. Looks okay, but I'm not very happy with it! Need a few more lessons on my camera apparently! This is what I get for insisting not to shoot on auto!

The ice cream cones looked the weirdest before and while I was decorating them, but they turned out to be my favorites out of these!

XOXO, Ness

Online Shopping & Amazon Tips

I online shop A LOT. Probably too much. Sometimes it's hard to find what you want in a store or they don't have the right size or color of an item, or if you're like me, you just find it so much more convenient to buy it online. Whatever your reasoning, I support it. And Amazon happens to be my kryptonite.

But the first thing you want to do before you buy ANYTHING online is sign up for Ebates. And if it asks if someone referred you, pretty please put in my email, vanessajrutters@gmail.com - you get more cash back when you refer people! I was a little skeptical at first, but it's completely legitimate and free! All you have to do once you sign up is search on their site to see if the store you're shopping from uses Ebates. If they do, click on "shop now" and it will open through Ebates. If you make a purchase, Ebates will give you a percentage of what you spent back. They also offer a $10 gift card or $10 cash for signing up and making a purchase.

Another thing to check before you shop is to see what kind of coupons they have. If you click on the store before you go to their site, you can see what kind of discount codes you can use from Ebates when you checkout. They give percentages or money off your order that a lot of the time you won't find anywhere else. I got 15% off of my Famous Footwear purchase when I bought Converse and Roxy shoes.

Sometimes they run specials, so don't just delete all the emails they send you! A couple months ago, they offered 16% cash back for certain stores, so I got $8 and change from Ulta on a $50 purchase! But make sure you read when deals like that expire because they tend to come and go fast.

You can also earn more money if you refer people to their site. You get $5 for referring them and $15 once they actually make a purchase through Ebates. But they have to sign up and then make a purchase before you get your cut! Ha!

So far I've made $63.58. That's including two referrals, only one of which a purchase has gone through. So use my links so I can refer you!


I'm a sucker for a site offers free shipping on something.

It gets a little ugly sometimes, though, when I have to spend a certain amount to get free shipping... I often wind up with things that I don't actually need just to get to that $50 or $75 so I don't have to pay for shipping. I probably wind up spending more than I would have in the first place if I just paid for the shipping! It's worth it to me for some reason. I don't know why. In my mind - that's just where it goes.

I think that's why I enjoy Amazon Prime so much. ALL PRIME ITEMS SHIP FREE!

So I don't have to spend extra money trying to reach a certain dollar amount so I won't have to pay shipping and handling.

The memberships are a little pricey... But I took full advantage of the student discount for it, and if you're in school, I suggest you do, too! The price goes up every year, though. When I first got it, it was $29, and the latest I paid was $49 (both with student discount). I think you can get the discount for up to four years. A regular membership (no student discount) is now $99 per year, but that goes up about $10 a year as well. $49, and definitely $99, seems like kind of a lot to me, but you get free two-day shipping on all Prime items... which is a huge selling point. That was the whole reason I got it at first, so I could buy books for school and they would get there fast!

If you ever need something in a hurry, it's awesome! I needed some things before I went on vacation this summer that I couldn't find in the store, and since I got them through amazon, I knew they would arrive on time!

And HUGE bonus! You can share your Prime shipping with "up to four additional family members living in the same household." I'm not sure how strict they are on the same household thing because I haven't used it. If someone in my household wants something, I just order it for them and it comes to me, but you could probably use it for other family and friends and just change the shipping address and payment method!

I buy so many things using Amazon Prime that it completely throws me off when I order from somewhere else and it takes a week to get to me!

Something that they recently implemented is crediting your account if you choose not to use two-day shipping. Amazon will credit you $1 or $2 if your order a Prime item and elect for No-Rush Shipping. Your earnings can be used on eBooks and digital music and videos. This is a nice feature if you are not in a rush to get something. You still don't have to pay for shipping, and you get a credit. But I have a couple issues with this.

1. Any credits you get don't show up in your account, at least not that I could see, so you have to keep track of them yourself. They automatically take it off when you make a purchase, which is nice, but I found keeping track of them kind of difficult.
2. My second issue, and this is the big one for me, is that the points expire in a month, so you can't save them up to make a larger purchase if you want. I know they do this on purpose, but it's annoying. If you choose to cut them a break and ship your items at their leisure, you should be able to keep your credited money! Or at least keep it up to a year. A month is not long enough to use it for anything, at least for me. But I'm pretty sure Amazon already knows that.

I used no-rush shipping a few times, but that particular system annoyed me, so I don't use it any more. Unless you make 15 or 20 separate Prime transactions in a month, you can't purchase an instant video with your credits. So I always use my two-day shipping now.

As briefly mentioned above, they also offer free streaming of a lot of music, movies, and television shows.

But don't be fooled. It is no Netflix or Hulu. I use Amazon Prime Instant Video sometimes, but the things they offer are a little limited. I would absolutely not purchase Amazon Prime if you're simply looking to stream movies and t.v. shows, but it's a nice bonus in addition to free shipping. They do have several shows and movies, but a lot of them are lesser known. There are some popular ones, just not too many. There are a lot of older Lifetime movies, old school cartoons available (guilty of going on a Rugrats and Hey Arnold! binge here and there!), and movies you've never heard of. There are some obscure things available as well.  But there are some hidden, and a few not as hidden, gems in there, though!

They also have the Amazon Fire TV Stick that you can plug in to the back of your TV to watch Amazon instant videos. I don't have one because I got my TV in the 5th grade... So if this is not how this works, let me know!

Amazon Prime also offers a lot of free Kindle books. I don't really like using any kind of eReader, I prefer a physical book, so I haven't capitalized on this. But I know a lot of people do use them, so this could be a great investment for them. I'm sure not all the books are slam dunks, but if they're free, who cares?

And I thought I should talk about Prime Day... But I'm still not sure what it was all about! They did not do a good job advertising that. I have to be honest, I didn't really look through it very well, but from what I heard, it was majorly disappointing. If you say you're going to have better deals than Black Friday, you should probably tell people what the deals are!

I love you, Amazon, but you're going to have to do better if you want to have another Prime Day because that was a waste of everyone's time and attention.

Anyways, if you want to sign up for Ebates, click this link! It's fast and free, and if you ever buy anything online, why not try to get a few bucks back?!

I hope some of these tips help as you're making your online purchases in the future!


I got this Hawaiian Tropic After Sun Lotion from Amazon in case I got burned (which let's face it, I always get at least a little burned at the beach), and I LOVED it! This was one of the things that I was thankful to have two-day shipping for! I also ordered a 62 GB memory card for my camera, the dress I wore in all of the beach pictures, and a birthday present for my nephew. All arriving in two days!

XOXO Ness