The Beat That My Heart Skipped – A blog dedicated to daily design inspirations. By Rohini Wahi.

Did you spot Nikole Herriot’s adorable cloud cookies last week? Yes? I did too, and it got me thinking – just what if I could make cloud shaped cookies just like hers…? And so I did, except mine aren’t nearly as pretty, they are rather rugged around the edges, but hey, it was a first attempt – and actually easier than I would have thought.

And of course now I’ve learnt the do’s and don’ts of making home made cookie cutters, I can pass this wisdom on so you won’t make the same mistakes…

You will need:

Copper ribbon [this is used as a draft excluder so you can buy it from most DIY shops]
Secateurs /tin snips
A pair of pliers
String
Pencil and paper
Superglue
Clamps/butterfly clips

Step one: Design You need to draw out your design onto paper. I started off very ambitious, thinking I could make a frog shaped cookie. I now know I was deluded – the copper is quite hard to shape, and small details are going to be lost – so try to think of shapes that are bulky without too many long, thin protrusions.

Step two: Measuring Use the string to trace the outline of your drawing so you can work out how long the copper needs to be. Then add on a couple of inches – each bend will take up a fair bit of the metal, and you need to leave an overlap to glue down at the end. Cut the length of copper you need using the secateurs/snips.

Step three: Shaping Ok, so this is the hardest part – bending the copper into the right shape. As a general rule, if you have right angles then you can use the edge of a table, and otherwise use the pliers. For rounded parts, if you have a cylindrical object you can use to bend the wire around, that can work too. If you have the kit, a good idea is to cut the shape out of wood and then you can bend the copper around that – but unless you have a jigsaw that’s going to be hard. Or if you have a shape lying around that you like, that would work too – like a heart shaped lip balm tin or a child’s toy.

Step four: Fastening Once you have shaped your cookie cutter, you need to fasten the ends together. I used superglue for this and found it worked well. Overlap the ends, glue together, and clamp them in place while the glue dries.

And there you have it. Once you’ve mastered basic shapes, it should be easier to move on to more complicated ones.

I’m going to persevere with that frog – I’ll let you know how I get on, but in the meantime here’s some I made earlier: