09/23/2026
Today is national baker day so if you have a baker in your life, whether professional or for fun, be sure to send them a message saying thanks for making your life a little sweeter!
Below is a picture of my grandma, my mom, and me at my cookie class last December. This picture captures so much of my story on how I was built to become a baker. These two ladies taught me a lot in the world of baking and gave me my cookie recipe that goes back even further in our family history than just us 3.
I like to say that I started baking in 2022, and while that’s technically true for the name IceQueen, it isn’t true for the girl named Heather behind IceQueen Designs.
I have always loved baking. Christmas cookie decorating? MY FAVORITE! I took it very serious. I picked which cookies Santa got like I was judging DWTS. He had to have the best of the best! So imagine my delight when I grew up and a family friend offered me a job at their bakery.
At 20 years old I stepped into the baking world and loved it! I learned so much about baking while I was there but the most important experience I gained was decorating cookies with royal icing. I was so excited to work on Fridays because I knew it was cookie decorating day. But after a few years I took a step away from the baking world and tried my hands at a more corporate level job and quickly saw my light dimming while there. So during a global pandemic, I quit my corporate job and took on nannying kids through virtual learning and off to college I went to obtain my degree in graphic design.
Then, winter of 2021, I decided to host a cookie decorating party with friends where we ate yummy food, drank hot cocoa, watched a bunch of Christmas movies, and decorated cookies all night while in our pajamas! Through words of encouragement from these friends hyping up my cookie skills I decided to make cookies for my family for Christmas. Everyone RAVED about them! Not only in look but also in taste.
I remember sitting in my brother’s living room and my step mom was chowing down on a cookie and she goes, “You should seriously post about these and try selling them. You don’t often get taste and looks all in one when it comes to decorated cookies.”
I posted the cookies on my personal page and all of a sudden they were being shared and praised like crazy. Next thing I knew I was researching Michigan cottage food law and had my first order booked! On Jan. 1st 2022 I made my business page and slowly took on orders while still nannying and juggling school full time. By April 2023 I was graduating from college and the business was thriving and I had a choice to make… keep going with the business and nannying until I could take on the cookie world full time or start looking for a full time Graphic Design gig. Over the next year I kept nannying and took on a couple graphic design projects while balancing the business. Then, by summer of 2024, I took a leap and made the business my full time job and have been putting my all into it since and my clients and connections have given me their all in return.
I can’t express enough how unexpected all of this was but I’m a firm believer the best adventures in life are the ones you never see coming.
Happy National Baker Day ♥️ May you always have enough room on your plate for a cookie or two 🍪
Random fun fact: before starting up this business, I always said I would open an ice cream shop where I made royal icing cookies that could “decorate” the ice cream. I mean, picture it, you get a scoop of ice cream in a cup and it’s moose tracks and on top of it is a sugar cookie decorated like a moose? That’s adorable! And partly where the name IceQueen came from. But alas, the ice cream part never came to fortune and I stuck with just cookies. I kept the name because if you know me… you know I’m always cold and my hands are always frozen so it was still a fitting name!
