Amy Hicks is the owner of Seriously Sweet and Cookie Snack Attack and a lifelong entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience building, growing, and selling successful retail businesses.

Amy launched her first retail venture at age 30, putting both her Business Management and Psychology degrees to work in regionally themed gift shops. Alongside her husband of 30 years, who has also been her business partner for over two decades—they went on to purchase and grow an existing wholesale business before expanding into the sweets industry with the inclusion of homemade fudge and pralines into their regional gift shops.

That expansion sparked a passion that would shape the next phase of her career. Amy and her husband went on to create multiple dessert-focused businesses, including a cupcake and chocolate shop that evolved into a 4,500-square-foot dessert café in a waterfront mall, followed by another retail concept combining cupcakes, chocolates, cookies, and sweet themed gifts.

At the request of her customers, Amy transitioned into custom decorated cookies, where she quickly found her creative niche—especially in corporate branding and custom design work. Her love for design, efficiency, and visual storytelling naturally led her into online and in-person education, where she now teaches cookie decorating with a strong emphasis on intentional design, mixed media, and working smarter in a production environment.

Amy and her husband have earned numerous retail industry awards for small businesses. Amy has been individually recognized & awarded for retail window designs, customer service, best desserts, best boutique bakery, 3-D cookie decorating, and gingerbread designs. Her cookie designs have been featured in bridal magazines, along with additional media coverage recognition in industry magazines and local newspapers. She had a bucket list experience on her short Food Network Christmas Cookie Challenge appearance.

While she treasures every accolade, her favorite award remains winning first place, as a third grader, in her elementary school spelling bee.

Today, Amy is passionate about helping decorators at every skill level blend creativity, efficiency, and profitability, drawing on decades of real-world experience to make beautiful cookies more achievable — and more sustainable — as a small business.

Corianne is the founder of Cookie Couture, Canada’s go-to destination for decorating supplies and creative inspiration. Her journey into cookie decorating began in 2016 while searching for the perfect preschool class treat, unknowingly sparking a passion that would grow into an award-winning home bakery, countless workshops, and the publication of her own book. With no formal baking background, Corianne's story is proof that curiosity, creativity, and a willingness to learn can turn a simple idea into something extraordinary.

Today, Corianne's focus is on helping decorators elevate their skills through thoughtfully curated products, education, and a shared love of the art of cookies!

Lauren Jacobs is a graduate of Virginia Tech and lifelong creator, with a background in sales, art, and art education. She is the founder of The Cheerful Baker and has been decorating artisan cookies for over a decade. She is also a published author of The Boy Who Lost His Colors, a children’s book based on her oldest son's struggles with dyslexia.

Her love of baking started early, sitting on the kitchen counter as a child, helping her mom. Years later, Lauren’s baking journey grew after spotting beautifully decorated cookies on Instagram and thinking, “I want to try that!” Her friend suggested a cookie decorating class to her, and after she completed it (and several more), she was hooked! Cookies provided the creative escape that she needed and an outlet from the worry and stress of her child’s learning complexities. She started decorating cookies in her spare time, then selling them, teaching cookie decorating classes, and eventually starting her own cookie cutter shop. She has been an instructor at CookieCon, Bake From Scratch Magazine, Cookie-A-Thon and The Bake Fest.

About 8 years into her cookie decorating journey, Lauren learned how to design and 3D print cookie cutters. Paired with her art background and love of color and design, this led to The Cheerful Box, a monthly cookie cutter subscription. Each month, she creates themed sets for Cheerful Box subscribers and includes a step by step instructional video that helps them feel confident and proud of what they make.

Lauren has been featured on the Food Network’s Christmas Cookie Challenge, has appeared on news stations in Tennessee, Florida, and Kentucky, and nationally on LiveNOW from Fox. Her work has also been featured in magazines: Entertain & Celebrate, Taste of the South, Southern Lady, and The Supper Club. She lives in Kentucky with her husband, three dogs, two cats, and five chickens, and has two adult sons who are the greatest joy in her life.

Karen and Cassidy are ecstatic to be teaching at Cookie Con this year. You can expect their class to be full of sarcasm, mostly-good advice, and your own laughter. Though they haven’t competed on Food Network, you may recognize them from a few notable events including: CookieCon Reno’s vendor hall, CookieCon Reno’s knife-roomba game, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives season 2 episode 7, or a Baking Me Crazy Instagram reel.

Karen Teuscher is a cookier turned small business owner. She opened Baking Me Crazy, a brick and mortar baking supply shop in Provo, Utah with an online presence. (Lucky for you, Baking Me Crazy is located in Orlando, Florida at the CookieCon vendor hall for a limited time). Karen’s cookie story began long ago when she ate a beautiful sugar cookie with royal icing that she wanted to replicate. After many attempts with buttercream icing, she discovered the magic of royal icing (Who knew there were different types of icing? Not Karen circa 2013!). This is when her love for cookie making developed. Karen perfected her craft over the next few years, opening a small business, Karen’s Cookie Creations. While she loved working as a cookier, she saw a need for baking supplies in her area. Enter: Baking Me Crazy. Karen now spends most of her time stocking gel colors, making silly videos, starring in reality television, and mixing sprinkles.

Cassidy Ellsworth is Karen’s favorite (and only) daughter. Contrary to rumors at CookieCon Reno, Cassidy is not 16 but is actually an adult with a master’s degree. Cassidy’s cookie story begins in Karen’s kitchen where her childhood memories are built around chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal scotchies, and getting to turn on the Bosch mixer. Now, Cassidy works as a Speech-Language Pathologist while hobby-baking at home. Cassidy also serves as Karen’s informal “Is-this-still-cool” and “How-do-I” consultant for all things social media at Baking Me Crazy. Cassidy lives with her husband, Ryan, and their two dogs, Cookie and Milkatron also known as Milky. She will talk to you about anything (literally) including, but not limited to, running, dogs, speech therapy, hating peanut butter, loving Dot’s pretzels, your cookies, and her mom. (Seriously, do not get her started). (Or maybe get her started if you are bored).

Karen and Cassidy can’t wait to meet you in their class or in the vendor hall at Baking Me Crazy’s booth. They accept trades.

Maythe Del Angel is an International Award Winner. Since 2017, she has won multiple cake and cookie contests in person and online. She is a Food Network Champion, Brand Ambassador for MaBaker And Chef Mexico, and Product Developer for Sugarin India.

She has taught cake and cookie classes since 2015, and has been a popular Elective Instructor at CookieCon every year since 2023.

Maythe is an enterprising, musical, visual artist. Now as a pastry chef, she is in a world where her creative mind and skillful hands and heart come together to make edible sugar sculptures.

Tammy Colitti, owner of 2 T’s Stencils and 2 T’s SweeTTs and host of Cookie RoundUp cookie retreats, is a beloved educator in the cookie decorating industry. She has been part of the CookieCon community for the past 12 events as a sponsor and vendor, and an eight-time add-on instructor since 2019.

Known for her philosophy of working smarter, not harder, Tammy specializes in transforming simple techniques into striking, professional-looking designs. She focuses on teaching decorators how to create polished, high-impact cookie art with ease — eliminating stress, overcomplicated methods, and the need for high-priced tools or specialty gadgets.

In this class, Tammy will share her expert stenciling methods for creating eye-catching backgrounds, elegant embossing, dimensional lettering, offset and shadow effects, and refined finishing details. These techniques are tailored to help decorators at all skill levels create elevated results with ease. Students will leave feeling empowered and ready to create polished, high-impact designs efficiently — proof that working smarter, not harder truly works.