A new year always starts in the glow of fireworks and the excitement of new resolutions. To make sure the year doesn’t lose its sheen, and the resolutions, their excitement, New West baker Justina Weber has introduced a new set of “affirmation cookies” to keep you motivated.
Each cookie in the cookie set, which was launched for the new year 2023, comes with an affirmation, handwritten with sugar icing.
“I am strong, I am beautiful, I am worthy, I am confident, I am creative, I am brave, I'm amazing…,” said Weber of some of the affirmations she’s written on the cookies.
Weber had first introduced the set around New Year 2021 when her bakery Homemade by Harris was just four months old. But back then, since she was still building a fledgling business, there wasn’t enough time to promote them, she said.
This year, though, she plans to offer them till the end of January.
“Positive affirmations can be a powerful tool in your self-care toolkit. As we enter 2023, it’s a good time to reflect, set goals, and to be kind to yourself and others,” Weber wrote on her website. “My intention for this set, whether you keep it for yourself, or gift it to a friend, is to help you shake those negative thoughts that like to creep in and dim your light,” she added.
Weber, who is a firm believer in using affirmations to stay on track, thought it would a good idea to inspire others to do so with her cookies. "You are beautiful. You are strong. You are unstoppable, and you are meant to shine bright!" she wrote.
“It can be easy to forget that sometimes, so by reading it, by saying it out loud, by repeating it, and of course, by eating these cookies, I hope the words will help you stay on track and manifest your dreams,” she added on her website.
The business of baking cookies
When it came to her own dream, Weber, who had wanted to be a baker ever since she was a child, wasted no time in manifesting it. After graduating from high school, she enrolled in the Baking and Pastry Arts course at Vancouver Community College, and started working at bakeries right away.
She soon realized that she especially loved baking cookies. “I love that a simple sugar cookie can turn into so many different things… it can be something that has so much meaning behind it — like the affirmation set, or a fire truck! And I love the freedom that it gives me.”
In 2021, she started her own small business that allowed her to bake sugar cookies shaped like unicorns, lions, beer mugs and more — sometimes 20 dozen a week — all day. “I feel very, very grateful that I get to do this every day,” she said.
But becoming a small business owner came with the challenge of finding little time for self care, she said. “I am definitely a very anxious and stressed-out person. So it (baking as a profession) definitely comes with its challenges, but at the core, it's a hobby that I love so much. So you kind of just work through that.”
And positive affirmations have helped her work through it, she said.
“With these (affirmation) cookies, since I am sitting and writing these words out, it's beneficial for me. It’s like, I'm writing those words for myself. And that really makes a difference. They can be a very powerful tool.”
While Weber is on a mission to cheer people up by adding positive words on her sugar cookies, what cheers her up is knowing her cookies were part of a kid’s birthday party, or at a BC Children’s Hospital event.
“Just to be able to have something that I made be a part of a bigger moment and somebody else's life is really exciting. And I'm so grateful.”
Justina Weber’s “Affirmation Set” includes 12 cookies for $66. The affirmations can be customized to each customer’s liking. For details, check out Homemade by Harris website.
