Valentine's Day Cookies

May I present to you: 

Valentine's Day Cookies for Caiden's Class :)

Wrapped and ready to go

I made a total of ten for his class. Nine for the other students and one for his teacher. I made four extra for our little family to enjoy on Valentine's Day.

You can see my "penmanship" improve over these. I practiced on Brian & Caiden. The very last one I did was Ezra's.

Overall, I am pretty happy with how these turned out given it was a first time for me in several areas. Which also translates to: I learned quite a few new things on this batch. Good thing they are for a class of 3 year olds or else I would have felt a lot more stressed out and self conscious! LOL!

So here is a list of what I learned/experienced:

• I need to get less sloppy about my borders. It's pretty obvious when I use two different colors. 
• I should have left more of the edge of the cookie for show. This also would have allowed me to make a more defined heart shape.
• AmeriColor black is NICE! And it does darken up as it dries. I should have taken a picture of the icing before it set, but it was a dark grey/silver when I started. I was very pleased with the end result, and I didn't have to dump in half the bottle. I also don't taste the nasty bitter like I do with Wilton.
• AmeriColor red is also NICE! Having the color in squeeze bottles is so much better to work with. I did need to use a fair amount, but like the black it also darkened up as it dried.
• I really need to practice my penmanship. I don't have the best handwriting as it is, and I feel like it really showed on the cookies. But it is also my first shot at writing with an icing bag, so I know it will get better with practice. (I'm also thankful that you can "erase" mistakes with a little water and a paper towel!)
• Writing with a #1 tip makes for some fragile letters. I had to repair two cookies after transferring them to their bags.
• For some reason, a lot of my cookies came out of the oven uneven - lots of air pockets. I have no idea what caused this. Normally it isn't such a big deal since the icing usually does a good job of leveling it all out. But it does present a bit of a challenge when you need to write on them!

I think that about covers it for my notes. I hope his classmates and teacher enjoy them. I had fun making them! :)