A MONSTER of a job

I have seen sooo many amazing Halloween cookies from all of my cookie blogging friends who continually make my jaw drop when I see their creativity.  It was hard to decide what type of cookies I was going to make for Halloween this year...  I LOVED one idea in particular from Lila Loa...who demonstrated how you could make lots of Halloween cookies from ONE basic cutter... (not that I don't have 2 drawerfuls of Halloween cutters...but this was just too cute to pass up!) 

I chose a few of her designs and went to work.  

I have to say....these were a bit more work than I anticipated.... I tried just using flooding icing to achieve a smoother look without any piping.  And... I vowed to myself that I was determined to create "craterless" eyes on all of my Frankensteins and vampires.  But sure enough...those stinky little "pit hole like" craters showed up nonetheless on a few.

Meet Frankenstein up close and personal...

And his close friend Vampire....

And what would Halloween be without a friendly Jack?

Well... I am still open to suggestions regarding my crater issue.  When I make my eyes... I like the black part of the eye to be smooth (flush) with the white....but this can be tricky....It seems that as they dry... I sometimes get little pit holes in the black part.  The vampires seemed to pose less problems...maybe b/c the eyes were smaller...but I wanted the Frankensteins to have large whites and blacks.

After much trial and error (my mother can vouch for this)....She and I sat at my kitchen counter for a good hour and tried creating the eyes in all different consistencies, using different size tips...even using a two minute timer between adding the white and black dots.  Still.... we got some craters. UGGGHH

I don't think I will ever be able to rid myself of these annoying little craters completely, but here is what I have learned, at least for now:

1.  When making big eyes... I used a number 3 tip for the white and a number 2 tip for the black.

2.  I sometimes think that they turn out better if I don't wait too long to drop the black after I drop the white.

3.   I did notice less craters when I turned my fan on (Thanks for the tip, Callye!).

But the best thing I learned was from one of my favorite cookie friends, Linzy.....  I asked her what size tip she used on some eyes she had done and she shared that she used black sugar pearls so as not to have to mess with the crater issue at all!  AWESOME idea!  Thanks Linzy.  If you don't know Linzy....you NEED to...  She is out of this world amazing, precise, and her cookies are just about as BEAUTIFUL as she is.  You can see her amazing creations here.

 So after a busy week of experimenting and cookie"ing"...Today...my oldest had the day off of school.  So, while J was at preschool and little S was napping, Miss S was thrilled  to help me bag all the cookies I had made.   And we had a ball making these little packages for our friends.

Is she the cutest or what???

Hope everyone is having a festive "almost" Halloween weekend!!