Valentines Day Sugar Cookies

Those I love!
I outlined with a #1.5 tip with thick icing, then flooded with a thinner icing. I'm very pleased and had fun with them!
Those? I'm happy with the top left and bottom left. The others had problems.

The white dots around the perimeters - Um. That was flood icing I grabbed. Doh. Too big. Too messy.

The ones with the white dotted hearts and red backgrounds? The dots were too close together. Some decided to get cozy. Then there's the issue of the background flooding all into the hearts. At first I couldn't figure out why that was. I first outlined the hearts with a #1.5 (because that's what I had on the bag for later dots). Then flooded the hearts, then outlined the background with a #1.5 and flooded that. The backgrounds flowed right over my heart outline and blurred what was a crisp heart. Finally I realized it's because I used a #1.5 for outlining. The border was too thin and low. Had I used a #2 I think it would have been much cleaner.

The other issue I have is with lumpy bumpy backgrounds. I still don't know why that is. Icing too thick? Not enough icing? I dragged a toothpick all over those guys. They looked smooth when they were wet.

I used the fabulous tip to use a cookie cutter on raw dough to make an impression for later decorating. Woo hoo!

Lessons learned.....
1. Don't use a #1.5 to outline designs that will be flooded around later!

2. Make it clear which icings are flood and which are piping! It's hard to get the icing into and out of bottles and harder to clean those babies, so I used bags for everything this time. I either need to use bottles for flooding or mark the bags clearly so I know what's what.

3. Leave more room between dots!

4. Figure out why the larger areas aren't smooth. (That's not exactly a lesson, is it?)