I'm addicted to wet-on-wet decorating of cookies. It's fast. It's flashy. I don't have to wait for anything to dry between steps. It can easily be done with ANY color scheme.
One of my favorite wet-on-wet looks is marbling. Back in my last life as a teacher, when I was single no kids and had a TON of free time I once took a paper marbling class. The methods are the same for cookies, just a different medium. Here's how I decorated a couple of the M's for my nephew's birthday earlier this month. I'm using all flood icing here of the same consistency, about 18- to 20-second icing.
Start with a cookie. ;-)Flood the cookie with your choice of background color.
One of the keys to this method is to work fast. I wouldn't advise doing more than one cookie at a time, especially if you're doing larger cookies.
Without letting the background icing dry, use your first accent color to make wet-on-wet stripes.Repeat with any additional accent colors.While the icing is still wet, use a toothpick or boo boo stick to drag evenly spaced lines, perpendicular to the stripes you created (mine go down). Wipe off the toothpick after each pass.
The above would be a perfectly lovely marbled cookie and you can stop there for one look. You can vary it's appearance by making the lines with the toothpick closer together if you like. Or...
Using the same method, go in between the lines you just made using your toothpick in the opposite direction (I went up this time).
This method can be used in so many different ways and on so many different shaped cookies. You can achieve a different look by changing the order in which you make your strips and varying the tip size that you use to make your strips for different thicknesses of lines.
In January, I started the process of helping my friend Monica prepare for her daughter's 4th birthday party that was a month out at the time. The theme was Tangled. I did my due diligence and watched the movie the weekend before.
The first project was to make Rapunzel hair for the girls (and my son, the only boy attending the party).
So armed with three large skeins of bright yellow yarn we got to work. Taking measurements on The Boy, we decided to go with seven-foot lengths, aiming to have a two foot braid in the back. After making the prototype we realized that braiding shrunk the length more than we anticipated. In round two we cut nine-foot lengths. It's also important not to stretch the yarn taut as you measure or it shrinks back up after cutting.
For the 4-year-olds we decided that 20 inches around their head was a good length. It has a little give if they are bigger and can be tied if need be to shorten up that part.
Step 1: Cut sixty pieces of yarn, each 9 feet (108 inches) long. Put them in one stack and find the center (4.5 feet from the end).
Step 2: Measure about 15 inches from the center of the lengths and temporarily tie off the yarn with a small piece of yarn.
Step 3: Split the yarn into three sections and braid toward the center point until you have 20 inches of braid. Tie off the end of the braided section. (If you notice that the two unbraided ends aren't the same length, then you can untie one tie to braid further in that direction so this 20-inch section is roughly in the middle.)
Step 4: Leaving the temporary ties at the ends of the middle braided section, make a loop with the braided part and join the two ends of the yarn to braid down in one fat braid.
Step 5: Tie off the end of the braid and trim up the loose ends if needed.
Step 6: Untie the temporary ties that originally held the ends of the center section of braid. Tie around the top of the large braided section. This tie can be adjusted to change the length of the part that goes around the head. It's also kinda stretchy.
Tada!
I LOVED all the details of the party.
The favors included the adorable satchels as well as the braids, which the kids got to decorate at the party.Glittery, thick foam, flower stickers were available for braid decorating.The cookies I made, the ADORABLE cake, braided rolls and another yarn braid as decor.
I'm addicted to wet-on-wet decorating of cookies. It's fast. It's flashy. I don't have to wait for anything to dry between steps. It can easily be done with ANY color scheme.
