At last, a cookie-decorating class!

Last Christmas, I saw on Facebook where a friend had attended a cookie-decorating class hosted at one of the local rec centers. When I saw that it would be offered again this Christmas, I asked my friend Susan if she wanted to go, so on Saturday morning, we gathered at the Sharpsburg Community Center and learned to decorate cookies!

The instructor, Kathi Roberts, was friendly, well-organized, and encouraging. Susan and I agreed that she was an excellent teacher. She didn't expect perfection (good thing, ha!), and she gave us some tips on how to deal with the inevitable mess-ups that a newbie cookie decorator is going to make.

I was impressed that absolutely everything we needed was lined up and waiting for us: baked cookies, different colors of icing in piping bags, embellishments, scissors, cookie-decorating tools, wet paper towels for cleanup, and more.

The cookie I was most interested in decorating was the tea mug, of course! The lines were airbrushed for us, which was a big help.

Probably a decade ago now, I tried making these pretty iced cookies, but my icing had so many air bubbles that they just weren't very attractive. On Saturday, I learned some new techniques I hope to try so that I can up my game when it comes to decorating cookies. (And use all of those teapot and teacup cookie cutters I've collected over the years.)

And here is my end result, which definitely isn't perfect, but I didn't think it was half bad for a newbie!