More cookies & How to ice a cake

My nephew Elliott had a birthday this last week and got to bring a treat in to his class. He liked the cookies I made at easter so I made some more for him to share at school! I was trying to get some sort of theme out of him but pretty much all he would give me is "no girly colors" and "no girly designs". So specific! He liked the patterned ones I did for spring so I decided to just go with that. Again, I still don't have a proper working camera so please bear with the less than ideal iPhone photos!

There were a total of 38 cookies, so I'm just posting picture of a few of my favorites. I started mostly with plaid but in the end I had the most fun doing argyle and those came out as my favorites!

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And on to the next: tonight is class 2 of my Wilton cake decorating classes. Last week I didn't post because, well, you don't really do much but sit and listen for class 1! Tonight however, we get to be hands on. So here is my blank canvas ready to be decorated:

It took me ages to get the icing that smooth. I kept smoothing and smoothing for what felt like forever. Finally I decided that this was just not happening and instead I went to my trusty source for all things that need answering: Google. I knew there had to be some secret to smooth icing! I found this great video which was so helpful! She uses a paper towel, however the only papers towels we have are patterned. I did the initial smoothing with a paper towel, but then I went over it a second time carefully with wax paper and it really did the trick! I'll post pictures tomorrow of how the class and the decorating goes. Wish me luck!