The inspiration for this post comes from a customer that wanted a mickey mouse themed baby shower, but wanted it in a shabby, country chic style. They didn't know the gender, so my GO TO favorite color, GREY, was the color palette of choice.
So I started with my plain flooded and dried Mickey Cookie. This had dried over night. It is important that when you are going to do a painting technique on a cookie that you make sure it has had ample time to dry.
I used a solution of just a little black food gel, white food gel, and everclear alcohol.
A LITTLE SIDE-NOTE ABOUT WORKING WITH BLACK FOOD GEL. IT'S WEIRD, BUT WHEN YOU ADD ALCOHOL TO IT, IT ALMOST BECOMES BLUE IN COLOR. AND WHEN YOU ADD WHITE TO IT, IT TURNS IT MORE LAVENDER-GREY THAN TRUE COOL GREY. SO DON'T BE ALARMED IF YOU FIND THIS HAPPENING. JUST ADD MORE WHITE TO TONE THE BLACK/BLUE DOWN. THIN IT DOWN WITH THE ALCOHOL. A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY AND YOU DO NOT WANT TO OVERSATURATE YOUR COOKIE WITH A WET BRUSH. DAB IT ON PAPER TOWEL TO MAKE SURE IT'S NOT TOO RUNNY.
What you see here is me using the grey color solution that I made and used a flat small/medium food safe brush to make a gingham effect on the cookie.
In keeping with the gender neutral theme, I used a similar grey icing color for the top to pipe the writing and a light mint green for the leaves.
To connect the cookie to the disney theme we decided to use the message, "Our Little Mouseketeer". I did this in a cursive font.
I suggest anytime you want to add some flourishes or decorative elements to your cookies, that you always practice a few times before going RIGHT to your cookie. It's a good way of testing the size of your tip (if it's big enough, small enough) and if you have just the right consistency needed for what you are doing. I wanted to add a small rose and vine. One of my favorite ways to make a rose is what I learned from the Sweet Sugarbelle. It's an informal, whimsical approach to making little rosettes, and I usually prefer them to the wilton flower tips. Not to mention, this approach is SUPER easy and fun. Here is a a link to take you to her tutorial. Her tips and tricks are amazing! If you haven't read up on her, you need to, especially if you really want to learn some serious sugar cookie decorating!
Just pipe a blob suitable in size for your cookie. Wait a minute or two.
Now go back and in a counter-clockwise motion, starting from the center, draw one continuous line on the blob. (I should mention that I normally wait a couple minutes for the blob of royal icing to set up before piping the top detail swirl on it, just so it doesn't look too runny. So pardon the less than perfect technique here)
While I was at it, I also practiced a few leaves just to get a feel for things and to make sure that I had a consistency that I thought was appropriate to work with.
Once you practiced a few times, now it's time to actually duplicate the design onto the real cookie. Don't RUSH, but don't overthink it either. (at least that's how it works for me).
I felt something was still missing. So I pulled out my trusty little jar of edible pareiels
I first added the greenery, then the rose. Then finished it with 2 pearls. Simple, but chic. And not too cartooney, which is how the customer wanted it. But still very much capturing the cuteness of the Disney Mickey Mouse theme!
The final cookie:
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