Valentine Cookies - Spiderman and Zebra Stripes

Well, ever since the cookie bug bit me, I've been thinking about cookies, dreaming about cookies and imagining every cute thing I see as a cookie. So, of course, with Valentine's Day coming, I wanted to make Valentine cookies. The boys humored me...

I saw a post on one of my favorite cookie blogs (that I now read faithfully), The Sweet Adventures of SugarBelle, and she showed how to make some really cute spiderman heart cookies. So fun and perfect for Valentine's Day!

Well, Randall was on board with Spiderman, but Russ was only so-so. He asked if he could maybe have a heart-shaped basketball instead. He's really into basketball these days (someday I'll remember to post his Upward Basketball pictures). I thought that was a great idea, too!

I decided to make the cookies for Randall's class first because I thought they might be a little more difficult. The day before I started making them, Randall said he was afraid that the girls might not like Spiderman and asked if I could do something else for them. Sweet kid. Well, I had just watched SugarBelle's tutorial on how to do zebra stripes, so I sweetly (no ulterior motive here...) offered to do zebra stripes and said, "Girls love zebra stripes!" He didn't look convinced, but I guess he figured it was better than Spiderman, so he agreed.

I don't know what it was, but I really enjoyed making these! Maybe because girls really *do* love zebra stripes!

I decided to go with black and red like I would use on the Spiderman cookies so I didn't have to mix up any more frosting. I think deciding how much frosting I will need and coloring it is my least favorite part. I need to find some good tips on that so I won't dread it so much. I seem to either have way too much frosting or too little.

First, outline all the hearts.


Next fill in the hearts (for the Spiderman ones).


Oops, got it a little thick and it dripped. Not too pretty to look at, but it tasted good... I used it as my trial run and tested the zebra stripes a few different ways.



I didn't totally follow SubarBelle's tutorial. I put the stripes and the background color on the same "level". I realized after I made the stripes that they looked more like flames, so I went back and re-watched the tutorial to see what I did wrong.


I liked how there was "texture" between the stripes, but they weren't raised like in the tutorial.


I'm sure it was more time-consuming, but it was worth it.


Then I drew the belly buttons on the Spiderman cookies. Okay, they're not belly buttons, but they looked like it as I was drawing them (in edible markers, for the record).


Lots of Spidey webs.


And, the finished products:




Wrapped and ready to go.


Next up, Russell's basketball cookies.