It's Day 9! Have you been following along? I'm having a ton of fun showing you fun fall projects. Have you made any of them yourself yet? If you want to start at the beginning, click HERE.
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Today's project was inspired by a guest post by Bee in Our Bonnet. Ashleigh made the cutest Jack-o-Lantern in a jar and I wanted to try! Mason jars are super popular lately and I love all of the creative ways people have come up with to use them. My sister buys her mason jars at Goodwill for really cheap. She said she can also get a case at Wal-Mart for cheap. Here in Germany…not so much! The jar I used for this project cost 5 Euro! That's $7!! I wanted to give it to the kids down the street who watched our cat this summer, so it was worth it. But I won't be stocking up on them any time soon!
These are the faces I made for my jack-o-lanterns! Of course, I used the No Fail Sugar Cookie recipe and Antonia 74's Royal Icing. Remember in THIS POST when I talked about rolling and refrigerating the dough? The same rules apply here! I make the dough, roll a chunk of it between two sheets of wax (or parchment) paper, and then refrigerate overnight. The next day, I cut out the shapes, lay them on parchment on a baking sheet, and refrigerate again for at least an hour before baking.
I used a fondant cutter for the circles, a moon cutter for the mouth (then I used a knife to shape it the way I wanted it), and a knife for the triangles.
I always get my icing colors ready and organized while the royal icing is in the mixer. It has to mix for 10 minutes so if you have a stand mixer, you'll have time to get organized before the pressure is on! If you're using a hand mixer, make sure you prep everything before you mix the icing. Royal icing dries very quickly and once it's dry and crusty, it's ruined. I organize the bowls based on how much of each color I'll need. The bigger bowls are for the colors I need more of.
I have my faces all arranged so I can keep track of what I'm doing!
I used all bottles for icing. I'm becoming a huge fan of bottles. In fact, I don't think I'm going to reorder any disposable bags! I really think this is much easier and certainly much less wasteful.
I iced each piece and let them dry overnight to make sure they wouldn't be ruined in the jar.
The next day, I put them in the 1 liter jar and tied some pretty raffia around the lid.
Ta da! Maia and I brought them over to our neighbors in the afternoon. They don't make cookies like this here in Germany so I'm sure they'll be a big hit!
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Those look amazing! I like the bottle idea too! :) You are such a sweet neighbor! :)
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