Let’s talk turkey… and corn

November is the time of year where we take stock of our blessings and are grateful for friends, family, and good food.  We focus on the wonderful things in our lives… and then go and buy ALL THE THINGS because the grateful thanks giving part was Thursday and now it’s Black Friday: time to focus on all the things we don’t have. ha!

But for today let’s focus on the thanks and giving part.  Today I’m “giving” my Circus Ringmaster a fun feast makeover for my series “A Year of Cookies: One Cutter.” I altered the shape of my hat a bit to re-create the pilgrim hat silhouette by micro planing the top edges.  It magically changes it from having a slight flare to that classic pilgrim hat look by adjusting the angle.  I first flooded the beak with all orange, but wanted a bit more highlight so I added some yellow while the orange was still wet and moved it around a bit to blend the two colors together with a scribe tool.  I really like how my slightly nervous turkey turned out!

For the second makeover I flipped the hat upside down and created some colorful indian corn.  I LOVE the bright kernels in the real deal and they were made easier to recreate in royal icing by having my heat gun on hand to help speed the process along.  Instead of waiting for each layer of kernels to dry I blew the hot air over the kernels so I wouldn’t have to wait a long time before adding more kernels, and yet still keeping the separate dimensions.  

I finished off the look with some husks (wafer paper that I tore to have a natural look, then airbrushed with a bit of ivory and yellow before “glueing” them down with some royal icing).

If you don’t have this awesome cutter I designed for Ann Clark yet… what are you waiting for? You can grab one here! So far, so useful!

Working my way through my idea list has been so fun and I love exercising my creative muscles in new ways.

27 ideas for “Arty McGoo’s Top Hat Cookie Cutter”:

What will the shape be transformed into next month? Check back in to see, but for now, let’s see all the cookies so far.

• A Year of Cookies: One Cutter
• A Year of Cookies: One Cutter September
• A Year of Cookies: One Cutter October