Sweet Skills: Lettering Practice

Over the holidays, when we had a house FULL of sweets and snacks, and it was ridiculous (downright dangerous!) to consider baking any more cookies or sweet things, I still wanted to play with sugar.  At the time, I was also doing some graphic work, designing a logo and some new business cards, and so I printed off a few pages of alphabets and graphics to trace in royal icing.

I took the printed paper sheets and slid them under the clear plastic of the Wilton Practice Board that I had from my class. Then I filled my pastry bag with some leftover royal icing and a small decorating tip and traced away!  It took a steady hand and concentration, but I was pleased with the results. 

I think this is a really great way to get some good practice with a pastry bag.  It's a very different kind of tool for me and I am not used to using my hands that way, so the practice is very helpful.  And I think that lettering in particular is good to practice, because you can learn spacing and steady line quality while getting the feel for the style of a font.  Hopefully, with enough practice, I will become comfortable with writing on cookies and cakes the way I write onto my ceramics.

I also did some scrollwork, because I love the look of them but have a hard time free handing them, for some reason.  I love the old school tattoo design feel that they have and I can see myself using them with lettering inside of the scrolls.

The part that might be the most fun about doing this is when the icing is all dried, you scrape it off, and the little icing lines become sprinkles! And then there is a clean slate to start anew...