Iced cookies...trickier than I thought

So last week I made some rolled cookie dough to practise making some cookies for a summer fete in a couple of weeks. I have since found anothe recipe which I'm going to try out again this weekend as I found this dough hard to manage - I think my butter was just too soft. I'm also trying to work out whether to put the sticks in before or after cooking. I tried both and it didn't seem to make much difference but any advice would be gratefully received!
So, here's the first batch of cookies.


















Then on Friday myself and the kids did a bit of decorating. Millie turned out to be quite interested and quite good at it actually. Hettie had fun putting as much as possible on the top of her owl shaped cookie and then scraping it off and eating it.

It's harder than it looks icing cookies... I tried the Royal Icing method after a kindly taste tester at work (Tony) told me he thought something crunchy on top would work well as the cookies were quite soft.

So here's my attempt at icing cookies. I think I need to get the icing consistency better for piping but some of them weren't too bad. They tasted nice anyway and bagged up in celophane with a ribbon I expect they'll look better too!
























Coming up next...skull and cross bones for a 14 year old's paint ball party....