This week's design was a bit more challenging than before.  I will admit that I did modify the cookie, so it doesn't look exactly the cutter.  I don't think it's cheating but my husband thinks otherwise.  It's better to modify a cutter you have than to purchase a new one. 

When I started these cookies I was either going to make a full zombie or a zombie hand coming up out of the ground, rising up from the dead.  I challenged myself and made both.  I used the same cutter for both cookies.

I had to make a few sketches of both before I came up with designs that I liked.  For the full zombie body, I used a circle cutter to cut off all but one spike.  I used a food coloring marker to transfer my drawing onto the cookie.  First, I piped the whites of the eyes.  To create the bags under the eyes, I used purple petal dust combined with a small amount of white food coloring to make a paint.  I painted the bags directly on to the cookie.  Next, I piped and flooded all the green areas, piping around the purple bags.  For the section under the shirt, I piped a small amount of icing and spread it out thinly with a paint brush.  Then I added the shirt and pants.  What clothes do zombies wear?  The final touches were adding the facial features, hair and warts.  Once all the icing was dry, I came back and painted the zombie to dirty him up.

For the second cookie, I covered the top portion with a thin layer of black icing.  Once it dried, I used this stencil to airbrush black lines.  Immediately after airbrushing and without moving the stencil, I covered the same area with black disco dust.  I piped a white tombstone shape on top of the black.  It's fun to see trends come and go in cookies.  In 2008, I remember when I first used wafer paper.  I used this wafer paper to make the tombstone.  I adhered the wafer paper with water once the white icing was completely dry.  Then I piped the brown grave section and green grass.  Finally I piped the hand coming out of the grave.  Again once everything was dry, I painted the cookie.

This is the cutter I used if you haven't figured it out already.