I know there was some conversation about this somewhere but can't seem to find it when i need it.
I made soccer ball cookies a few summers back and found it most difficult to get a nice perfect circle with my royal icing. Some of the balls seemed lopsided. Anyhow, i'm making some halloween cookies for my son's class and bakesale and i decided to use the dreaded circle cutter again.
Any tips on how to outline a perfect circle? The cookies are already baked and cooled, just waiting to hear how i can make this easier to do without using my projector. Anyone?

You could outline the circle cookie cutter from the outside of cutter and then flood the inside HTH

you could cut out perfect circles into fondant

using a turntable can help, but really it just takes practice! I use baby spoons (I get a pack of 12 plastic ones at the dollar tree for a buck) and put a glob in the center of the cookie and then using the back of the spoon, I push the icing out to the edge....you'd be surprised at how even you can get them with that little spoon. Even more complex shapes like these bunnies were done like that (I know they're not REAL complex, but you know what I mean...you can get around corners and such easily)

all of these were done using royal icing and the baby spoon

Getting perfect circles from fondant can be challenging also. I cut out perfect circles but they stretched when I carefully lifted them. I probably should have let the fondant set up a bit before I lifted them.

I know what you mean, my circles are not great neither, but I found, that if I microwave my bag with RI (and with the tip as well) just to get it a little warm, it flows faster and I get a better result this way I hope we get here some the "cookie masters" and they might give us some idea.

Thanks everyone for your great tips!
Khalstead..your cookies are beautiful. I especially like the floral ones..are the flowers hand painted on? I've not heard of spreading the royal icing that way, very interesting.
I don't cover my cookies in fondant so that option was out of the question for these cookies.

I did end up tracing my cookie cutter circle on the cookie using a food marker..thanks for the tip tatorchip. I outlined on the inside as there wasn't much room on the outside. the cookies didn't spread much during baking. I'm pleased with how the outline turned out this time..much more uniform than the soccer cookies i did. They are drying right now, and i plan to flood in the morning. I"m doing a black outline so i want to make sure it's good and dry before i flood with a lighter color. Your tip was most helpful today...thank you.

ETA..duh i'm so silly...khalstead..i just noticed those flower cookies were titled "painted" cookies..;0)

you are so welcome sweetcravings glad to help

Khalstead! You're cookies are incredible!! Do you hand paint the flowers or use something else? Unbelievable works of art!

yep, they're just painted with a #10 or #12 flat paintbrush and americolor gels. They're actually just very simple five petal flowers, adn then I flip the paintbrush over and dip the end in the food coloring and blob a dot in the center. Took me around 30 minutes to paint 3 dozen cookies...very simple and fast!

When I flood cookies (regardless of the shape) I just follow along the edge of the cookies to match the outline of the cookie. I use a piping bag with a #1 or #2 tip in it (I prefer PME tips, but you can use whatever brand you like). I also thin my royal down so it flows back into itself at a count of 7 or 8, rather than 10 (like Wilton teaches with their CF).