Tips to make baking sugar cookies easier * Roll out the dough onto kitchen parchment. Cut out the cookies. Pick up excess dough, leaving cookies untouched. You can simply slide the parchment onto a cookie sheet pan, bake, and slide off to cool. * When cutting square cookies or long strips, use a pizza cutter rather than a knife. It won't leave jagged edges. * When you buy a new rolling pin, especially if there is a shiny finish on it, try sanding   it with a medium grit sandpaper. The dough doesn't stick to it as much. * Designs can be pressed into the unbaked cookie after the skewer is in place and the surface smoothed with a spatula and a little flour. Alphabet and number cookie cutters come in handy. * Try decorative rubber stamps brushed with food color and lightly pressed onto unbaked cookies. They can be found at any craft or fabric stores. Your kids would enjoy carving potato stamps to decorate their cookies. * Use your imagination! Think outside the box (or the clay pot!). Autumn Carpenter has a new book showing a variety of ways to display her cookie bouquets.                    Check it out: www.cookiedecorating.com   * Some of my students prefer to shrink-wrap their cookies and tape the sticks to the back of the cookie. Whatever! * Be aware of changes in temperature when you leave to deliver a cookie bouquet. I have walked outside and had my balloons try to float away. I love surprises, but not that kind!