Cookie Cutters for the 4th of July

This past month has been a very family oriented month.  Also, a really wonderful month.  Number 1- My family and I drove to Minnesota to attend my niece's wedding on the shores of Lake Superior.  It was beautiful, the weather cooperated, and Duluth turned out to be a great place to visit.  There was so much to do and see!  Number 2- Then we headed to the "Thumb" for my nephew's (really cousin's) wedding.   Again, it was a beautiful wedding, the weather was perfect, and the reception in Bay City was great.  The best part was seeing so many members of the family.  My daughter, who lives in NYC, and my son who lives in Detroit, were able to come to both weddings.   In fact,  my daughter was able to visit Michigan for two weeks, actually 2 very fast weeks!  Number 3- We headed to the middle of the state for the 4th of July to celebrate my MIL's birthday.  Number 4- Then my daughter and I traveled back to another area of the thumb to re-connect with my aunt and cousin on my dad's side.  Number 5- Finally, we (my daughter and I) headed to Ohio for a few days to visit aunts and uncles and many cousins.  It was a lot of traveling in a month, but we had fun, and of course, we laughed and laughed!

Our 4th of July Party was a "potluck," and my  daughter and I decided to decorate some cookies for the occasion.  Now, that we're having so much fun with cookies, we are taking every opportunity to make cookies.  So, we pulled out the cookie cutter collection and decided on the following cookies:

My daughter designed a "pinwheel" cookie from the square cutter.  (She is very talented and creative!)  We had to make a hot dog for the 4th of July, because what is the 4th without a good old American hot dog?!?  Besides, my son loves hot dogs.  We decided on making ice cream cones, and sky rockets (using the birdhouse again and a small star that we bent a bit).  We used the small circle to make a few baseballs, mainly for my GREAT nephew who loves all kinds of balls, and the larger circle to make a flag symbol.   Oh, and last, but not least, a star.

We made the cookies and spent a couple of hours making the piping frosting and flooding frosting and ended up with a lot of different colors.  Next time, I think we will cut down on the amount of colors!  Then, it was time to decorate.  It took us quite awhile, but we really enjoyed ourselves, and we think that the cookies turned out pretty well...(yummy, too!).

Happy 4th of July!  As you can see, we tried to cover a real 4th of July celebration!

Ice cream cones!  Strawberry, orange sherbet, lemon, chocolate, raspberry, chocolate chunk, fudge ripple, and cherry swirl!  One of these days, I want to use different extracts so that the cookies taste like what they look like...if you know what I mean.  We found out that I really like to decorate the "food" cookies, and my daughter really likes to decorate the non-food cookies.  Can you tell which ice cream cone she decorated?  It's like those puzzles where you have to find and circle the object that is different.

A "close up,"  Can't you just imagine that it tastes like strawberry?

Hot Dogs!  Come and get your hot dogs!  I really had fun decorating these.   I tried to make a Coney Dog, but it looked as messy as a real Coney Dog...not so good for a cookie!

A "close-up" .... Mustard, ketchup, onions and relish..yum!

Here's my nephew ready to gobble up his "dog." 

Here are a few of our "sky rockets."  The "flares" were attached with Royal Icing and craft sticks.  The flag symbols were made from large circles,  and my daughter made the beautiful red, white, and blue exploding fireworks by "dragging" the flooding icing.

A "close up" of one of the rockets.  This one was made by me, the other two by my daughter.

As I said earlier, my daughter came up with the idea for "pinwheels" and made the pattern.  Then, we both had fun decorating.  She made five of them, I made one.  Can you tell which one?  (I made the one with the red dots and the the blue stripes).  This is her first time piping and flooding, pretty amazing, huh?

My GREAT nephew seemed to like his pinwheel cookie.  The stick definitely made eating it a bit easier!

More cookie "close-ups."

Yup, he definitely seems to be enjoying his cookie sitting with his "Noni."  He is soooooo cute! 

My daughter made the baseball... we actually had to look up the stitching design on the computer!

"My Pinwheel"

"Mmmm  Mmmm Good!"  (I had a hard time limiting my pictures of this little guy, to three!)

Here is a platter of the "Red, White, and Blue" cookies.

Finally, a mixture of cookies that shouts, "Happy 4th of July!!!"

Hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend and were able to spend it with close family and friends!  Summer is here...time to swim, cook out, read books, go to the beach, and enjoy every minute!  Oh yes, and time to eat hot dogs, ice cream cones, and cookies!