The 4th of July!

My favorite holiday is upon us. The 4th of July brings back terrific childhood memories. Summer days floating in black innertubes on Lake Delavan. Fireworks shows that we oohed and ahhed at, laying on our backs on top of worn quilts. My own children have vastly different memories. No cousins to be found, many baseball fields, the country club, the beach, or our own little hamlet's fireworks. But no matter where we are, there is something magical about the birthday of our country. So naturally, we bake.

I am the first to admit that I am inspired by many cookie bakers. Cookie mavens like LilaLoa, Sweet Sugar Belle and Sweetopia. These are the blogs I read all the time. Accomplished women like these offer tutorials, tips, hints and great inspiration for bakers like me. I am small time (for now!) and appreciate that they are so willing to share their wealth of knowledge. LilaLoa says on her blog, she is terrible at keeping secrets and will tell you everything. I love that! She is a very humorous writer , kinda like someone else I know. But truly that is why many of us blog, it is sharing information, accomplishments, and ideas. I always try and give credit where credit is due. SweetSugarBelle inspired me to do the black outline on the stars and stripes, and I think it made a huge difference. LilaLoa makes a lot of her cookies chocolate and that dark background gives it great effect.

The black outlines remind me of my sister Patti. She is about 8 years older than me, so when I was just learning to color in the lines, she would come along and outline those pictures in darker colors or black and then gently color them in. I was so taken with the effect, I copied it and did it with my own kids. So why I didn't think of doing it on cookies, I don't know. But I love it. So here is the Patriotic Roundup.