Sunflowers are a symbolic flower of fall.  Which I question because most sunflowers bloom in the summer and are far gone by this time of year.   Whenever I see sunflowers they make me think of my sister Crystal because she loves sunflowers. Making these cookies also made me think of her.

Oddly, I don't own a sunflower cookie cutter although I believe it's pretty common cutter to have.   I have many other flower cookie cutters, but have never purchased a sunflower.  So had to turn to my trusty Silhouette.  I found this sunflower shape and decided to use it.  I liked that it was simple, and it had a center circle.  I cut the sunflower out of card stock paper.   I use thicker paper so I can keep the template for feature use.  Then I hand-cut the cookies following the cut out shape. 

Decorating sunflowers cookies can be as simple or elaborate as you wants.  I started out by piping and flooding the cookie with egg yellow icing, allowing it to dry over night.  The next day,  I took the circle section of the cut out and traced on the cookies with brown food coloring marker.  (As shown in the photo.)  Then I piped and flooded the circle with brown icing.  While the brown icing was wet I used white sanding sugar  because I don't have brown, to create texture.  To create a more shading use a lighter brown icing with brown sanding sugar. The final details I added were, coming back and outlining the whole cookie with yellow icing.  I  added lines to give definition to the petals.  To make the petals more elaborate you could use thicker icing with a petal tip.  Finally, I used a moss green icing to pipe small dots around the brown center. 

Hope these sunflowers bring some sunshine to your day!