If you're wanting to make decorated cookies, the best advice I can offer is to read the tutorial by Antonia74 (How to bake & decorate cookies) and do it her way! 
Seriously, I think her methods and recipes are wonderful, and I do get rave reviews on my cookies! 
Also, take the time to just read through the posts in the cookie forum, there is a LOT of great information there about making and decorating cookies.
hth!
Laura.
I second what slejdick said, but on top of that I can add these two words, that have made a huge difference in the appearance of my cookies:
Parchment Paper!
I love it, and will never make roll-out cookies without it again!
Mamakau,
Yes....the parchment helps the cookies from burning on the bottom also.They get a nice golden brown but still have to be watched.
All I can day is SilPat, SilPat, SilPat! And of course, good quality cookie sheets. I have been baking cookies for over 15 years and have found that the cookie sheet really, really makes the differance! The commerical quality ones are by far the best. I jsut bought 2 new ones at Williams Sonoma, they are the best! Well worth the money.
I have one for you.... as nice as parchment paper is, Quilon coated baking sheets (pan liners) are fantastic and cheap!! I buy a big package of them at Smart and Final for $2.65 and cut them in 1/2 to
fit my sheets. I can use them like parchment paper and roll my dough out as well. I even line my cookie boxes with 1/4 sheet.
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