In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until smooth. (About 1-2 minutes)

Beat in eggs and vanilla until light and fluffy. (About 2 minutes)

In a separate bowl, stir together flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

Prepare a surface by sprinkling flour on it and place some dough to roll out. Sprinkle more flour to top of dough to prevent sticking.

For soft, thick cookies as seen here, use a rolling pin with thickness rings and use the 3/8" one. If you choose to make thinner cookies, adjust baking time accordingly.

For these sugar cookies, use cookie cutters in shapes of circles, hearts, and squares. The circles and squares shown here are 3.5" in size.

Place cut out cookies onto prepared baking sheet (place close together for this step) and freeze for 20 minutes before baking. (This step helps prevent spreading while baking.)

Line a second baking sheet with parchment paper. Place some dough shapes on baking sheet about 2 inches apart and bake for 15-17 minutes (for thick cookies) or until the edges are slightly brown. Middle of cookies will be soft to touch, but will continue to bake once removed from oven. Bake one sheet at a time to ensure even baking times.

Repeat baking steps with remaining cookies.

Let cookies cool completely before decorating.

In a large bowl, beat together butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy. (About 5 minutes)

Separate icing into smaller bowls to color.

Use food coloring to create desired colors in each bowl. Stir completely to be sure food coloring distributes evenly.

Place colored icings into tipless piping bags and close the ends using clips or elastics.

Cut small openings into tips of each icing bag. For background colors, the tips can be larger. For printing colors, keep the tip cut small.

If the icing doesn't squeeze out well, roll piping bag between hands to warm it up.

Start with background colors on all cookies. For example, white background on squares with text.) To smooth out background icing before printing, place those cookies into fridge for 15 minutes. Then, pat icing down lightly with a spatula or place parchment paper over icing and use hands to smooth down. Do not do this once the finer details (like text) are added or they will smudge.

Decorate cookies in layers - first the background colors on all cookies, then ears, eyes, words, etc.

Store cookies at room temp in a sealed food container for up to 3 days or in the fridge for up to a week. Store in single layers to not smash icing details.