Picket Fence & Sold Sign Cookie Tutorial, as promised

See, I didn't forget.  I promise.  Kinda.

I told you when I posted the New Home cookie collection that I'd be back with the tutorials for the rest of the cookies.  Well, it's been a week and a half, but I'm back.  Time really does fly, huh?

Let's just get down to business, shall we?  Here's what you're going to need:

• picket-fence* & rectangle sugar cookies
• royal icing, divided and tinted with AmeriColor Bright White, Egg Yellow, Turquoise, Deep Pink, Electric Pink, and Leaf Green
• disposable icing bags
• couplers and tips, #2, #3, #1
• toothpicks
• squeeze bottles

*First, you're going to need a template for the picket fence.  This shape was the very first cookie shape I ever made from a template.  I remember about 10 years ago, standing at Michael's, looking at their wooden cut-out and thinking, that would make a really cute cookie. 

I bought it and I wash it just like I wash my wooden spoons.  Just lay the clean shape on your dough, and cut around it with a paring knife.  This particular one takes about a zillion cuts.

{If you're feeling ambitious, you could cut out the openings in the center.  I am not ambitious.}

Alrighty, now that we have the picket fence cookies ready, let's decorate...

Use #2 tips to outline the fence in yellow and sold sign post and sign in white.  Use a toothpick to scrape the outlines where they meet on the post.  Reserve some of each of the yellow icings for piping details.

Use the yellow with a #2 tip to add dots connecting the sign and post.

Thin the white icing with water, a bit at a time, stirring with a silicone spatula, until it is the consistency of a thick syrup.  You'll want to drop a "ribbon" of icing back into the bowl and have it disappear in a count of "one thousand one, one thousand two." Four is too thick, one is too thin.  Count of 2-3 is good.  Cover with a damp dish towel and let sit for several minutes.

Stir gently with a silicone spatula to pop and large air bubbles that have formed.  Pour into a squeeze bottle.

Flood the cookies with the thinned icing.  Use a toothpick to guide to edges and pop large air bubbles.

Use a #1.5, 1 or 2 tip to pipe the fence posts and "nails" on the fence.  Use a #3 tip to fill in the sign with turquoise icing, using a back and forth motion. 

Let the cookies sit for 1 hour.

Use #1 tips to pipe the flower details, in pink and green icings. For the swirly flowers, use a #1 tip to make a larger dot in the lighter pink, then pipe a swirl on top in the darker pink with another #1 tip.

Use a #1 tip to pipe "SOLD" on the sign in yellow icing.

Have you ever made cookies from a template?