How To Make Decorated Parrot Sugar Cookies

Learn how to make some brightly colored parrot decorated sugar cookies with this royal icing cookie decorating tutorial!! 

I've decided that I'm going to stop using the word "homeschooling" to describe what is currently happening in my home. I think it's giving homeschooling a bad reputation.

"Checking my email 71 times a day and rapid fire negotiating with my four children simultaneously while trying to also download new learning apps and find lost logins before they realize we are 27 minutes past our scheduled time for their nutritious afternoon snack and everyone devolves into an exploding slush of anger and resentment" ...just seems a little long though.

So.... I think I'm going to go with "Corona-schooling" from here on out.

That feels more accurate.

Because I have nothing but the utmost respect and love for parents that legitimately home-school their children without anything imploding. Or melting. And who can also still use actual words to make comprehensible sentences by the end of the day.

Because I am NOT that parent.

I could have lost an arm yesterday and not realized it until this morning.

That's how Corona-schooling is going at our house.

And I've heard the educators in my life giving me permission to not put too much pressure on myself. Or my children. And let me assure you --

I'M NOT.

We're not forcing anything. I'm not fighting with them. I'm putting no pressure on myself to "get things done" or "be productive" or even really to "shower on a regular basis" these days.

Imagine a cross between an amoeba and a sloth.

That's basically my Corona-schooling method at this point.

And I still feel like my brain has been covered in baking soda and doused in vinegar.

I'd blame it on last week's earthquake but truthfully... I've been a hot mess for a lot longer than that. My complete and utter lack of time management skills are coming back to bite me in the buttocks. After all this time - my third grade teacher was right. It HAS become the single greatest inhibitor to my own personal prosperity and happiness.

Luckily - I still have cookies to fall back on.

(I bet Mrs. Moore didn't see that one coming.)

How to make royal icing parrot decorated sugar cookies: 

Step 1. 

Use a medium consistency yellow icing and a #3 tip to outline and fill the beak area of the parrot. It should look kind of like a cashew. Let the icing dry for 30 minutes.

Step 2.

With a medium consistency red icing and a #3 tip, outline and fill the body of the parrot. Leave a space for the eye area. Let dry for an hour or two...or more if you usually have problems with icing color bleed.

Step 3. 

Fill in the eye area with barely enough white icing. We're going to add a lot more icing in this small area so we don't want too much white to begin with. Layer dots of black, white, yellow, and then black again to make the eye.

With a scribe tool, grab a tiny speck of white icing from the tip of a piping bag and tough it to where the center black dot of icing meets the yellow. I added white dots on the top right and the bottom left. You can do what you want.

Outline and fill the tummy area of the parrot with the same white icing. Let it dry for another hour.

Step 4. 

Pipe the front half of the wing with the red icing and immediately pipe the back half with the blue icing. Don't get too hung up on perfection here. If you notice...EVERY SINGLE WING in my photos is different from the next. I'd like to say that I did it intentionally...but the truth is...replicating the design exactly just isn't that important. 🤣🤣

Pipe the green part of the tail with a medium consistency green icing and a #2 tip. And immediately pipe the tip of the tail with the blue icing. Let dry for 15 minutes.

Step 5. 

Pipe a dot of yellow icing near the tail and drag it toward the center of the parrot. Repeat at the front and drag toward the back part of the foot. And then add another dot higher up for the other foot. Use a scribe tool to smooth everything out right.





See it all come together in this tropical parrot cookie decorating video tutorial.

There are lots of great ways to change things up and modify the design!!

NEED MORE?? 

Get the cutters: parrot, flower, heart leaf, teardrop leaf, and small heart.

Check out this tutorial from Sweet Sugarbelle for making simple tropical leaf cookies!

Add a fun jungle lizard cookie to the mix with this chameleon tutorial.