How to Hand Paint Cookies

In today’s post, you’ll learn how to hand paint cookies.

Painting cookies makes decorating sugar cookies quick and easy. Decorative sugar cookies make a festive addition to any party. If you want a quick, easy and FUN method for decorating sugar cookies, try painting them.

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Yes, paint!

Just like any other painting, you’ll use a paintbrush, however, you use FOOD COLORING for the colors. You can find the airbrush colors by clicking here. And see the gel colors by clicking here.

My neighbor came over to help me paint these cookies. She has never, ever done anything at all like this. Hers came out beautiful! (Well, as beautiful as dead folks can be.). You can do this too! Best of all, we had a very enjoyable afternoon painting.

Here you’ll find a unique method for painting your own sugar cookies, one simple technique that can be applied to any food coloring.

The free svg files used here are available in my Resource Library. You can get the password for the free files by filling out the form at the bottom of this post.

Here’s What You’ll Need

Materials List

A cookie that has been flooded with royal icing and dried overnight
I used a homemade stencil, but that’s totally optional. Freehand it if you like!
Food coloring. I used Americolor airbrush colors. You can find some here.
Small Food Safe Paint brushes. You can get some here.
A palette or very small bowl to hold your food color in as you paint. Get some here.

First, the cookie.

For your “canvas” you’ll begin with a cookie that has been flooded with royal icing and dried overnight. It absolutely must be dried and “set.” Otherwise the liquid of the food coloring and the ever so slight pressure of the paint brush will ruin it.

Next, the “paint”

Using the food coloring as your paint, just paint as any other artwork. I used Americolor airbrush colors. For the purple, however, I preferred the Americolor gel color. When you use the gels, you must thin it with a very small amount of water, extract, or liquor. Don’t worry, the alcohol evaporates. I prefer the alcohol because it dries quicker than the water, reducing the chance of pitting on the cookie. Just add a few drops of the water or alcohol in the palette with the food coloring and swirl it with your paintbrush.

Dip your brush in the food coloring. You don’t want too much liquid, so blot the excess onto a paper towel.

You can see the video tutorial below. Follow along to see how easy it really is!

See the full tutorial for how to create and use the stencil holder/clipboard here.

See the full tutorial for how to create your own cookie stencils here and see the mesh stencil tutorial here.

FREE CUT FILES & PATTERNS

So are you ready to do this? Get the password for the Resource Library with the free files used in this post by filling out this form. Then download the files from my Resource Library. The file is saved as a zip file which is compressed. So after you download it, you have to “unzip” it or uncompress it to get the file.

Subscribe below to get the password if you haven’t already subscribed to my newsletter.

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RELATED READING: Read how to airbrush cookies here.