Wasn't there a separate cookie forum?  Sorry to ask here, but I'm stepping out of my cake comfort zone and making Easter cutout cookies - eggs, bunnies, etc.  I'm thinking that royal icing is used for this.  Does it dry hard and crunchy on a cookie or does the moisture from the cookie keep it a little soft?  I don't want crunch.  I also want to be able to use different colors of icing.  Is there somethng that will dry with a smooth finish and be sort of soft? Or is royal the way to go?

You can use royal icing, fondant, or glaze.

I like to use a glaze to cover the cookies, with royal for the outline and details.  The glaze gives a nice finish and never dries as hard as royal. I apply it with a squirt bottle.  The recipe is:  3 c. powdered sugar, 1/4 c. warm water, 1 T. light corn syrup, 1/4 t. flavoring, a few drops white food coloring to make it opaque, and desired coloring.  Dissolve corn syrup in warm water and then add the rest.  The only thing I don't like about the glaze is that is doesn't freeze well - the cookies come out with white blotches on them.  I've also found that letting the glaze sit for a day seems to reduce the air bubbles that want to pop up - and those that do you can pop with a pin. 

Thank you so much!

i just finished making 60 roll out cookies and used royal icing.  I used parchment bags with #2 type in them, filled them all with 6 different colors, keep all the tips covered with a damp towel so the icing wouldn't dry out.  They actually dried so much faster than I thought they would. 

I googled some decorating techniques and images to give me inspiration and I decorated away!

23 hours later I wasn't to kill myself!!!!  I had way too many patters and details, too many different cutters, etc!

They came out beautiful but boy was it time consuming!!! LOL

My advice, Stick to 2 or 3 cutters and 2 or 3 patterns!!!