Please help!!!

So, today I had the idea to make my first batch of sugar cookies. I thought it would be nice to venture out of cakes and cupcakes to make some cute cookies with the royal icing flooding technique... Well, they came out hard and crunchy. The first batch was the worst. The 2nd batch a little better and the 3rd- a little softer. The first batch I cooked for 7 min like the instructions said.. that was a bad idea. Then I went down to 6 min then to 4 min. I have a few questions though:

1. How thick do the cookies need to be?

2. Are the decorated cookies suppose to be "really soft" or just a little? 

3. Do you store them right away?  I'm assuming in a air tight container but what about after they are decorated? 

This is the recipe I used: 2 3/4 cup of flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 cup softened butter. 1 egg, 1 1/2 cup of sugar, 2 tsp vanilla extract. mixed all together and cooked at 375 degrees. 

1. I believe that most people roll their dough out to about 1/4 in thick.

2. My cut-out sugar cookies aren't very soft, but that would depend on recipe, baking time, and personal preference.

3. You can store them right after decorating as long as your icing has set. If your royal icing has meringue powder in it, it should harden up fairly quickly and then you can store the decorated cookies. 

1. I agree with cakingandbaking 1/4 inch thick when rolling is usually perfect as they rise when they bake. 

2. Decorated cookies shouldn't be TOO soft. Mine are usually easy to handle but not crunchy. -- I would try a different recipe if this one gives you trouble. I bake my sugar cookies for 7 minutes at 400F and that's usually perfect (and the bottoms don't get brown) 

3. I store my cookies before they are decorated once they are cool in airtight containers. Once they are decorated I usually wait until they have dried overnight before I package or store them.

Hope this helps! 

I roll mine as thick as I want, I like thicker cookies, but 1/4 is the standard that I have seen. I bake at 400 for 9 minutes, and the bottoms are golden brown, but again, I like them that way; the centers are still soft. If I am not decorating right away, I store them in an air tight container between layers of parchment paper. If you are using royal, the thickness that you apply the icing will determine how long it dries. (My minis only take 6 hours to dry) I usually give them 24 hours to dry and then bag them. With royal you want the icing to be completely dry if you are going to bag them, or stack them. 

look for the nfsc recipe in the search here -- it's brilliant 

i just made some snowflakes and i went with quarter inch because i made them two layers but i prefer thicker like ypierce said where they are soft in the middle -- 

best to you

Thank you all for your responses! I think what happened is I rolled it too thin. I will try again and may even try the NFSC as mentioned above.- which is very similar to what I did. Thanks again!