Haniela's: Gingerbread Bird House Tutorial

To make the Gingerbread Bird House you need:

Bird house cookie cutter set , or cookie cutter template for the house. One simple bird house should consist from 6 house sides, a base, house will stand on and a small cutter to be used to make a small opening on the front wall, Total of 8 cookies

Any additional cutters can be used to make decorations, like small leaf cutters for holly, or bird cutter, etc. Let your creativity bloom.
I used a gingerbread cookie dough for building houses and other centerpieces

Small Batch Royal icing recipe or you a large amount Royal Icing for multiple houses

Food Gel Colorings

Piping bags, piping tips, couplers

Pick a template right for you

I picked a free template online and then I resized the whole image into my liking and then I made simple plastic cookie templates that I used to hand cut my cookies.
I made them about 5.5cm by 6.5cm, (2.3"x2.6")
I used this bird house template, from Torrie Jane Blog

I used a mini leaf cutter to make a holly leaf.

Bird House Cookies decorated with 1st layer of royal icing.

Pine Bird House

Flood all the cookies with white, or light ivory.Let dry.
Using forest green and leaf green color your icing.
Pipe pine branches randomly onto the front, back and sides.Let dry.
Using brown icing pipe dots and short lines to create pine cone shape. Let dry.
To decorate the roof, use white icing, pipe the classic roof shingles pattern, while still icing is wet, sprinkle coarse sugar on top.
Let all the cookie part dry before assembling the house.
Use stiff royal icing to glue the pieces together. I usually start with the front and sides, adding the back of the house last. Then I tend to wait until icing dries and then I add the roof pieces.