Have Yourself a “Crunchy” Little Christmas!

Christmas preparations are in full effect over here and we are loving it! The boys are home from school (aka daycare) for Christmas Vacation and they are loving playing with their own toys all day. Even though they fight like crazy, it has been so fun watching their little friendship develop. What a blessing a sibling is. It’s like having a built-in friend! 🙂

One thing I have really wanted to try in my quest to do things more naturally, is natural food dye! I did not plan to do that this year, so I didn’t really have the veggies and things on hand to create the right colors. But my goodness, I had so much fun experimenting! 😍 So this post isn’t really to tell you what to do, haha, but more of to get your creative juices flowing to see what YOU can do! 🙂

We made some simple sugar cookies and then I made this vegan frosting. (Though full disclosure, I didn’t use vegan butter 🙈. But I did use almond milk!) Also, I think I accidentally used salted butter because the frosting did not taste very great. 😂 I actually added two extra teaspoons of vanilla to try to help it. I don’t think the almond milk would have done that because I’ve made icing with it before and it didn’t taste like this, so it HAS to be the butter. But I digress.

Here are a few variations of color ideas and what worked and what didn’t. Of course I had to try a few with my Young Living Vitality oils. 😉

Pomegranate Juice – Red

I used fresh squeezed Pomegranate juice for this one so it wouldn’t be diluted at all. (Fun fact: also works GREAT for coloring a homemade sugar scrub! Just make sure you refridgerate the scrub or whatever you make after!) So this one came out more of a strawberry red. In fact, the second picture reminds me of a strawberry pop tart! 😂 The flavor was really nice though. I have heard that using beet juice provides a dark red. I may consider mixing the two to maybe give it a better flavor.

Lime Vitality Oil – Flavor Burst

I have to be honest, I’m a girl who loves tradition (sometimes to my own detriment), but lately I’ve been working my way out of the box and trying new things. Enter: citrus frosting for CHRISTMAS. Can you even imagine?! My thought process here was how much I LOVE those chocolate oranges at Christmas, so why not? The flavor of this was absolutely incredible and would be a nice surprise to anyone expecting a “normal” sugar cookie. 😂

Blueberry Juice – Purple

Okay, this one could have been better. I officially gave myself a pat on the back and a “You’ll get ’em next time, Tiger” after finishing this one. 🤷🏼‍♀️ It tasted really great. But coloring-wise it could have been better. I added waaaaay too much water to my blueberries. Next time I’ll do a few tablespoons of water and let them sit for a tiny bit first. (But not too long or they turn brown. 😬 I am actually looking forward to making this one again!

Citrus Fresh Vitality Oil – Flavor Boost

I’ll be honest, this one was similar in taste to the Lime Vitality oil above. In fact, I did a blind taste test with my hubby and after each one he guessed, “Orange?” 🙄 Don’t get me wrong, it was absolutely delicious, but next time I may introduce some orange garnishing or something fun to help folks distinguish the two flavors. (And maybe warn them that this isn’t about to be your Grandmama’s sugar cookie. 😂)

Lavender Vitality Oil – Flavor Boost

Way, way, way too much Lavender did I use. 🤦🏼‍♀️ Y’all, I educate people about these oils for a LIVING…and I still used too much. 🙄 Next time I’m giving this one the love it deserves. I’ll use a toothpick drop ONLY, and then I’ll find some pretty Lavender garnishing or something. Watch out, next Christmas, because I’m going to get SO MARTHA STEWART ON YOU.

That’s it for this year’s experimenting! Now I’m going to buy a tub of regular frosting, frost those dang cookies, and get them out of my house. 😂👋🏻

And just because they are so. stinking. cute. Here are my kids frosting said cookies. They gobbled up all the frosting, by the way. But my kids are so Crunchy, they now assume everything is made with coconut so they don’t care. 😂🤷🏼‍♀️ Oh, and #momhack, to save your sanity with toddlers and cookie frosting, just give them a few cookies each to frost. They’ll decorate, eat, and have had enough and be on their merry little way. 😂 #adjustingexpectations