Tis the season to sparkle so let’s Bling on the Holidays! The twinkling lights, shiny ornaments, and glittery packages bring a festive atmosphere to the dark winter days of December. Why not add some bling to your cookies as well? Iridescent wreaths and piles of presents with glittered bows are absolutely stunning. Santa’s sleigh gets decked out with sparkly dragées to deliver presents under a variety of shimmery Christmas trees. A palette of ivory, mauve, pale pink, teal, and gold brings a modern twist to these Christmas cookies.

Supplies needed for Bling on the Holidays Cookies:

Supplies for Bling on the Holidays
  • Classic sugar cookie recipe
  • Royal icing colors in ivory, mauve, pale pink, teal, and gold
  • Cookie cutters: simple tree, bent tree, tree with star, wreath, sleigh, and tiered wedding cake
  • Dragées, nonpareils, sanding sugar
  • Disco dust
  • Stencil

Steps to make Christmas trees

Add as much holiday bling as you can to a variety of Christmas tree shapes. Here we used three different shapes, a simple straight-edged tree, a tree that leans slightly to the side, and one with a star on top. Change up the color combinations and patterns but make sure to add a little shimmer to each tree so they twinkle.

Outline cookie with pipe consistency icing.
Fill with flood consistency icing, immediately add dots of color and/or stripes for a smooth finish, set aside to dry.
Once icing has dried, outline and fill the areas where you want some bling, sprinkle with disco dust while wet.

Switch up your designs on each tree shape for added interest. The addition of disco dust adds a touch of sparkle to these modern trees. Disco dust, like glitter, is tricky to work with and gets everywhere. These dust pumps from Truly Madly Plastics are a game-changer! They pump a small amount of disco dust where you aim to minimize the spread. Seriously, you need one for each color of disco dust you have. Once the icing has dried, you can use a dry paint brush to remove any disco dust that has settled onto surrounding areas.

Straight edged tree for Bling on the Holidays
Bent tree for Bling on the Holidays
Star tree for Bling on the Holidays

Steps to make sleigh cookies

To add bold statements of bling, create your own sprinkle mix by combining dragées, nonpareils, jimmies, and sanding sugars in coordinating colors. Alternatively, purchase a ready to go sprinkle mix from a baker’s supply store. Baker’s Party Shop among others, has so many options, you won’t know how to decide.

Outline and then fill the body of the sleigh with pale pink, mauve or teal icing.
Pipe gold sleigh rails at the bottom and then allow cookie to dry completely.
Next, using white icing, pipe and fill the top edge of the sleigh and immediately cover with sprinkle mix. Then mix together a small amount of edible gold dust and everclear to paint the rails.
Glittery sleigh for Bling on the Holidays

Steps to make wreath cookies

Because of the aforementioned disco dust issue and all the nooks and crannies of the wreaths, we begin this cookie with the bow.

Pipe and fill a bow shape at the top of the wreath, immediately spray with pumps of disco dust and set aside to dry.
Next, brush off extra disco dust, outline wreath and add center outline with pipe consistency icing.
Add a thin layer of flood consistency icing making sure not to overfill and immediately cover with sprinkle mix.
Bling on the Holidays Wreath
Are you a bow up or bow down kind of person?

Steps to make pile of presents cookies

These glittery bows were made ahead of time as transfers so they could be added to the top of the presents to complete the look.

Pipe two triangles next to each other and then add a dot in center for the knot.
Add a spritz of disco dust and allow to dry completely.
Outline rectangles and squares to make up a stack of presents.
Next fill in nonadjacent areas with flood consistency and add dots or stripes to some and leave others plain.
Once icing has set, flood the remaining presents allowing icing to set before flooding the adjacent present.
Piles of presents for Bling on the Holidays
Finally pipe ribbons and bows on the presents. Add a dot of icing to secure the shimmery bow transfer to the top of each package.

Watch how we made all the Bling on the Holidays cookies here: