DIY Cookie Decorating Kit

It’s easy to make a DIY Cookie Decorating Kit to give as a gift. Just package a sugar cookie mix, dough, or even baked cookies along with icing and sprinkles. Let your friends decorate their own Christmas cookies for a fun holiday treat.

A stroll down the aisles at your local Target, Walmart, or Marshalls will present many a premade Christmas Cookie Decorating kit. And while they are often cute and sometimes even cheap, they tend toward disappointing.

The good news is that it’s easy to assemble your own cookie decorating kits that have a little more pizazz and even have that homey flair, too.

Making sugar cookies or gingerbread men is a favorite Christmas activity for kids, so why not make it easy on your fellow moms.

My mom has always been a great one to help parents enjoy more quality time with their kids. I remember many, many years ago driving around town with her delivering homemade cookie kits to our friends.

Rather than spend time and effort baking up cookies that folks may or may not have room to eat in their holiday menus, she gifted them with homemade cookie dough and the ingredients necessary to decorate them with the kids. It was a tangible gift as well as an experience gift.

And it still makes a great gift now, some 40+ years later!

Make a DIY Cookie Decorating Kit

This is a super easy and frugal gift to put together. And you can make it as fancy or as simple, as deluxe or as budget-friendly as you like. 

Food gifts are some of the best!

Ingredients & Supplies

Here’s what you’ll need:

cookies, cookie dough, or a cookie mix – Choose what suits you and the person you’re giving the cookie kit to.

Homemade cookie dough is easy enough to whip together in just a few minutes with pantry staples, but there are also pretty affordable cookie mixes that you can grab at the grocery store or even the dollar store. There are also some bougie cookie mixes to buy as well.

Baking the cookies yourself is also another option. Be sure to cool them completely on a rack and package them in an airtight bag.

frosting – Make a homemade royal icing, buy a few tubs of premade frosting, or splurge on the tubes of writing icing to make things even easier for the kids.

I found these smaller tubs of Pillsbury frosting at Dollar Tree.

sprinkles – Sprinkles are always a good idea! It’s the baker’s glitter.

Keep in mind that not all allergy-friendly, so if your friends have a child with a peanut allergy, read the labels carefully. 

If you purchase small condiment cups with lids, you can repackage larger containers of sprinkles to stretch your purchase and your dollar.

cookie cutters – While not required, a couple holiday cookie cutters give your cookie decorating kit a fun vibe.

Level up by adding in Nativity Cookie Cutters or for Easter you can assemble a collection of Jesus Cookie Cutters.

Optional Supplies

Depending on the type of cookie decorating kit you want to assemble, you’ll also need these items:

plastic wrap – If you’re gifting homemade cookie dough, you’ll want to form the dough into a log and wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. Be sure it stays refrigerated until you gift it.

parchment paper or wrapping paper as well as ribbon – To spiff up the look of your cookie decorating kit, wrap the plastic-wrapped tube of cookie dough in parchment paper or wrapping paper. There’s even Christmas parchment! Tie the ends with ribbon. 

gift bag, box, bucket, or basket – Assemble all the components of your DIY cookie decorating kit in a bag, box, bucket, or basket. If you make a themed kit for another time than Christmas, match your container accordingly. A cookie kit to celebrate summer vaction can be assembled in a sand bucket while one to celebrate Easter can be delivered in an Easter basket. 

a recipe card with directions for baking – If you’re giving homemade dough, be sure to include a recipe card with directions for baking and decorating the cookies. They still make paper recipes cards!

Types of DIY Cookie Decorating Kits

There are several ways that you can assemble your cookie kits, based on your kitchen skills, those of your gift recipients, and how shelf stable you want the kit to be.

The Store-bought Version

Spoiler: I’m not overly impressed with this one. You know the cookies are going to be stale and the frosting could be all jammed up.

That said, it’s cheap and easy — and sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Total cost: $12, purchased at Target, December 2025. You can purchase these from cottage bakers as well. They will likely taste better, but may or may not have higher quality ingredients. The costs can be as high as $25 to 30 for a dozen cookies.

The Easiest and Most Shelf-Stable Cookie Kit

Assemble dry cookie mix, tubs of frosting, and containers of sprinkles along with some cookie cutters. This kit will last as long as the best-by dates on the commercial cookie mix and frosting. 

These are great gifts for mailing as well as for donating to your local food pantry since everything is completely sealed and shelf-stable. 

While it doesn’t feel as fancy or deluxe

Total cost: $9.25, supplies purchased at Dollar Tree and Target, December 2025

Baked Cookie Decorating Kit

Pre-baking the cookies so that kids can just decorate them takes one more thing off the to-do list of the parents. Bake and cool your cookies completely. Then store in a ziptop freezer bag or other airtight container. 

Assemble the cookie kit with the baked cookies, frosting, and sprinkles. Include a note that the cookies should be consumed within a week unless the parents want to stash the cookies in the freezer until they’re all ready to decorate.

This makes a great activity for a kids’ party or to add to your Christmas Bucket List. This is also a great gift for college students or friends who may not have access to an oven and regular kitchen equipment.

Total cost: $11.75, supplies purchased at Dollar Tree and Target, December 2025, includes butter and eggs to prepare the cookies

A DIY Cookie Baking and Decorating Kit

This is an updated version of my mom’s original cookie kit: a tube of dough, frosting, and sprinkles. It gives a little more to do on the receiver’s end in terms of baking and decorating, but it also dials up the fun for the kids.

Be sure to keep the cookie dough refrigerated before you gift it and make sure that your friends refrigerate the dough as soon as they receive it.

You can make the cookie dough in advance and freeze it, thus saving you time by working ahead of schedule. Total win! Feel free to gift your friends frozen cookie dough that they can just stash in the freezer until they’re ready to bake.

Total cost: $13.75, supplies purchased at Dollar Tree and Target, December 2025, includes butter and eggs to prepare the cookie dough.

Tips for Success

• Adjust your DIY Cookie Decorating Kit to suit your budget and the skills and equipment of the gift recipient.
• Not everyone owns cookie sheets or spatulas or even has access to an oven, so keep these things in my mind. If your friends don’t, consider inviting them over to bake cookies with you.
• You can thrift the cookie cutters quite inexpensively. Don’t feel like you have to spend a lot of money on cookie cutters.
• There are more things you can add to make this DIY cookie decorating kit more deluxe, such as small aprons, hot pads, spatula/pancake turners, and cookie sheets.

If you like putting together this kit, check out our easy DIY S’mores Kit.

More Christmas Fun

This post was originally published on December 5, 2012. It has been updated for content and clarity.