DIY Flavored Creamer: Pros and Cons

I noticed that someone had stumbled across my blog while innocently searching for “making elves out of coffee creamers”*. Why anyone would want to engage in anything so ridiculous is beyond me, but lots of folks enjoy brussel sprouts, too— doesn’t mean you’ll find me sautéing them up anytime soon. (I would sooner engage in elf-making than brussel sprout eating!).

I like coffee. I like creamer. And, who doesn’t love elves? So, I did the search, too. Sadly, crafters, I did not find any instructions on elf-making, but there’s plenty of information on making snowmen out of empty bottles of creamer, stemming I guess from the shape of the bottles lending themselves more to your average snowman than to your typical elf. I mention that the bottles should be empty (and clean!) because this seems an important detail, given that it’s number one on all of the instruction lists. Really? People have to be told that? It’s like the “open here” instructions on a packet of cheese. If you can’t figure out that the creamer bottle should be emptied and cleansed prior to turning it into a snowman (or are stumped by cheese), you should probably step away from the glue gun. Also, don’t eat the googly eyes. I know. They look like they might taste good (like a nonpareil), but they won’t. And you might choke.

If the googly eyes are still too much of a temptation, you may be interested in some recipes for making your own flavored creamer that this search also uncovered. It seems that you can make your own, say, French vanilla creamer by mixing up batches of non-dairy creamer, sugar, and vanilla. Okay. But, why? These websites indicate that by doing it yourself one can save a fair bit of money. Really? Where I live plain creamer and flavored creamer will run you about $2.99 for a large bottle of the store brand or, for those of you who are brand conscious, you can go nuts and spend $3.49 for the premium stuff. Incidentally, a good vanilla (not the imitation stuff) can run you upwards of $12 a bottle. My mother, God bless her, hooks me up every Christmas with the Williams-Sonoma “vanilla sampler”. She knows I would never buy it myself and on this she is 100% correct. Three 2 oz. bottles cost $32. This shit is like the smack of the vanilla world. And it makes incredible French toast. Still, crack cocaine is probably cheaper. (And less addictive!)

Having this recipe may certainly come in handy on the morning that I find myself sans flavored creamer, but making it is definitely not cheaper than buying it. Of course, you may want to whip up a few servings to give as gifts (as more than one of the recipe sites suggested)! It may, however, be cheaper to sniff out your local drug dealer and give those coffee addicts on your list something that might actually bring them down from their caffeine high. I have no idea what the going rate for marijuana is these days, but I can tell you what Mason jars, gingham, and raffia cost. (Top dollar!) I daresay that packaging your homemade creamer will cost more than making it.

For those of you with oodles of time on your hands and access to a glue gun, pompoms, and felt, there is a solution to the packaging question. Make the snowman bottle and put the homemade creamer in it! Or, don’t do it at all! Use the $15 you saved by not engaging in this tomfoolery and buy them something useful— like a bottle of wine. Be creative. Stick it in one your husband’s old tube socks. (Use a Sharpie to put a snowman face on it if you must.) It couldn’t look worse than this >>>

photo credits:
vanilla/curehappiness.com
someone made this!

*For those of you wondering how a person stumbled onto my blog using the search terms above, I once wrote about elves and creamer, but not in the way you might think. The Elves Did It!