Sweet Potato Muffins AND DIY Holiday Sunglass Warehouse Sunnies

What says DIY Holiday Sunglass Decorating Party quite like healthy and delicious sweet potato muffins? Well, maybe just a few things…

This weekend, I had the pleasure of attending my very first DIY holiday sunglass decorating party, hosted by Pretty in Pistachio, with crafts supplied by Sunglass Warehouse.  My contribution to the event was a sugar-free and flour-free sweet potato muffin, inspired by this cookie recipe.  I’ll start off with the sunglass DIY, and I’ll finish off with the muffin recipe.

Step 1: Plan and Materialize! Figure out the theme you want your glasses to be, and brainstorm with the materials you have to make it into a reality.  I chose a Christmas reindeer theme, and these are all of the materials I used for my design.

Step 2: Execution.  This step is made WAY easier with a hot glue gun and plenty of glue.  I used a hot glue gun to get most of my materials onto the glasses.  I used two pipecleaners for each of the antlers, and they were a little bit tricky.  Take two pipecleaners and, keeping them together and even, fold them around the hinge of the glasses at the halfway mark of the pipecleaner.  Then, twist them like a twist tie very tightly for about a half inch.  Split the loose ends into two groups of two and then continue twisting.  I glued the antlers to the frame for additional security.  Get creative and make each point a different length!

For a little extra flair, I wrapped some gold and red sparkly ribbon around the temples of the glasses and glued it with hot glue.

My reindeer nose was just a pipecleaner rolled up into a ball.  I also put some glue on the front of it and sprinkled it with red glitter.  Then I attached it with red wire to the bridge of the glasses, and tucked the wire behind the nose pads to keep the wire mostly out of sight.  Be sure to measure the wire while the glasses are on your face to be sure the red nose falls right at the tip of your nose.

And voila! The perfect holiday reindeer glasses.  I can’t wait to be silly and wear these during the holiday season.  But wait – there’s one more step!

Step 3: Have fun! (Ok, that was cheesy.)  But seriously, this party took arts and crafts to a whole new level.  Get some friends and family together, eat and drink and have a blast with it. And don’t forget to bring your creativity!  Your glasses can be wearable, or you can decorate the lenses themselves and make ornaments or decorations out of them.

Were you uninspired by my design? Check out Pretty in Pistachio‘s and Minnie in Manhattan‘s finished sunglass designs also!

Want to DIY for the holidays but don’t want to decorate sunglasses? Check out Sunglass Warehouse’s other DIY holiday ideas.

Now for the muffins…

These were a delicious and guilt-free snack because they’re sweetened with honey, and the only oil in them is from almond butter.  Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1/2 cup of almond butter
• 1/2 cup of pureed sweet potato (Bake or microwave them to get them soft)
• 1/4 cup of maple syrup or honey (I used honey, and this is optional)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
• 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice (or 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of nutmeg)
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 chocolate bar chopped, or chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Combine all the ingredients into a large bowl. Make sure your sweet potato is pureed well before you add the other ingredients.  Instead of blending the potatoes, I mashed them up with a fork and this worked fine.  Also, buy a little bit more potato than you think you will need, because it is difficult to measure a half a cup of pureed sweet potato when you’re looking at a whole potato in the super market.  It will shrink, when you peel it you lose some mass, and once you bake/microwave them, there are bound to be some parts that you can’t use.

I used honey instead of syrup, but after tasting the muffins I learned that this addition should be totally optional.  They were very sweet.  Also, the addition of chocolate chips and the amount you add is totally optional and up to you.  Other delicious morsels that would taste good in these muffins are shredded coconut, raisins, almond slivers, walnuts, or cranberries.

The original recipe is a cookie recipe, and it called for a lot more additives (the things I just listed above), but I scaled these down.  My dough, therefore, was a little more loose than cookie dough should be.  So that’s why I made muffins instead.

They came out DELICIOUS, needless to say, because sweet potatoes can do no wrong.  If you add nuts or protein powder to the recipe, these could be a great breakfast item or post-gym snack.

More DIY coming soon!  Get excited for it. Instagram your favorite DIY activity or healthy recipe and hashtag it with #fitnessandflorals.  I’d love to try and feature a recipe of yours!

Stay fit and festive, all!