Stamped Light String Gift Bag

Moco’s school has three or four classroom parties each year, and every year we volunteer to donate items for the parties as we can’t always donate our time the day of each party.  The winter holiday party is next week, and the classroom party parent coordinator called to ask if we could provide the goodie bags that would be stuffed with the other donated items.

I could have found some bulk-purchased holiday bags, but that would like hitting the easy button, right?!  But when I saw this post on Frugal Family Fun Blog, I opted to show off my crafting skillz.  Well, really, I had fully intended to put Moco and Bubba to work on this project this week, but when your other half is hanging out with his dog and a shotgun in Kansas and you’re holding down the fort with two moody kids and have a full time job and it’s below zero outside, sometimes you just have to put the kids to bed after a long day and a Brownies troop meeting, dawdle around the house, chat on Facebook, and then get to work on stamping the bags yourself at 11pm the night before the holiday party donation day.   I’m as brilliant as these stamped bulbs, y’all.

I have to admit: the gift bags turned out pretty darn cute, and they didn’t take long to make.  Plus, I love when my creative juices get flowing.  It’s a nice natural high.

I attempted the potato stamps but didn’t like that option on the first couple tries, so I cut up a couple sponges in the shape of light bulbs… and didn’t like that option either.  So I just dipped the tips of the sponges in the paint (Alphacolor Biggie Cakes) and made oval-ish shapes on the bags.  I love how bright these tempera paints are — and how quickly they dry!  Then I took a black permanent marker, quickly outlined the ovals into light bulbs, and then “strung” them together.  It didn’t take long to make all 26 bags.

I’m thrilled with the final products, and I hope they pass the second grade donation inspection (I think I’m making that up?!) and the cool mom factor!

Halloween M&M Cookie Jars

Moco and I found the idea for Halloween M&M Cookie Jars on Living Locurto, which includes printable instructions, ingredient list, and direction/circle tags for the completed jars.  Here are our jars:

We used wide-mouthed quart-sized glass jars (I like the smooth ones that Living Locurto used, but there was no point in buying more when we have so many leftover canning jars at home!) and plastic containers for mailing.  We used a spoon to pack down the brown sugar and the flour to get everything to fit.  I backed the instruction tags with Halloween-colored scrapbook paper before attaching it to the ribbon.  And, yes, we did make our own batch of cookies — very tasty!!!

Salt Dough Ornaments

We borrowed the idea of salt dough ornaments from Seven Little Monkeys.

I didn’t realize we only had two pumpkin cookie cutters in the house, or I would have gone out to get different shapes!  I’ll have to remember to shop clearance this week and next for Halloween cookie cutters for next year!

Halloween Pretzels

Here’s a fairly easy, fun afternoon activity:

• Pretzel rods
• Almond bark or candy wafers
• Sprinkles (we used Wilton’s 6-mix Halloween sprinkles assortment)
• Wax paper

Melt almond bark in Pyrex container (15-30 second intervals) in microwave.  Dip/coat about half of pretzel rod in almond bark.  Apply sprinkles and set pretzel rods on wax paper to cool and set.

Simple, sweet & salty, and sprinkles can be substituted seasonally!  (Just noticed Wilton’s 6-Mix Colorful Leaves Sprinkle Assortment and their array of winter holiday sprinkles… let the holiday season baking begin!)