Remember when you were a kid and you would go to a friends birthday party. Often you’d come to the end of the party, the part where your friend is opening up all of their awesome gifts, and you’d become so sad because that toy you brought your friend had to stay with your friend… But never fear the goodie bag was always there for you! You were sent home with some little toys and candy! Now lets face it the toys probably broke the first day but at least the candy was good right!
This weekend we had some friends over for board game brunch and I wanted to make sure my guests left with something just like those birthday parties when we were kids. So I decided to make them some DIY goodie bags. I took out my mason jars ($2-3 per jar at World Market) filled them with candy and BAM they had their goodie bag and a selection of candies they can pick from to take home with them.
Do you want to make your own personalized goodie bags? Follow these easy steps to make your own goodie bags for your next party:
1. Get out all of your supplies: Piece of scrap booking paper, hole punch, ribbon, glue stick or glue, scissors, score pad (if you don’t have a score pad grab a pen and a ruler).
2. Next flip the paper over and score or draw with your pen a line on your paper on the 3, 6, 9 and 12in mark. Then cut off one of the outside 1/4s.
3. Then flip the paper around and score or draw the lines again on the 3, 6, 9 and 12 inch mark.
4. Next you will keep your paper having4 squares across the top and 3 down the side. On the left side cut out the top and bottom square to make it look like the image to the right.
5. To make the rest of the process easier, you should fold the square part of your paper in half each way to create diagonal lines across the paper.
6. Then it is time to get out the glue sticks you will take the corner and fold it into the middle square by using the diagonal fold, glue the triangle down to the square and then glue it to itself to create the hard square edge as you can see to the right.
7. Do the same thing to the other side to make the start of a square box. In the image to the left you can see how the paper folds into itself. Click the image to see the step closer up.
8. You will then do step 6 and 7 again on the other side leaving the flap sticking out as you can see in the image to the right. Right now it looks like you have a box but it wont stay that way for long.
9. Pinch the box together so that it begins squeeze the top of the box into a triangle shape.
10. You will then fold down the flap in half and glue it down, as you can see in the image to the right.
11. Next you will pun holes in both the flap and the top of the box part so that you move on to the next step with your ribbon.
12. Put the ribbon first through the holes in the base of your goodie bag as you can see in the image on the right. Then you will thread the ribbon through the top flap as you can see in the image to the left. Pull the ribbon tight and tie a bow.
13. You can either leave your goodie bag at this point and be done, allow your guest to choose which ever bag they would like to fill at your party or you can add name plates to personalize each bag for your guests.
Last but certainly not least, set your goodie bags out in a central location so your guests can see their gifts as soon as they walk in the door and be excited about the candy they will get to take home!
Variations and tips for the goodie bag:
- For a variation you could skip the mason jars (or use any jar or cup you have) and instead pre fill each bag with the candy’s for them to take home; but, I like to let my guest pick and chose which candies they want to take home with them as an activity.
- Another variation would be to use these goodie bags as your place cards at a dinner party, that way your guests have their place setting but also something to take away.
- This time of year, being post Halloween time, is a great time of the year to either find cheap Halloween candy on sale or use that candy you have left over in your house.