More Cute Valentine's Treats!

With so many fabulous ideas out there for Valentines Day projects, I thought I'd share a few more today. And these are truly so simple that you could whip them up in minutes with a few store-bought ingredients. First up.....

It doesn't get much cuter than this!

"Love-Bug" Marshmallow Pops from the Decorated Cookie.

I LOVE THESE!

And the next goodies are all from Suzie's Confections, using all easy-to-find ingredients such as these large pretzel sticks and covering them in melted candy coating and sprinkles.

Buy a bag of fortune cookies and dip them in the candy coating and sprinkles, too.

These would make a great favor for friends and teachers.

These are chocolate covered rice krispy bites.

And graham cracker sticks covered in chocolate and sprinkles rounds out the super-easy, super-quick Valentines' ideas. I love all of these projects because they allow even busy moms a way to have fun and be creative with the kids.

Only a week or so before those classroom parties -- we better get on the ball!

FREE Valentine's Classroom Pack Printable!

I'm so excited to announce that I've got a new FREEBIE for all of you today. It's a fun little classroom pack, perfect for those class treat bags and Valentine's parties. I've designed some "Toad-ally" Awesome froggie cupcake toppers, cupcake wraps, a sweet heart shaped tic-tac-toe game to use as a favor for friends, and a ziploc sized favor bag topper, too. So be sure to grab your set -- DOWNLOAD HERE -- and have those treat bags ready early this year! The download is set up on Scribd, so you'll have to be logged into Facebook to download the files -- while you're there, make sure you've become a FAN of Shindig Parties TO GO by clicking "Like" HERE.

Here's what you'll need for MATERIALS:

• photo paper (premium paper in a soft gloss finish)
• printables files
• scissors
• scotch tape
• hot glue gun
• 1" circle craft punch
• 2" circle craft punch
• ziploc bags (quart size)
• stapler
• ruler
• butter knife
• coffee stirrers or lollipop sticks
• ribbon (optional)
• cupcakes

Now let's get started -- it's really easy to put these together as long as you have a 1" and a 2" circle punch. If you don't have the punches, you can purchase them from Michaels or Amazon.com. You may use white cardstock if you like for printing, but the photo paper produces much more vivid colors and professional looking results.

1. Download, save and then print your FREE Classroom Pack using soft gloss or semi gloss premium photo paper (for best results) or white cardstock.
2. To make cupcake toppers, first cut the 2" party logo sheet into columns
3. Using the 2" circle punch, punch out all 12 Valentine's logos
4. Use your 1" circle punch to punch 1" circles from the tic-tac-toe game sheet. Cut out the heart-shaped game boards.
5. Using a hot glue gun, put a small amount of hot glue onto a coffee stirrer or lollipop stick. Cut off approximately 1" from one end of the coffee stirrer.
6. Hot glue the coffee stirrer to the back of the 2" logo
7. Finished cupcake topper
8. Using the favor bag topper sheet, cut along the outside line of each design with scissors. Place a ruler down the middle of the backside of the treat bag topper and score a folding line with a butter knife. Fold the topper in half and make a center crease.
9. Insert one game board, 5 "X" game pieces and 5 "O" game pieces inside a quart size ziploc bag and seal. Fold top of ziploc bag over one time (approximately 1" fold) and insert ziploc top inside of folded treat bag topper.
10. Staple topper to ziploc on each side and in the middle.
11. To make cupcake wraps, cut along inside edge of each printed cupcake wrap approximately 1/8". If desired, cut top edge of wrap (the longest side) with decorative scallop scissors. Wrap around a cupcake baked in a liner and secure along back with scotch tape or a dot of hot glue.
12. Congratulations -- you're done! You've made an adorable Valentine's party set -- perfect for your child's classroom Valentine's party.

I hope you all love your new printables!

.... oh, yes, I DID say "HOPPY!"

Linked to: Craftomanic, Skip to My Lou, Making the World Cuter, Blue Cricket Design, Tip Junkie, Life as Lori, My Delicious Ambiguity, House of Hepworths, Craft Edition, Today's Creative Blog,Crafts Keep Me Sane, Under the Table and Dreaming, Funky Junk Interiors, Tater Tots and Jello

EASY Homemade Hot Chocolate Gifts

Homemade Peppermint Hot Chocolate

I've got a quick and easy gift idea for classrooms, teachers, friends and more today. Homemade hot chocolate with some mini marshmallows and peppermint -- yum!

A quick list of ingredients and supplies:

25.6 oz Nonfat instant dry milk
16 can of Nesquick
16 oz Coffee creamer (Whoops! Forgot this one in the photo so make sure you add it)
1 pound of powdered sugar
1 bag of mini marshmallows
candy canes
small plastic bags
curling ribbon
christmas tag

Now for the directions:

Put the first 4 ingredients in a very large bowl and stir and then stir some more. Now take all of your candy canes (without the wrappers!) and put them in a ziploc and crush them up. Make sure to leave a few chunks so that they look pretty for presentation. Now take your small plastic bag and add about 5 tablespoons of hot chocolate mix. Next add a few marshmallows and then some crushed candy cane.

Use your curling ribbon to tie the bag off and add your gift tag... the one I've shown is from the Shindig Parties TO GO Let it Snow Collection.

That's all folks - it's super easy! (I found the original recipe here -- don't you just love the internet?)

I'm making 90 of these today for my kids' classes and it's going pretty quick -- what a fun and EASY idea.

And by the way my new friend, Kirsti, is hosting a giveaway of the Let it Snow Collection of printables on her Blog -- the giveaway will run until December 20th so hurry on over there and sign up! It's a great collection -- you can see more photos from it here.

Hope you have a wonderful day today!

Tutorial: Indian Corn Treat Bag

Today I have another little tutorial from the FREE Shindig Kid's Thanksgiving Table Printable set.

If you don't have your FREE printables yet, click HERE for the details.

We're going to make the Indian Corn Treat bags seen above. These would be terrific on the table as a fun little treat or even for a sweet favor for classroom friends next week. So grab your materials, and let's get started. This one is super, super easy!

Materials:

Skittles
Raffia
2" circle or scallop circle craft punch (if you don't have one, no biggie. Just cut the favor tag out in a square shape instead)
4"x6" jewelry bag (ziploc)
Scotch tape
Hole punch & scissors
Printable sheet of 2" Thanksgiving logos

Take your printed 2" logo sheet and punch out one of logos to make a favor tag

Now cut off the top of the jewelry bag ziploc -- you won't need the closure part. Fill your bag with Skittles -- not too full though. We don't want sugar-crazed kids at Thanksgiving!

Next, fold over one corner of the back of the jewelry bag and tape it down to create a point at the bottom of the bag to resemble corn.




Your next step is to take about 10+ strands of raffia cut to maybe 8"-10" long and wrap it around the top of the jewelry bag. Tie it in a knot to resemble the corn husk.


After tying off the bag, cut your raffia to get it even. And then attach your favor tag by punching a hole in it with a hole punch and stringing a piece of raffia through and tying it to the favor bag.

Isn't it cute? And so easy!! Yay, mom!!

I hope you are all getting your kids' Thanksgiving tables ready! They are going to LOVE their fun little "Mayflower with a Citrus Twist" table!