Make your own Halloween Treat Bags

By Christina VanGinkel

Making crafts around the holidays is always a fun activity for the young and old alike. One of my favorites for Halloween are Treat Bags that are easy to make, fun to fill, and kids love to get them instead of the traditional piece of candy or small treat. Make up a few to give to your favorite Trick or Treaters or to bring to work and decorate your desk with.

Materials needed to make one Halloween Treat Bag include (Multiply by how many you want to make):

Six to eight inch cut circle of Halloween themed or appropriate colored cotton fabric
Fabric can be substituted with orange, black, or white organza, tulle, or other similar fabric
Eight-inch piece of black, white, or orange yarn, four ply
Large round paper wrapped sucker
Assorted bits and pieces of yarn, crafting felt, sequins, pipe cleaners, etc.
Craft glue
Assorted Halloween themed candy (Most important item of all!)

The actual bag part of these is easy to make. Take a circle of fabric and lay out on flat surface. Pile the center of the circle with candy. Fold up all the sides and pick up, so that the bag part is formed around the candy. Give the top a twist or two so that the candy filling is not going to so easily spill out. Holding in one hand, pick up the piece of yarn and tie the bag of candy closed. Set aside.

Next, it is time to decorate the sucker to fit your Halloween themed bag as a topper.

Witch

Witches are my favorite. When you are creating your witch, keep in mind that the sucker is going to be the head of the witch, and size your pieces accordingly. Cut a small black felt circle for the bottom part of your Witches' hat, and set aside. Then take a small scrap of black felt, roll to look like a pointed hat top, running a bit of glue along one edge. One end of the roll will be pointed, while the other will be wider. Once the seam is dry, run a bead of glue around the bottom and stick to the bottom part of the hat, centered as best you can, and let dry. Once the hat is very dry, you can leave as is, or if you have a sharp pair of scissors, cut out the inside of the assembled hat so that it will fit down onto the sucker and not just set on top of it.

Cut some small pieces of green or orange yarn for your witches' hair. Glue these to the side of the sucker. Arrange to look like hair. Glue the hat in place over the hair. Once this is all dry, tuck the sucker's stick handle into the bag. Retie the bag if needed so that it is closed tightly around the stick of the sucker. You can leave as is at this point, or continue to decorate. I always like to add a tiny wand made of nothing more than a toothpick dipped in glue and glitter, but if you will be giving these to young children, skip this part.

Ghost

For a ghost bag, use white fabric or organza. Wrap the sucker in white fabric to match the bag and tie the pieces of fabric both on the bag and around the sucker with white yarn. Make a small hat for the ghost to wear if you wish to give him a bit of character. The hat could be made from just about any colored scraps of fabric you might have. Felt will work best because it will keep its shape. If you wish, take a felt tip marker, fine point, and draw eyes and mouth. You can also make a little sign from a white painted Popsicle stick and stencil or pen on the word Boo!

Use your imagination when creating these Halloween Treat Bags. Create a Frankenstein, bat, or vampire, whatever your imagination leads you to create. If kids are constructing them, provide them with various scraps, supplies, and fabrics and just let them go. As long as the main construction is assembled correctly, they are sure to please, as the candy inside is the most important part of them at this time of the year!