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We're always
looking for clever ways to package those homemade food
gifts. At the same time, we've grown tired of the decorated tins and
plastic platters found abundantly at grocery and dollar
stores. So this year, we puttered around a bit with some simple
supplies and created a few unique containers you
can make (in just a few minutes) to package those food gifts.
Here's what we started with:
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Plain mailing
tubes and metallic wrapping tape
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Plain red
lunchbag and decorated cellophane bag (lunch sack size)
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Undecorated,
clear plastic dish and snowflake stickers
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Undecorated
acrylic boxes and teddy bear ornament kit
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And here's how we took those generic items
and turned them into something unique and clever:
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Designer gift
sacks (without the design time!), Snowflake candy dish and Mailing
tube candy canes
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Double-duty
ornaments
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Mailing
tube candy canes
With
a roll or two of colored metallic wrapping tape and a mailing tube, you
can create a bright candy cane stick. Simply wrap the metallic wrapping
tape around the mailing tube and you'll have a container that's perfect
for homemade hard candies or small gifts. We made our three tubes in less
than 15 minutes! We purchased our
Gift mailers
from the
Container Store
(Item
# , $) and our metallic wrapping tape from Oriental Trading Company, Inc.
(Item
#IN-3/10610, 12 rolls for $4.95)
Designer
gift sacks without the design time!
We
were tired of tucking our food gifts in plain red lunch bags, but didn't
have the time to stencil a more creative design on them. Then we
thought: why not give the plain bag a custom look by placing a
patterned cellophane bag over it? We used a cellophane bag with green
Christmas trees, which fit nicely over the paper lunchbag. We
purchased our cellophane bags (Item #IN-26/500, $1.95 for a dozen) and our
red paper lunch bags (Item #IN-3/166, $2.95 for a dozen) from Oriental Trading Company, Inc.
Snowflake
candy
dish
We
purchased a simple square dish from the Container Store
, then
embellished it with snowflake stickers. We're going to pile it high
with chocolate fudge and give it to the neighbors! (We used the
small box from their Lookers collection
, item # 10015706, which sells for $3.99. The snowflake stickers
are available from
Oriental Trading Company, Inc.
,
item #IN-4/1532, 12 packages of stickers for $2.49).
Double
duty ornaments
Oriental Trading Company, Inc.
sells some simple and inexpensive craft ornament kits. We especially
love them because the pieces are pre-cut; you simple glue them
together! One of our favorites is the fun foam Santa teddy bear
(shown in the photo). After we put him together, we thought,
"why not use him to dress up mailing tubes, boxes, jars, and other
containers?" He made the perfect adornment!
On some of
the larger items (like the mailing tube and large acrylic box) you would
remove the ornament before placing him on the tree. The smallest
box, which has been glued to his back, could be used every year and filled
with a small treat or a silver dollar! (The teddy bear
ornament kit is Item #KL-48/1840, which costs $4.95 for 12 ornaments. We
purchased the acrylic Amac boxes
from the Container Store
.)
We
hope this inspires you to try some creative new packaging this year!
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