Coolest Candy on the Block

Alright, so we all know that Tootsie Rolls are kind of the boring candy to get while trick or treating. Its not that we don't like them, but- we'd much rather get a Reece's or a Butterfinger, right?


A couple of weeks ago while I was shopping at Sams Club, I came across this bag of 760 Tootsie Rolls. Wow. Seven hundred, and sixty. That's a lot of little chocolate candies. The best part though, was that this huge-normous bag, was only $7. I thought somebody had to be playing a joke on me. Could I really get away with spending less than $10 on my entire stock of Halloween Candy, for all of the kids that would be trick or treating on base this year? ...absolutely.

Sure, nobody would want to come to our house. Yes, we'd see a few Tootsie Rolls on the surrounding street that "accidentally" got dropped. The more I thought about it, the worse it sounded. Nobody wanting to come to our house for candy? We're the lame folks that cheaped out on one of the funnest dress up and get spoiled for no reason holidays? No! No I say! So, knowing that I'd have to come up with something to do about the situation that I had just gotten myself into, I continued on with my shopping, and bought all 760 of my Tootsie Rolls. I could totally come up with something (totally). Well, I just bought the bag, so, more like, I'd have to come up with something.

And then I had an idea-


Yes! I knew I had some card stock upstairs, TONS of card stock, leftover from all my fun adventures on Etsy (yeesh, fail that, captain). Oh! And I had tiny zip lock bags stuffed in a drawer somewhere, empty and just waiting to be filled (again, thanks to my failed attempt at a I-know! I-can-sell-this-on-etsy! money making idea gone wrong). A Halloween stamp? I'm sure I could find one. And if not, then they'd all say Merry Christmas on them, who cares what holiday it is, there is free candy. I measured the size of the bags, ran the sharp blade of my paper cutter over the top of a pile of orange paper, did some quick passes with my bone folder, nearly wore my arm off pressing and printing out by hand perfectly positioned skull and crossbones, and- look! Lookit how cute they turned out!

I did struggle with how I was going to secure the card stock onto the bags though. I didn't want to use staples and hear about a 2 year old being sent to the ER because of some idiot careless mom who was passing out tiny sharp pieces of metal instead of candy (me. I'm talking about me), and glue would take forever to dry (I just don't have the patience). I ended up using those little pre cut scrap booking adhesive squares (do you know the ones I'm talking about?). I had some of them in a box sitting on my craft table upstairs, and I doubt I'll be scrap booking again anytime in the near future, probably not until I'm like 40 (its not an age thing, its a busy schedule and I've got babies to raise, thing), actually, so that worked out perfectly.

See, neighborhood kids, Tootsie Rolls don't have to be boring, hehe. YOU DON'T HAVE TO HATE ME NOW! And this way, we can just set the bowl outside the door with a cute little sign, and take off to go trick or treating with our own kids, instead of one of us having to pull the short straw, and stick around to pass out handfuls of individual unwanted chocolate chews, kid by kid.


Eleanore really liked this project as well, because she got to stuff the Tootsie Rolls into the little bags all by herself. Any project that a 3 year old can do all by herself, is the very best project of all time of ever. I made her tiny little piles of 8 candies each, all on the couch cushion next to my lap craft station, and she happily picked them up one at a time, and pushed them into the zip locks, singing made up songs about Tootsie Rolls the entire time.

We may have just started a new Halloween family tradition. Cheap and boring Tootsie Rolls + fancy packaging = win win win.

Think the kids will like them?
The kids will like them.