Inexpensive Party Favors

Ever buy party favors only to experience supreme sticker shock? I have. Going to the dollar store helps, but I try to avoid contributing to the bevy of useless plastic toys that roll around the floorboard of my car only to make their grand exit at the most inopportune time.

So, here’s one way to make party favors that is affordable, customized to match your theme and appreciated by kids – movie theater boxes of M&Ms with thank you labels.

I have made them a couple of different ways.

The easiest and fastest way is to select a acrap-booking paper with a faint pattern. Cut the paper so it will fit in your printer and print the message directly on the paper.

Or, you can do a layered effect as shown above.  I chose to do that this time because the paper was so vibrant it would be hard to read a message printed directly on it.  It took more time, but I like the way it turned out.

Supplies/How to:

• M&M boxes ($1 each at Kroger)
• Decorative Paper ($0.59/sheet at Michael’s)
• Cutting Board (12.59 with a 40% off coupon at JoAnn’s. I make these twice a year so the cutting board has been a good investment for me)
• Scrap-booking Tape ($5)

First, type out the message repeated three times on a sheet of white paper, balancing the amount of space between each message. Once you are sure the spacing is right, print it on the decorative paper. Cut it to size and attach it to the M&M boxes.

To make the layered labels, cut up the practice sheet and attach those with scrap-booking tape to the decorative paper on the box of candy. Or you could get some printable labels and attach those, but then you have to spend money buying labels.

What  other affordable party favor gift ideas have you seen?