Super Cheap & Easy Gift Bags

For the past few Halloweens, I have bought candy and made little goodie bags for my staff at work. It's not that I am that into Halloween, but I think little gestures like that can really make someone's day, and show appreciation for their work.

Little candies almost always make people smile, and these year I got a lot of "retro" candy like double bubble gum, nerds, sizzle straws, etc., which brought back good memories of childhood Halloweens gone by for a lot of the recipients. I printed out little gift tags (can't remember from where, sorry!) in black and white ink to save money (color ink is expensive!), and had fun coloring them in with crayons, colored pencils and markers. Then I glue-sticked the tags on the front, loaded up an envelope with colorful candy, tied envelopes up with orange string, and bingo! I had my goodie bags ready to go and do their job of bringing smiles to faces:

(Smudges are the identifying info whited out).

What? Those don't look like envelopes to you? Why, sure they are! Because I turned little envelopes I brought home from work (how ironic) into cute little gift bags! It was super easy and basically free.

These are excellent gift bags to make for your wedding, if you plan to give little wedding favors. The best kind of craft: Quick, cheap, simple, and cute. The tutorial is here, courtesy of How About Orange. Jessica's bags look much better than mine, but that's because I was doing mine quickly and did not take a lot of time to "polish" them. But with a little more attention, even mine could have also been crisp and even more beautiful. Definitely try it out.

If you are not up to "borrowing" envelopes from work, you can buy simple white business envelopes for super cheap, about $11 for a box of 500, and use those. Or better yet--get creative and collect and use envelopes addressed to you and your spouse-to-be for a personalized gift bag.