At 17 months, Julia already has a posse. Vivian, Charlie, Charles and Tess all live either in our building in Chelsea or very nearby, and the kids have regular play dates. Most days at around 5pm there’s a stroller convoy in front of one of our doors. To celebrate Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d make little bags of treats for Julia’s buddies and their nannies and parents.
There’s a lot of nice packaging for homemade treats available at places like the Container Store these days, but a special shopping expedition for this just wasn’t on the cards for me his week. Also, these things can get pricey, particularly in larger quantities. Besides, I thought it would be interesting to see what I could come up with using things I already had on hand.
I like my prototypes. I used garden variety brown paper lunch bags (available at any supermarket for pennies each), red spray paint leftover from my recent hardware store craft project (see my post here), and leftover ribbon (my family jokes that we’ve been giving each other packages decorated with the same ribbons for the last 20 years). I think you could safely do away with the spray paint and decorate the bag with a marker, tempera or another water-based paint, or nothing at all. I’m really into spray paint these days, though, so I went with it.
Instructions.
For the spray-paint heart:
1. Cut a heart out of paper the way we were taught as kids, by folding it in half.
2. When you’re happy with its size and shape, trace around it on a piece of thick paper slightly larger than your lunch bag, and cut out a stencil with a mat knife.
3. Place the stencil over the bag and spray with paint, using a sweeping motion back and forth over the stencil. Remove the stencil immediately to prevent seepage, and let it dry between uses to prevent smudging. (This shouldn’t take long unless the stencil is saturated with paint.)
For the beribboned bag:
4. Depending on how much you plan on filling your bag, you may want to trim an inch or two off of the top.
5. Fold the top over, and then punch two holes about midway between the top and bottom of the flap and all of the way through both the flap and the bag.
6. Fill your bags, measure and cut the ribbon (I found that about 28 inches worked well for mine), thread it through the flap, and tie in a bow.
The heart motif is nice for Valentine’s Day, but I think this basic design would also work well for Christmas cookies or hostess gifts all year. I may even look for an interesating rubber stamp or two as a practical (but less manly?) alternative to spray paint . . . . 
