Inspire Me Monday: Treats Not Tricks!

Hi all! Julie here with another edition of Inspire Me Monday! I figured with the 'Night of Fright' upon us, I would bring you a SUPER EASY, SUPER CUTE project that you can literally whip up in a jiffy! The folding portion of this project takes less than a minute -- no joke -- allowing you to just take your time and enjoy dolling up this little treat bag for the little ghosts and goblins in your life! 

Here's a peek at the finished project before I 

take you though the step by step! 

Now that you know where we are headed, let's get right to creating! I started with an 8" by 8" square piece of paper and folded it from corner to corner. It really helps to have a bone folder handy to make sure that you fold and crease cleanly. 

From there, you take the corner on the right side of the triangle and fold it so that it creates a straight line across when you fold it and the tip of the paper lines up with the edge of the other side of the paper... like so!

Fold the other side in the same manner so that both of your tips of the triangle criss-cross each other. See?

Once you have your folds all lined up, you can glue each flap in place. From here, you'll take the top of the triangle and fold it down, creating a flap over the area you just folded. This creates your treat pocket. You'll flip over the paper and fold down the second flap on the other side.

This creates the perfect little pocket for fun-sized candy bars!

It's just the right size! 

Because I didn't really like the white flaps, I chose to take an orange decorative paper and create a mat for each flap to add a little extra pop of color! This is where a two-sided paper would work perfectly! I just didn't have any in a color that worked for Halloween..... 

I wanted to show you just how big or small you could go with this treat bag! I started with a 6" by 6" piece of paper and honestly, this is small enough for a few Hershey's kisses, a Ghiradelli square, or one fun-size candy bar. Maybe this one would be best for dollar bills? ;-) As you go up in size, the more you can fit! I actually started with a 12" by 12" piece of paper but when I was done, I thought, wow -- that's pretty big! That might actually make a nice little gift bag in a jiffy for smaller gifts? So easy! 

After seeing Instant Gardener Nancy Sheads color up this cute kitty from Power Poppy's Feeling Fall stamp set, I knew I wanted to give her video coloring tutorial a try - so I stamped with Memento Ink Tuxedo Black and cued up the video and colored away following all her cues! If you missed this tutorial, you need to check it out HERE. It was so fun to follow along! Just a little note, if you want instant gratification, Power Poppy just released this cat image in a Halloween digital stamp set called Boo Cat and Pumpkins.  So many fun images in this digital set!

So, when I was done, this is what my treat bag looked like! I ended up sponging Stormy Sky Distress Ink around my image and then, to get a little extra dimension, I sprinkled on some water to get those drops around my image. I was hoping it might look like storm clouds or stars. Not sure if I achieved my goal but I still like the effect! :-) I also added a punched bat with some orange rhinestones for eyes and some fun Halloween ribbon to serve as my treat bag handles. Oh, I almost forgot, on my die cut mat for my main image, I did sponge some white ink around the edges to help it to pop a bit on my darker paper.

And, here's a look at the back of the project. You can see that all I did to secure the treat bag handle was knot the ribbon a few times. 

And, when all is done, you can stuff it with candy -- I chose mini Ghiradelli squares -- and even hang this little treat on a doorknob as a sweet surprise!

Thanks so much for stopping by this Monday! I hope you like this little tutorial and I hope you give it a try yourself! It can be used for so many different occasions --- Christmas (maybe you use these instead of an Advent calendar?), Easter, Valentine's Day, May Day! So many opportunities!

As always, if you give this tutorial a try, I would love to see YOUR take on it! Just leave me a link in the comments! ;-)

Enjoy your week and I will see you back here real soon for our weekly Creative Confetti Challenge!

~Julie