Pretty Packaging for little treats

Every year at Christmastime, I make sea salt caramels (here’s my recipe).

I make them for our family. I make them for our church coffee + cookie Sunday. I make them for teacher gifts and to give to neighbors with our family Christmas card.

They are my absolute FAVORITE to make, to eat, to give and – maybe most of all- to package.

The caramels themselves are wrapped candy-store-style in little squares of parchment paper. I usually use white, but brown is very cute as well. Once they are all wrapped up, I find it ridiculously fun to package them in sweet little gift bags to give.

I am a bit of a stationery/ribbon/wrapping paper/bags + labels collector. I find stickers and bags throughout the year that catch my eye and can’t help myself from bringing a few home to live in a drawer of happy packaging supplies.

If you are not quite as much of a packaging-supply-hoarder as I am, I thought I’d help you out with a few suggestions for what to use and where to find great supplies for packaging little treats this Christmas (or anytime!).

First up, BAGS.

A few of my favorite bag types are muslin, paper, cellophane and glassine. I probably reach for glassine most often because I love their simplicity and slight transparency, but love them all.

WHERE TO FIND THEM:

Keep an eye out at craft stores, in the dollar section at Target and the party supply area for bags.

MUSLIN Amazon has a large variety of sizes (these are the ones I have). The polka dot bag shown above was found in the Target dollar section a while ago, but you could easily replicate with a few dots of black acrylic paint on a plain bag.

PAPER Paper treat bags are readily available at craft and party stores and also online. These kraft paper bags are a good basic and this striped version is a classic. Here are a handful of other cute colorful striped and chevron options.

GLASSINE Slightly transparent, a little waxy feeling, perfect for packaging up treats of any size. There are a ton of size options on Amazon. Here’s one to start with. Or try a patterned option, like this one.

CELLOPHANE You can’t go wrong with clear treat bags. They come in lots of shapes and sizes (here’s a good basic).

Next, let’s chat LABELS.

I love a good sticker label for ease and finding ones with interesting shapes is a bonus. 

I usually write on the labels with a pen – this is my favorite black pen. If the label is black or gold (like the ones above), I use a white pen. I also love the look of stamped labels, so I’ll pull out my alphabet stamps and write out the phrase.

WHERE TO FIND THEM:

You can find sticker labels at craft and office stores and in the party section of Target. Or, of course, online :)

round stickers | gold seals | small gold dots | chalkboard labels | white + gold sticker labels

If you are wanting a bunch of stickers and don’t want to hand write, try Sticker Mule for custom stickers. The quality is great and you can customize whatever you need.

And, lastly, add some ribbon.

Like I mentioned, I have a strong appreciation for ribbon, string and twine. I keep one drawer in my office stocked with often-used options and have three small bins in a closet with more. It’s slightly out of hand. But, hey!, Having a collection sure comes in handy when you need to wrap cute packages!

Here are some of my favorite ribbon sources:

cotton twine | jute twine | baker’s twine | grosgrain ribbon | velvet ribbon | chevron stripe | gold string | waxed twine

Hopefully this helps as you wrap and package all the goodies this Christmas!