DLTK's Gifts Kids Can Make
Pastry Bag Packages

by Leanne Guenther

Although you do have to do a bit of shopping to make these gifts, they're a terrific choice for children to make for Christmas (most children will be able to purchase the supplies with their own money from allowance or doing extra chores around the house).

The project can be done with hot chocolate (pictured to the right), smarties, jelly beans or other candies. You can save any left over bags to fill with mom or dad's favorite colors for birthdays, orange jelly beans (with a green ribbon tie) for Easter or red candy hearts for Valentine's Day. Also, the hot chocolate version can easily be sold by kids for $5.00 per piece at Christmas craft sales or as a holiday fund raiser.

The things I love about these projects are:

cost is under $1.00 per gift.
easy and quick to make (which is wonderful when the children are making a dozen or so gifts for family, friends, babysitters, teachers, etc -- I always keep my eyes open for gifts that can be mass produced).
can use an "assembly line" style to include siblings of various ages.
great gift for children, men or women (grandpas or grandmas *wink*).
they look cute hanging from the Christmas tree.

Materials:

Clear disposable pastry bags -- can be purchased at most craft stores or through Amazon
ribbon in an appropriate Christmas color.
Optional: twist ties.
Optional: candy canes.
something to fill the bag with:
- hot chocolate: store bought hot chocolate powder, chocolate chips, mini marshmallows
  OR
- Christmas colored smarties or M&M's (red and green)
  OR
- red, green and/or white jelly beans

Instructions:

Fill the bag 3/4s or so full of the filling you are using.
- You can mix things together or make nifty layers:
  - Hot Chocolate: put in enough hot chocolate dust for two servings, add a thin layer of chocolate chips and a thin layer of mini marshmallows.
  - Jelly Beans: layer red and white jelly beans to give a "candy cane" effect.
Optional: use a twist tie to seal the top tightly (this is a good step for an adult to do if a younger child is tying the ribbon).
Tie a 6" (or so) length of ribbon tightly in a knot around the top of the pastry bag.
Optional (if you want to hang your bag on the tree): Tie a12" (or so) length of ribbon in a loop and tie it to the bag.
Optional: Tie a candy cane onto the bag -- candy canes are nice as "stir sticks" with hot chocolate. Having said that, we found it a bit finicky to tie them on and they tended to break when we were traveling with the gifts so we ended up taking them off (personally, I would only use this option if the present was going right from assembly onto the Christmas tree)