I was playing around with the leftover candy treats from my son’s Shark Birthday Party (be sure to check out the shark birthday cake we made with the Surf Sweets Gummi Rings and other treats!). In trying to make use of the leftovers, I made these sweet and easy DIY Butterfly Treat Bags for Easter!
We had a lot of jellybeans and party favor candy packets leftover after the party. So, I’ll share a few of our other uses for jellybeans, too!
Uses for Candy Treat Bags
Color Sorting Activity
First, I had my son spend a little time sorting colors from a couple bags of treats. That’s a great hands-on activity for kids (provided they’re old enough to refrain from gobbling all the candies! We had to do this activity while my two year old was napping!).
Decorative Layered Candy Jar
Then we created a pretty layered jar of jellybeans – perfect for a centerpiece… or just snacking, as my son told me!
DIY “Fishing” Party Game
If you really want a far-out idea for using up individual treat bags, try making this DIY Fishing Party Game! I used this for my son’s camping themed birthday party. All you need to do it attach large paperclips to each bag. Then put them in a “pool” area. This could be an actual kiddie pool, or just a circled area. Perhaps lay down a blue tablecloth to make it look more pond-like.
Next, tie a long piece of twine around a large, strong magnet. Affix the other end to a stick or dowel rod. And you have yourself a nice, rustic “fishing pole” to catch all those swimming treat bags! Kids will use up a lot of energy “fishing” for treats, and maybe, just maybe, that will counteract all the sugar from the treat itself!
Easy DIY Butterfly Easter Treat Bags
After that, I realized the party favors packs were perfect for a little craft that I could hand out to my Sunday School kids on Easter / Resurrection Sunday!
I’m sure you’ve seen before where you can take a plastic snack bag and use a clothespin to create a butterfly? Well, this is a similar idea. So easy. So fast!
I decorated the clothespins to have more of a “buggy” butterfly body look with some springy green washi tape. I tried adding googly eyes and pipe cleaner antenna, but frankly I liked the simpler look better. You can decide what works best for you, but knowing the kids will just throw it out, I went for simple, fast, and easy!
Then, I just slid some of the candies to the right and some to the left in the little snack packs. Next, I scrunched the clothespin over the “cleared” area and squished it all in until I could close the clothespin! Yes, it’s really that easy!
Voila! Candy butterflies!!
My Sunday School class loved these Butterfly treat bags for Easter. Plus, butterflies are a perfect way to explain the concept of rebirth and new life to little kids. And who doesn’t love a butterfly? Especially one filled with candy!
Now, I originally used Surf Sweets jellybean packs because they are a great brand with less sugar. But good luck finding them these days. So our family has switched to (affiliate link) YumEarth for organic jellybeans and gummies. Of course, you can use any individual snack pack candy of your choice, because it should have the same effect.
Enjoy! Please let me know your ideas for using up extra treat bags of candy. We always end up with so much after birthday parties, Christmas, Easter, and other events. It’s helpful to find creative ways to get the most out of the surplus, whether it’s making DIY Butterfly Treat Bags or finding some other idea. So I’m all ears to hear yours! Leave a comment to share.
Thank you to Surf Sweets who sent products for the original review post. All opinions are my own.
