Hey I don’t have anything against chocolate. In fact, I just had to replace our project manager Hailey’s candy that I *cough* borrowed from off her desk. However, since having Jasper, I understand the emotions that run through a parent’s head when they see the giant pile of candy at their children’s feet on Halloween. Starting with “hey want to share?” heading towards “what have I done?” and circling back to “Who invented this holiday anyway??”
And this year, with everyone quarantined at home to enjoy the sugar highs in their full glory, I was looking for something to make this Halloween a little more sugar-free.
Cue these Halloween coupons! Just print them off at home and this year your kids can trade in a few pieces of their halloween candy for an even better treat (no tricks, we promise!)
Materials:
Printable Trick or Treat Coupons
I remember all the different tactics my own mother tried to make our Halloween candy pile a little shorter. One year, she limited the amount of candy pieces we could gather, while I lamented that the older neighborhood kids were coming to the door with their PILLOW CASES to fill to the brim. The plastic trick or treat pumpkins just didn’t cut it for me after that.
These trick or treat coupons were honestly created to be the perfect solution. Print off your coupons using your home printer, cut them out, and let your kid’s trade for them! Each coupon lists how many candies must be traded for an exciting (and sugar-free) activity with the family. It will become a fun game for kids to weigh their options – are these 3 reese’s worth a movie night? What about 4 snickers for some extra games before bedtime? Hopefully the answer is yes!
Printable Halloween Treat Poppers
This year, it sounds like quite a few people will be trading their big bowl of candy for fewer individually packaged treats. This way close neighborhood kids can trick or treat safely, and you can switch off your porch lights and close up shop earlier than ever – a win-win! I’m opting for this route this year, and going for quality over quantity for my Halloween treats. I plan on filling a few of these printable halloween poppers with some extra great (and totally sanitary) goodies and saving them for Jasper’s favorite friends who come knocking on the door!
How to put your printable poppers together
Materials:Â
- Poppers patterns (you can print large ones at your printer or smaller at your house, your printer can also resize them to create a variation of sizes!)
- Kraft paper (we used a little extra wrapping paper we had laying around!)
- Ribbon
- Exacto knife
- Cutting mat
- Ruler
- Hot glue gun
- Scoring tool
Directions:Â
- Print out your popper patterns.
- Cut out your pattern with an exact knife of scissors.
- Use a scoring tool to score the lines that will be folded.
- Cut out your popping piece.
- Fold your 2″ rectangle into thirds.
- With the two halves of your popping pieces you will need to glue them to the 2″ rectangle in the middle fold, be sure to leave a small space between the two strips of paper.
- Â Take your popper template and choose which flap you would like to attach your popper to.
- Gently push your popper template edges in so you create a mountain piece at each end to mimic what it will be like all folded and use the popper piece to mark the spot where it should be places. That will be the distance apart that you need to make your poppers be placed.
- Glue your popping piece to the popper template at the measured spot from the previous step on both sides of the popper.
- Place all of your goodies in the popper.
- Roll the folded layers to create the final shape of the popper.
- Your first tab and last tab will overlap.
- tie ribbons around the end to secure it closed
These printable poppers have saved the day quite a few holidays in a row now, when I was putting together last-minute gifts for friends and neighbors. Like last December, I felt like quite the Christmas Elf filling our Christmas poppers with peppermint treats and leaving them secretly on doorsteps. You can find photo step instructions for making your poppers in that post! And our Valentine’s Day version definitely helped me spread the love.
But of course, we HAD to make a Halloween version! Plus, these Halloween poppers were made to match out full printable party suite!
Check out our other ideas for a socially distanced Halloween here!