DIY Individually Wrapped Hot Chocolate as a Gift

As you may (or may not) have noticed, each day since Sunday I've been publishing one post to do with Christmassy things each day...and today is no different! :) I hope to keep this up all the way until Christmas!!! I have plenty to write about, just have to be sure and write them up before the day comes or is over....anyway......

Last Christmas I made up and gave away homemade hot chocolate to each person in the family. I also gave some to a few friends....and they all LOVED IT!!! Well this year I decided to spread the joy and share hot chocolate with more than just family. Not only does this make a perfect "I'm thinking about you this Christmas gift" but it's not terribly expensive and won't take you long to fix up either! Plus you can do all sorts of cute things for packaging, not just the way I'm about to show you! I'd also suggest this as a gift for people you work with since they'd be super cute and easy to hand out if you used a small snack baggie like I show here.

My sister Emma showed me how to 'fade' the red circle!!
Isn't it super cute?! I love learning new things!!!!

What You Need

Plenty of Hot Chocolate Mix, view my recipe!

Snack baggies

Brown paper bags

A stapler

paper doily's

scissors

A red or green sharpie

ribbon the opposite color of your sharpie

OPTION ONE: Individual Servings For People @ Work

1. Make up the hot chocolate mix as I have it written in the recipe link. This stuff is truly amazing and you WONT be disappointed! I promise!

2. Fold the doily over the edge of an empty baggie. Have more doily on the front side, and less in the back.

3. Write what you want on the bag. I chose to write "Merry Christmas! one serving of hot cocoa" since that's what it is and when I'll be giving them away. You can totally change this up though and do this for Valentine's Day or another fun holiday! Fill the bag with 1/2 cup of the hot cocoa mix. This gives plenty for two cups if they so desire. (I usually pour all of the mix in one cup, but some people don't like it that way.)

4. Next add the ribbon. I'm actually going to show you how to do this on the paper bag since that's another way of packaging up individual servings if you want to do this for families or neighbors or people at church....lots of ideas here! See step 6 of Option Two to create this ribbon bow.

OPTION TWO: Family Packages

1. Make up packages of hot chocolate in snack baggies. 1/2 cup of mix per bag. As you can see these have mini marshmallows in it. I made up the Hot Chocolate Mix with a double recipe and then stirred in a 10 oz. package of miniature marshmallows into it before scooping out the mix into the bags.

 

2. Put one snack bag of hot chocolate mix per family member in a brown paper bag. I did several packages up today, four actually so I had 10 'servings' or baggies to divide up into each brown bag.

 

3. Fold down the corners of the bag. This was my first attempt that ended up being photographed so it's a little rough...but it's kind of important to get the tabs folded pretty close to the same size so the next step is easier.

4. Fold down the top of the brown bag so it looks like the one in the photo. You'll be stapling it down here in just a second so don't worry about it popping up.

5. Fold your paper doily to where there's a lot in the front and only a little in the back. Just enough to cover the flap that you folded over really. Put it on the top of your bag. Cut a piece of ribbon and lay it on the doily and bag combo. The silky side should be down and the dull side facing up. Carefully line up the stapler so it'll catch both sides of the ribbon and staple down once.

6. Now it's time to tuck the ends of the ribbon through so you can make your bow! On the ziploc baggies this was really easy since the staple really was too big for the project, but on these brown bags there was a lot more to them so I had to bend the bag a bit to create a space at one end of the staple to create a gap to feed the ribbon. I always started with the ribbon on the right (left on the photo). Make sure its smooth and will create a smooth piece once it's pulled through the staple. Repeat with the other side...be warned the second side will be much trickier, but still possible! Straighten out the ribbon as needed. (Note: on the baggies I had to use some fast drying glue-super glue would work-to keep the ribbon from falling out of it's shape.)

7. Ta da! There you have it! A super cute, easy, and affordable gift for neighbors, co-workers, and people you would normally not buy a gift for aka the mail lady/man or the garbage man, or the post office worker...you get the idea. :)

8. Here's how the back turned out in case you're wondering. Yes, I accidently placed the stapler in the wrong place the first time so I had to take it out and start again since it didn't catch the ribbon on both sides. Otherwise this turned out super cute and covers the flap that you bend over in step 4.

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