We love homemade candies and gifts, but sometimes when you're already cooking for a dinner party, there's no time for from-scratch favors. Here are four adorable ways to take store-bought candy and make them look like custom gifts. They'd be sweet little place settings for a Valentine's Day dinner.
Any of these would make adorable birthday party favors, too. None of them take long (the photo wrapper is the most complicated) or cost much money.
We'd scatter them across the table as decoration for a dinner party or pile them up in a glass bowl as a pretty, colorful centerpiece. We don't think anyone will complain when they open it up and find a familiar treat. (Who doesn't have secret, nostalgic love for Rolos?)
PICTURED ABOVE
• 1. Mentos wrapped in hand-striped tissue, from Oh Happy Day.
• 2. Lindt truffles wrapped in crepe paper, from Such Pretty Things.
• 3. Photo chocolate bars, from Martha Stewart Weddings.
• 4. Rolo scrolls, from Disney Family Fun.
Related: Party Trick: Homemade Cotton Candy without a Machine
(Images: Joke Vande Gaer/Oh Happy Day; Jessica Enig; Marcus Nilsson/Martha Stewart Weddings; FamilyFun Magazine)
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Why is enjoying the original product something that is thought to be "secret" or "nostalgic"? I hate the idea that "custom made" gifts communicate a greater caring for your guests - nonsense! Wrapping it up in different paper doesn't substantively change the thing in the slightest.
I just hate the idea of doing this to placate the people who would be/might be offended by simply being given the original product.
How about just going "Rolos, man, they're the bomb! Grab some on your way out!"?