October 10, 2016
updated
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In my neighborhood, we go all out for Halloween. From hayrides and block parties to booing our neighbors with special treats, it’s one of our neighborhood’s greatest celebrations.
This year, I have the perfect Halloween Treat Bags made with plates and a few craft supplies that I’ll be using to get into the Halloween spirit and share treats with my neighbors.
For this fun craft, I’ve partnered with the Chinet® brand using their Classic White™ fiber plates, which are made from 100% pre-consumer recycled paper.
If you need a fun craft idea for the classroom Halloween party, these paper-plate treat bags is one craft the kids will love to make as you can see in this short video.
You can make cats, bats, pumpkins… anything goes. All you need are some sturdy white plates like the ones from Chinet®, pipe-cleaners, acrylic paint, and a stapler, for the little ones, you can cut out face pieces from construction paper.
- Paint the back sides of your paper plates. These Chinet® Classic White™ plates won’t get soggy with the wet paint, they hold their shape after drying and after being cut.
Now that the plates are painted, we are ready to assemble our treat bag.
- Staple the two plates together with the painted sides on the outside.
- To form the opening to our treat bag, cut both plates at the same time, this way they will match. Since the plates are super sturdy, this is a good time for an adult to help with the big scissors.
- Older kids will want to paint the face on their craft bags. If doing this, remember to allow the paint to dry between steps, so it doesn’t smear.
For younger kids, we will add our pre-cut shapes to make the face by gluing colored construction paper cut into the shapes needed. Using any glue stick will work just fine.
- Finally, to make your handle, you are going to staple a pipe cleaner to each side of the Chinet® Classic White™ plates.
The final step is to fill these cute bags with your favorite candy and treats. They are perfect for “Booing” your neighbors and friends, bringing treats to school for their classroom, and even hanging around the house for an added touch of Halloween fun!
How have you used paper plates other than for eating food?
DIY: Halloween Treat Bags
Ingredients
- Chinet® Classic White™ plates
- Craft Paint
- Scissors
- Stapler
- Construction paper
- Pipe cleaners
- Glue sticks
Instructions
- Paint the back sides of your paper plates.
- Allow for paint to dry.
- Staple the two plates together with the painted sides on the outside.
- To form the opening to our treat bag, cut both plates at the same time, this way they will match.
- Older kids will want to paint the face on their craft bags. If doing this, remember to allow the paint to dry between steps, so it doesn’t smear.
- For younger kids, we will add our pre-cut shapes to make the face by gluing colored construction paper cut into the shapes needed. Use a glue stick, any kind will work just fine.
- Make your handle by stapling a pipe cleaner to each side of the Chinet® Classic White™ plates.
- The final step is to fill these cute bags with your favorite candy and treats.
Disclosure: This post was sponsored by the Chinet® brand. All opinions are my own. Find Chinet® Classic White™ plates and other Chinet® brand products at mychinet.com.
Crazy Joyful Mama
We have used plates to make crafts, but at childrens events. I am not creative enough to come up with it all on my own!
Amy
The heavy duty plates make great looms. Hole punch around the edge of the rim. Attach yarn across the plate. Then use various items: yarn, ribbon, fabric, feathers, strips or scrapbooking or wrapping paper to weave. It’s a good fine motor activity.
Brooke Bumgardner
We love using paper plates to make seasonal wreaths. We cut out the center of the paper plates; paint the remainder of the plate and embellish it; punch a hole in the top; add some yarn; ta-da! A beautiful wreath that can be customized for any season or holiday. I like doing this at home and at the storytime program I hold at the library where I work.
Cat
Easy tamborines for little ones, frames for “stained glass window” art projects, baskets for paper flowers, and boy scout frisbees. Numerous uses for handy paper plates!!
lisa franklin
making preschool crafts
Rose Reins
Thanks for your post! We love to use Chinet paper plates to make home-made tambourines, using 2 plates and dried beans inside. Fun!!
Virginia N
we have made snowflakes with the paper plates for christmas
Sarah
As a first grade teacher, I use paper plates all the time. I make reindeer gift holders, frogs, snow globes and more!!!
Stacy Fellows
This looks like a fun craft to do with my 4 year old. Looking forward to making them.
Laura Fuentes
Congratulations! You are our winner! Check your inbox for an email from [email protected]!
Amy
We use these plates for quite a few things in my classroom. Just recently we made a salt dough map of ancient Egypt. Salt dough is pretty dense and heavy. Not just any plate will stand up to the task! These more heavy duty plates do the trick, though!
Amy Dreier
We’ve used them to make pumpkins on Popsicle sticks and then perform the “5 little pumpkins” play! Super fun!
Lisa Topolinski
Fun ideas! I used plates to make my kids halloween mask. My son likes these and we are makig these in the weekend.. Thank you for sharing
Kendra
Love this idea. We have used these plates to make crowns. Cut out the middle. Paint it gold and add fake jewels. We have also made ships for Columbus Day, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Hold in half and glue. Cut slit in middle of the fold, add Popsicle stick and add sail to popsicle stick. We then glued to all three to large paper so it looked like they were sailing the ocean.
Nancy
Another way to use paper plates is to decorate two plain white paper plates and then sealing almost all the way around the plates, glueing them together. Add a handful of dried beans and then totally seal the two plates together. Let the glue dry totally. Now you have a home-made tambourine!
Carrie
We used to paint two plates, fill with beads and staple together and make maracas with them. What fun noise they made.
Maryanne W.
We’ve used paper plates to make christmas wreath crafts!
Julie Wight
We love to use paper plates to make Christmas wreaths. Simply cut a circle out of the middle, then kids can paint green and glue on all kinds of ribbons, bows and beads to make a super cute craft!
Melissa L.
Cute idea! We’ve used Chimed plates to make shakers. We put popcorn or beans between two plates. Then staple and decorate. Easy peasy!
Faith
I like to use paper plates for crafts just like you did!
Marion
My little ones like to make fun crafts just by painting, the plates and adding glitter, beads, buttons, etc. We have also made different animal crafts with letters that we work on or use rice or oats to work on practicing letter writing.
Kristina
We oftne use them to make paper plate masks. Or, if you staple 2 paper plates together and fill them with rice or beans, you get a fun maraca that you can decorate any way you want.
Rachael
I’m not saying this was a great idea, but… a couple of years ago we realized we hadn’t planned enough kid-friendly activities for a family reunion. We strung two heavy-duty paper plates together, weighted them a bit, and made multiple frisbees. It worked…for a while…
gretchen
We have used bowls to make musical instruments by placing a up of dry beans in one, stapling a second bowl on top and coloring, marking and/or decoupaging to decorate our instruments. It is great fun for any age!
Carin
Maracas, masks, snowflakes and more!
Sara
Perhaps TMI, but I have used paper plates to scoop dog poo when in a pinch and didn’t have a baggie with me :^)
Sara
Oh thought of a better idea, and actually fun. We have used paper plates to make signs and banners by stringing them together. Example “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”
Heather
So cute! I use paper plates as a painting palette. It’s a nice way to keep the paint from spilling and each kid can have their own so mixing colors doesn’t cause arguments.
Kim
We use paper plates to make all sorts of art crafts, from masks to decorations (flowers and such!)
Rebecca
I have used paper plates and cups for rhythm “instruments” in my music classroom. Plates can be tapped together (with oneself or a neighbor), tapped against legs, or swished against each other. Cups can be tapped together, with hands, on the floor, etc. Lots of fun.
Kailyn Shippee
Wow these are adorable! My little girl would love to make the pumpkin one.
thuy n.
They make great dream catchers.
Sunny
These are cute, we also like to make “shakers” by filling with dried beans and then stapling and decorating the outside.
Maribel F
My kids love to make lots of fun stuff , We made masks and puppets with paper plates,we also used buttons and yarn for hair and eyes.
Kim
My kids are going to love making these. We use paper plates for lots of things. One of our favorites is just putting them in the floor and skating around the house.
Stacy
These treat bags are adorable! I just made “All About Me” books with my pre-k class using paper plates. The kids loved decorating each plate with their favorite things, then binding them together with pipe cleaners. They turned out adorable and using plates for “pages” makes them sturdy!
LaTanya
I have used them for paint palettes. Just put a few drops of paint on the plate and give me son a paintbrush. We are ready to paint!
Jessica Dawson
We use paper plates for our painting projects. They come in handy when using multiple paint colors or nixing colors too.
Viviannette
I have used the plates for crafts too. I made Fall wreaths with my scouts. Cut a circle in the middle of the plate. Glues colorful paper leafs around the plate. Easy and cute.
Amanda
What a fun idea. Can’t wait to try this with the kiddos
Bonnie
Love the idea! And super cute for Halloween…. we use our plates for paint trays to do other crafts. My youngest made a snake out of a plate at school and cut into into a swirl so the snake looked coiled.
Aimee J
This is a great idea!
We’ve decorated the plates and cut out holes to wear them as masks.
Melydia G Little
These are so cute! I think we will try this. I love using paper plates for various crafts with my kids! They are so versatile.
Lisa Suit
These are adorable, I’m definitely going to have to make these with my kiddos!! We love Chinet around here; they’re the strongest paper plates around!! When I was a child I loved to make rainbows on paper plates to hang up but I hadn’t thought about that in years! Might have to do that with my kids soon, too!
Nova
Love any plate crafts! Thanks for sharing these ideas. We enjoy making crowns and tiara’s but especially percussion instruments for our music loving children. Gonna have to try out your ideas!
Cathy
I haven’t done this personally, but in first grade, the kids’ teacher wrapped a paper plate in foil, then had the kids draw a holiday-themed picture (e.g., Christmas tree or menorah) stained-glass style, then wrapped the plate in plastic wrap to protect the picture and added a hook for hanging. I hang my plates up every year!
Thank you for the giveaway!
Emilie B
Thank you for this craft. I am going to make this with our classroom for our halloween craft time!
Sarah Gancer
What an awesome craft! a great way to put some of the leftover party plates to use!
Erin
SO FUN!!! We’ve used paper plates in the past to make an easter craft and make flowers
Matt
We made these today. The kids had a blast. thank you for a cool craft idea that dads can make that isn’t cutesy
Mary Johnson
these are super cute! we usually eat out of our Chinet plates but they make a great craft
Pat
Awesome! I will for sure make these with my kids for Halloween. We always have Chinet plates around the house and the kids will love making these.
Ashley T.
Super cute video. Love it! Amazing how your kids are always part of the videos.
Olivia
Wow, these are awesome! So much better than just boring bags for the kids.
Elisabeth
SO FUN!!!!
Stephanie Miller
I was so happy to see this DIY activity in my inbox this morning! I head our neighborhood party committee and “booing” your neighbors with treats is such a fun idea! We are definitely implementing this craft at my house!
Justine
you are a genius for providing a “printable” way to make these!! one of my pet-peeves is when diy blogs don’t have a way to print out directions, like i’m supposed to copy/paste onto word? don’t think so. thanks for not making me jump through hoops to make these! I already have chinet round plates since those are the ones we buy because they are sturdy, the other paper plates are awful. thanks!
Emma Jene
these are super creative!! great how to video! I usually watch all of your cooking videos and I was surprised (and loved) this diy video!
Sarah
these are super cute! my husband loves using the square chinet plates because it fits more of his “man food” LOL