Halloween Treat Bags
Easy Halloween Craft
So, I am writing this a bit after Halloween, but we had so much fun, even my then 13 year old boy LOVED this project, that I had to share. I noticed a few days before Halloween, that I hadn’t really done much with the kids, well Halloween wise. Life gets busy and it seems harder and harder to fit in things like crafting… together. It popped into my mind to make some trick or treat bags.
I’ve purchased cheap trick or treating bags before, the kids have carried the hard plastic pumpkins, and one year they carried grocery bags, but I have always wanted to have cool, fun Halloween treat bags for the kids.
There is something special about having your own Halloween treat bag, it’s like having a Christmas stocking. It is yours and it becomes a tradition item. You can purchase personalized treat bags, and though they are cute, they can get costly. So this year, I thought it would be fun to make our own bags.
I bought some canvas bags, felt, and we set at it. This is a great thing to do because it allows children, and adults, the ability to be creative… and though we made treat bags, this idea has so many possibilities!
Making the Halloween Treat Bag
What You’ll Need
- cotton canvas bags
- Halloween colored felt (though my kids used other colors too)
- glue
- scissors
- cardboard
- pencil
- sharpie
- stencil (optional download that I created)
- needle and embroidery thread (optional)
Notes: You could use other things like buttons, glitter pens, markers, paint, and really… the sky is the limit.
Making Your Creations
This is really where you and your kiddos can get creative. I did a bag too, along with my kiddos. They used theirs for Halloween and I just did one for fun, but I love how they turned out! The bags are of course 2 sided, I made a spider on one side and on the other side, I did some traditional Halloween figures with some candy corn accents (which is pictured above).
I didn’t use any stencils for the figures but I decided to include some examples for anyone that wants to make a bag. You can download them here, but this is really something that you can also just free hand and have fun with. My kiddos had ideas, ran with them, and I think they turned out great.
Below are quick and general instructions and a section showing how I specifically made my bag.
Quick Instructions
Decide what you would like on your bag and lightly draw it on the felt with a pencil. Then, either cut the line off or turn over the felt.
Choose if you would like to glue or sew the felt items on your bag… or both. When gluing, we put a big piece of cardboard inside the bag to ensure we didn’t glue the bag closed. At first, I didn’t think I wanted to sew everything, however, later I decided to do a quick stitch to ensure the longevity.
If I were to do it again, I would still lightly glue everything on and then sew it after the glue dried, just to help keep everything in place while sewing. If you don’t want to sew or you are doing this with smaller children, just use the glue. If you are used to sewing, then you may not need the glue. And maybe you’ll want to do both like I did!
I hope that makes sense! Now let’s look at how I made my bag specifically.
Specific Instructions
Front- Monsters and Candy Corn
- To make the bat, cat, pumpkin, and Frankenstein’s monster you will need green, purple, orange, black, and white felt
- To make the candy corn you will also need yellow felt
- Cut the cat head of the cat, attach it to the bag.
- cut and layer on the green eyes and nose
- cut and layer on the black in the eyes
- Cut the bat body (my stencil is not the same, I freehanded mine, the stencil is for a guide) and attach to the bag
- cut the head of the bat and layer it on the body
- cut the ears, eyed, and teeth, and then layer it on. For the black of the eyes, I dabbed on some permanent marker but you could use a stitch to do that too
- Cut Frankenstein’s monster’s green head and attach to the bag
- cut the hair and white of eyes and layer on to the head
- cut the black of the eyes and the neck knobs and layer them on
- draw or stitch on the mouth and scars
- Cut a pumpkin shape (circle or other) and attach to the bag
- cut and layer the stem and eyes and mouth, and attach to the bag
- To fill in with candy corn, follow the below steps
- Cut an orange, rounded cone shape in size you would like
- Trace the top 2/3 of shape onto the yellow and cut it out
- Follow the same step for white felt, but do the top third only
- Glue them on the bag in layers
- Repeat as many times as you would like
Back- Spider
- To make the spider you will need black, white, and purple felt
- You will also need a permanent marker
- Begin use a piece of cardboard to make sure the pen does not bleed. Put it inside the bag
- Draw a diagonal line from bottom corner, across the bag
- Draw several more diagonal bags across the bag
- Add scalloped, curved lines connecting the diagonal lines
- Cut 16 pieces to make 8 legs. The length can be your choice
- Round parts of the legs as you see fit
- Attach the legs to bag how you would like the spider to sit
- Cut a circle for the body and attach to the bag
- Cut eyes out, I used white, purple, and black
- Layer the eyes onto the body
- You are done with both sides!
Notes:
- You don’t have to do two sides and you especially don’t have to do two different styles. I wanted both and only had one extra bag.
- I freehanded the spider, like I did the others, but didn’t include it in the stencil as I just didn’t think it was necessary.
- Yes, I went back in and stitched everything, all the candy corn, the legs, the eyes… here is some of that for you to see. I love the look but it took a minute.
- This project took a week before the sewing, so keep that in mind if you are close to Halloween
- My kids also sewed theirs, this project helped them learn how to do a simple stitch
Finished Projects
This picture cracks me up a bit because my youngest, who has never seen Friday the 13th, decided to not only make his bag with Jason on it, but he also painted his pumpkin that way.
You can see the Friday the 13th pumpkin behind the kids, on the right. The Jasons are so comical and cute, it is just hard not to laugh. Anyway, my daughter made candies all over her bag and my other son did some familiar Halloween figures.
We had a great time and honestly, these would make great gifts too!
Check out the super quick video (like 40 seconds), of how I made a spiderweb and spider on my Pinterest page here. Also, don’t forget to pin this idea for later!
I hope you have a wonderful Halloween and coming holiday season. For more Halloween ideas, head over to my Halloween page!
If you make these, I would love to hear about them! Comment below or head over to Instagram or Facebook, share your pics, and tag me @bemandfam… I’d love to see them!
BEM + Fam 🙂 
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