If you are on a tight budget, can't find your particular theme anywhere, or you are just feeling a little bit crafty, check out our ideas on how to make your treat boxes and party bags anything but ordinary!
These tips can be used for both treat boxes, containers, and bags, depending on what you have available to you.
Basic Treat Box/Bag Ideas
These ideas are great if you are in a rush or if your craft supplies (or experience) is low! Most of these will only require a permanent marker, a bit of glue, or a home printer.
Superhero: grab either some boxes or bags that are bright hero colours and just add a mask! The elastic will keep it attached to the box and the best part is that your guests will have something to wear after!
Halloween: simply gather some orange coloured boxes or bags and draw scary and silly pumpkin faces on them with black texta!
Minecraft: this theme is a big hit with kids and can be hard to find party items for! This is easily fixed by taking green bags or boxes (square shaped works perfectly for this theme if you can find them) and drawing a Creeper face on them!
The Wiggles: the little ones love the colourful members of this popular group and to make matching treat boxes or bags, just find red, blue, yellow, and purple, print out pictures of the Wiggly characters and glue them on!
Gingerbread House: perfect for Christmas time, use a brown or kraft colour bag or box and use a white paint marker to draw house details. Top it off with a pretty red ribbon on the handle!
Makeup: if your birthday kid LOVES giving makeovers, they will love this idea! Just use a plain white bag or box and use a black texta to draw a simple face outline, provide your guests with markers or even real makeup and have them create a beautiful style on their "model"!
Unicorn: a very simple way to make your treat boxes or bags magical, use pastel colours and print out horns, ears and eyes to add a pretty Unicorn face!
Dalmation: great for a Dog/Puppy or Fire Engine themed party, simply add black dots to a white box or bag using texta or stick on dots!
Ice Cream: here is a bonus idea if you have cone shaped treat containers, fill it with treats and add a balloon to the top to instantly turn it into an ice cream cone!
Intermediate Treat Box/Bag Ideas
If you are feeling a little more adventurous and a have a bit more time, try out some of these ideas!
Mermaid: use boxes or bags in purple, pink, and teal and draw scales around them. Then paint some glue on and add glitter to make it sparkle! Try using a couple of different colours of glitter to make a pretty gradient effect!
Lift-the-flap: if your little one loves this style of books (like Spot!) you can make some fun treat box/bag versions by adding cardboard flaps with surprise pictures underneath!
Princess: an easy way to make a beautiful princess theme bag/box is to glue a cardboard crown to them and stick sparkling jewels all around!
Christmas: another idea for the festive season, take red bags/boxes and add a black belt with a gold buckle.
New Baby: celebrate your new baby or their first birthday with this personalised idea! On your colour choice of bags or boxes, use baby safe paint and place a print of ther tiny little foot! Add other decorations as you like.
Space: make your plain black bags/boxes look out of this world by splattering them with white paint and coloured glitter!
Beach: create a cool seaside style by painting the bottom of a blue or aqua box/bag with glue and covering that part with sand. You can also glue a couple of small shells on for a real beachy feel!
Frozen: make a winter wonderland on your treat boxes/bags with lots of glitter and snowflakes! Use markers or paint to draw magical looking swirls!
Eucalyptus: for a lovely Australiana themed treat box/bag, use a natural kraft colour and tie a bunch of eucalyptus leaves and gumnuts together with twine and attach to the handle. Use a blackboard sticker for a label on the front.
Jungle: make some fun jungle themed boxes or bags by sticking prints of animals such as monkeys, tigers, and zebras on them and then sticking small palm leaves slightly over the top so the animals look like they are hiding!
Lego: make some fun brick style treat boxes by using bright coloured boxes then cut out the same colour in circles (cardboard sheets can be found at your local store in the art/craft section) and use sticky foam squares to attach them to the box in the 2 x 4 pattern to create 3D effect!
Rainbow: create a pretty rainbow with coloured paper and then add fluffy cotton balls at the base for clouds!
Confetti: this one is super fun to make! Paint any colour box or bag with glue then throw pieces of coloured tissue confetti circles at it! Great for any type of celebration!
Advanced Treat Box/Bag Ideas
For those experienced crafters, who want to make their favour boxes really stand out, here are some awesome ideas for you!
Trolls: use some tulle to create Poppy's hairstyle by pleating one edge and sticking it to the bottom of the bag/box, then bunch it up the top like a ponytail. Add a row of flowers to the bottom to finish the look!
Disney's Up: this idea takes bit more patience to create but the final product is worth it! To start, print out a picture of Carl's house and stick it onto the box/bag. Use pvc craft glue to stiffen small lengths of yarn and when they are dry, attach colourful air-filled mini water balloons to ends and then stick these to the top of the house to make it look like it is floating away!
Slime: tint clear glue with gel food colouring or use coloured glue and pour it gently over the top of the box so it creates drips down the side. Add glitter to the glue to make it sparkle!
Sonic The Hedgehog: make it look like Sonic is in action on your treat box or bag by printing out and sticking on an image of Sonic running. Then make another cutout of just his legs on a piece of cardboard and attach it over the top of the first image using a split pin so it creates the spinning effect!
Cars: you can do a similar trick to make Lightning McQueen's wheels move! Using a red box, attach an image of Lightning McQueen from the front view, side views, and back view on each side, then attach his wheels separately with split pins.
Fiesta: visit your local sewing and craft supplies store and find some ribbon with colourful dangling pom poms. Attach this around bright neon coloured treat boxes or bags for a fun fiesta vibe!
Llama: you can use the same pom pom tassel ribbon for a llama design! Just use a white bag and draw the llama's features on with markers or paint and attach the pom poms to the neck area like a collar. Add some pretty fabric flowers to the top as well!
Sesame Street: cover blue boxes/bags with fake blue fur for Cookie Monster, red boxes/bags with fake red fur for Elmo, yellow boxes/bags with fake yellow feathers for Big Bird, and then add ping pong ball eyes on top!
