Owl Treat Bags

It's a tutorial, y'all!

I made these treat bags for P's pre-school class Halloween party. I saw these on Pinterest (by Lisa Storms) and thought they'd be perfect. So I decided to make it about eight steps harder. Because, apparently, I am a glutton for punishment. (See: Rapunzel costume)
Sheesh! The girl's gonna have to wear that costume until she turns 20. Sorry, kiddo, you're not allowed to grow yet. You haven't gotten full use out of your Rapunzel dress.

And here's how to put together some little owl treat bags:

1. Get some of the brown paper lunch bags - the ones I used are the 11 inch by 5 1/2 inch ones. (Do they come in different sizes? I don't know.)

2. Print out this template on full-sized 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper:

You can either print it directly onto the cardstock or patterned paper that you're going to use for the owls, or print it out and cut out the pieces to use as a template. I used all scrap paper for mine, but it would be easier to use big pieces and just print on them. I used three different patterned papers per owl. One was the head, wings, and tail; one was the body and eyes, and one was the belly and brow (or noggin topper, if you wanna get technical about owl anatomy). The eyeballs were cut out of white cardstock, the feet and beak were orange cardstock, and I just used a hole punch to get small black circles out of cardstock for the centers of their eyes.
* You can print the template on the front of the paper and have a black outline when you cut it out, or print it on the back. This guy's pretty reversible.

3. Cut out all the owl parts & lay them out how you want them. Now, at this point you could get really creative with inking edges, and stamping, and embossing, and glitter and sequins and paint. . .
I didn't. But feel free to go nuts.

Here is my army of owl minions.

4. Cut the top of the paper bag into a triangle and fold it down, so when it's closed the top is a little V.

Glue the noggin topper on top of the folded-down part. (But be careful to not glue the bag closed.) Hold the top of the bag folded down so you can place the rest of the owl according to where the top of his head is.

5. Put glue on the top of the head and glue it to the front of the bag, under the folded down top.
Then glue the tail at the bottom of the bag, and the body overlapping the tail and under the head.
Add the wings and tummy, on top of the body and under the head.
Add all the eye parts and the beak.
Cut a strip of white cardstock and stamp the recipient's name on the bottom. (Or you could stamp the owl's name. That would make him feel special. Or stamp "thanks for coming to Luke's birthday bash." Or whatever.)
Glue that across the bottom of the body, over the tail and under the wings.
Then glue the feet over the top of the cardstock strip so it looks like the owl is perched on top of it.

6. Fill with goodies and staple the top shut! That's it! Okay, if you don't want to put a staple through the owl's head, you could also punch two holes and thread some ribbon through the top and tie it like a bow. That would really girl these up. Or you could just not overthink the staple.

These were perfect for a classroom party goody bag - festive enough for the kids to be excited to get them, and small enough to hold just a few treats. They would work well as party favors, too, if you're having an owl-themed party. Or any fall-themed thank-yous that need to go in a bag. Or for taking some pumpkin bread to a neighbor. Yum.

Happy Halloween, everybody. Today is a special anniversary for me - three years ago I signed up on Etsy. Can't believe it's been three years! I'm feeling especially blessed today to be a stay-at-home working mom.