I like to make special treats for Little Jo to take to her preschool class for Valentine’s Day. This year, I thought I would make some of Chica’s kettle corn and send it in in bags for each kid. Well, once I got started, I couldn’t stop. I kept adding to the prototype until I came up with cute little tags and kettle corn with a twist. Let me show you what I did!
For the record, you can do this with regular popcorn, you don’t have to make kettle corn. However, I can tell you that the kettle corn is spectacular when you get to the end of this. I couldn’t help but try it! If you make the kettle corn you will need: Chica’s instructions, salt, sugar, a Whirley-Pop, and oil. For the rest of the project you will need parchment paper
(my favorite kitchen tool), Wilton candy melts
, Ziploc bags, a printer, white paper, scissors or a paper cutter, brown lunch bags and a stapler.
First, make your kettle corn or your regular popcorn and spread it out on the parchment paper. Try to resist eating too much of it at this point; you will need it to fill those bags later! Trust me, I had to make two batches to have enough to show you.
Next, dump your candy melts into a Ziploc bag. I used red melts and pink melts
. I started with the red ones. Microwave the melts and knead the bag until all the lumps are gone. Twist your bag and snip a small hole in the corner. Then, proceed to make a beautiful red candy mess by squeezing the melted candy out all over the top of the popcorn. Doesn’t this look yummy already? You could stop here but why would you? It needs more!
Wait for the melted candy to harden and then toss the popcorn to break it up again. Spread it back out onto your parchment paper to get it ready for the next layer!
I melted my pink candy melts the same way as before and squeezed the pink candy all over the popcorn again. Look at how pretty it is!
I felt the popcorn needed one last little punch so I got out some red decor sugar and sprinkled it onto the still-melted pink chocolate. Now THAT looks done! Allow it all to dry and then break it up one final time. Then, eat some. Eat a little more and finally, tell yourself that you will have just one more bite. To prevent all of the popcorn from disappearing, remove yourself from the kitchen and head to the craft room for this next part.
Get your printer ready and download our free template.
Each template has two “My Heart Pops for You!” tags on it. Use a paper cutter or scissors to cut the tags apart.
Next, fill out the to and from that is on the back of the tag. This is a little bit easier before you put the tag on the bag. Now, you have to go back up to the yummy popcorn. Fill your bags about half full.
Fold the tag in half and place it in front of your lunch sack lining it up with the top so you can see where you will need to fold your sack down.
As you can see, I folded just enough of the sack over so that the tag will cover the open top in back. Now, staple the tag to the bag in each corner.
Now you have a delicious Valentine treat. My husband says he would like a batch with melted dark chocolate over it instead of the pink and red. I might just have to do that for him for his special Valentine’s Day treat.























19 comments so far:
I have been reading your blog for a few months and I just wanted to say I love your projects! You guys (er..girls) do awesome jobs.
This one is definitely going on to my list of possibilities for my son’s class treats!
http://kitsch-a-licious.blogspot.com/
Ooh I would love to get popcorn for Valentine’s Day. It’s my favorite! Thanks so much for this, I’ll be linking.
This would be delicious with some chocolate and some caramel popcorn!
What a fabulous idea! Thank you so much for sharing!
This looks fantastic!!!
Great Idea! I so want to make this for my pre-school kid. Also will be posting this on Sarchix.com on 14 Feb!!! Thanks again.
Karen, thanks ahead of time for posting our project on your site!
Hey! i’m including this in my link roundup this evening… too cute!
Thanks, dot!
Love these bag toppers – thanks
ABSOLUTELY CUTE as can be!!!!!
I tried this with white chocolate and it tasted great, but didn’t look like yours. I live overseas and have no access to candy melts. It took a little work to mix the hot melted chocolate through the popcorn and not get burned but my kids said they would still be proud to take it to school.
Thanks I will try this again!!
This is so perfect!!! I will have to do this for next year…. scratch that… I need to do this for St. Patty’s day with Green and Chocolate Melts. You don’t happen to want to make up a cute little tag for the top with something Patty’s day on it by chance? If not I am sure I can make something up… maybe something pot of gold related… hum… thinking! Great job!
Hmm… what a fun idea, Julie! Let us think about that a bit and see what we can come up with
Julie, I made a St. Patrick’s Day bag tag for you! Check out this post. Hope you like it!
Hey there. I really loved your “My Heart Pops For You” title for your bag and even used it for inspiration for my ehow.com article “Scrapbook Ideas: Popcorn”. It would make such a great title and starting point for a scrapbook layout. I included you as a reference. Great job. So cute…
http://www.ehow.com/info_8291438_scrapbook-ideas-popcorn.html
Just found this today, Love it! Will be doing it this year, Thank you!!
Just found your site this morning. Love it! I’ve gotten away doing a lot of crafty things, but this makes me want to start up again! Thanks!
So glad to have inspired you to get crafting again, Julie!