Trick or treat or…de-stash?

I'm always on the lookout for ways to lighten my stash. How many playing cards and game pieces can one person upcycle? Halloween presents a perfect de-stashing opportunity. Wouldn't little monsters and princesses love to get a bag of fun, non-edible treats?

Only if they also get candy, or so my husband says. So this year, I created treat "envelopes" and put fun items inside.

Here's the envelope, made out of orange and yellow card stock folded in half. I found a black cat image online and carved my own stamp based on it. Washi tape keeps the envelope closed.

So what's inside? 

• Stickers that I made out of dog playing cards and two paper punches.

• An animal card with a drawing on one side and fun facts on the other.

• A plastic game piece (in this case, a dinosaur from a "Barrel Full of Monkeys" type game).

• A silly straw. Of course!

• A painted wooden flower with a foam pumpkin glued on top.

Items that I considered but ultimately rejected included dice and marbles (choking hazard), army men (inappropriate), and flags on pointy sticks (poking danger).

Originally, I planned on making the treat bag out of recycled envelopes. I printed colored designs on a bunch and added the cat stamp. But I wasn't happy with the result -- the paint wasn't opaque enough to cover the original text, and the stamp image got lost in the textured print. So I scrapped most of them. A Gelli plate fail, my first.

See what I mean?