How to Make Custom Kraft Bags for your Wedding Candy Buffet

How to Customize Bags for your Candy Buffet!

While we did not have a candy bar or treat buffet at our wedding we did serve a treat called a cake ball. Not a cupcake or a cake pop but HUGE cake balls in five different flavors. Knowing we would be serving a heavy meal at dinner we anticipated guests might want to take treats home instead of eating them at the wedding. I also knew we would have a TON left over so we wanted guests to take as much of the desserts home as possible. I did not want to use just plain old bags so I thought stamping them would be fun! Here is a short tutorial on how I made custom bags for my dessert table!

 

Here is a list of what you will need:

* Mini Kraft Bags - Purchased from Amazon in Kraft/Brown paper (they also made them in white)

* A Rubber Stamp

* Ink Pad 

* Cardboard cut from a cereal box

I got a pack of 100 bags and I stamped them all. On the first few I did, I did not put anything inside the bags - I just stamped them on the table. As it turned out, this was the incorrect way to go about it...

Now, this was NOT me over zealously pushing the inked stamp onto the paper. After I evenly inked the stamp I pressed it onto the paper but the pattern did not come out "straight". As you can see it was missing in some areas at the bottom and was too heavy at the top. This was due to the fact that the bottom of the bag is folded and the crease caused the irregularity.

 

This was my solution to the problem! I cut up two hard cardboard pieces of a candy box but you could use a cereal or cracker box. I cut two pieces just big enough to slide inside a closed kraft bag.

I slid the cardboard into the closed bag like so, and this gave me a nice flat surface to stamp on! The trick to stamping all the bags was to evenly coat the stamp and also blot it out on some paper towels from time to time to keep the build-up of ink at bay. I had recurring bird decor in my wedding so I chose a very detailed branch with birds stamp. In hindsight, a simpler stamp would probably been much easier to use.

I was very happy with how these turned out. The size of each bag was also perfect since they comfortably held two cake balls and still had room at the top to fold over. I made 100 of these but honestly I think only 20 were taken and used. We had a TON of cake left over so we invited our guests to please take another serving.

I had several people ask me months after the wedding were I got the bags because they are really perfect for candy bars at birthday parties and weddings. I purchased these from Amazon for $6.00. These are truly mini bags; they are only 3 inches wide by 6 inches tall. In terms of time spent on this project it felt like it took absolutely forever to make all these. If I had used an easier, less intricate stamp it would have gone much quicker. If I had to do it over again I probably would have used a nice printed sticker or glued something onto the bag instead of using a rubber stamp. On the other hand the stamp I used was the perfect size for these bags and they turned out really pretty.