Will you be my (preschool) Valentine??

With Valentine's Day quickly approaching, and with being Taylor's pre-school "Room Mom", I feel the need to be "uber crafty" this Valentine's Day.

So, of course, I got on Pinterest and starting obsessively searching for the "prefect" (age appropriate) Valentine's Day goodies.  As you know, on Pinterest you can find a million-ba-zillion things, but there were two things in particular that stuck out to me that I thought were pretty cute. (and of course, I FORGOT to "pin" them!!  Ugh!)

The first one I saw were these little buckets filled with a V-Day version of "Crunch and Munch".  I thought this would be pretty easy (and cheap) to replicate...so the first thing I thought of was "the dollar spot at Target (Tar-jay)".  Lo and behold, right when I walk in, first thing my eyes meet are some lovely tin buckets...how perfect!?  I got the pink ones for the girls, and the blue ones for the boys.  I also found some "print-your-own" tags online at http://www.piggyinpolkadots.com/ (I went back to try to find them again but for some reason I couldn't...so I am kicking myself for not saving them to my computer!)...anyway, I printed them out and I am going to tie them to the bags of "crunch and munch".

I gathered up the rest of my supplies that I needed (cereal, pretzels, popcorn, and v-day M&M's) and headed to the checkout line...the lady probably thought I was a crazy-candy-feening-weirdo, but whatever...she didn't know what I had planned!!  Here are a few pictures I took "along the way"...

Also, here is the recipe for the "Munch"....

2 c. Rice Chex Cereal

2 c. Pretzel Sticks

2 c. White Popcorn (I used just plain "white" (buttered))

12 oz. bag of White Candy Melts

1 bag of Valentine's Day colored M&M's

 

-Mix all ingredients together (except M&M's)

-Melt candy melts and toss/coat the cereal, popcorn, and pretzels

-Spread over foil covered baking sheets and then sprinkle with the M&M's (if you add the M&M's with the other ingredients while you are "tossing", your M&M's will be covered in white candy coating)

-Let cool then break up into clumps.

 

 

Once this cooled, I broke them up into cellophane bags and twist tied them shut..then put them in the tins upside down (because it looked better that way). 

 

Here are the tags I used...the

 

 

The second one I found on Pinterest was this oh-so-cute idea...let's call this one "I love you to PIECES!"

While I was at Target (in the candy aisle), I was searching and searching for the small bags ("bite-size") of Reese's Pieces.  Could.  Not.  Find.  Them.  For.  The.  Life.  Of.  Me.  Seriously, where were they!?  So I had to resort to a size just a wee bit bigger...THESE! 

My plan was to give each child their own box...but then I thought it would be too much candy, so I opened the boxes and divided them up into smaller amounts (and put in cellophane bags as well)


So I made these tags to put on the bags of Reese's...super fast and EASY!

Here is how the "buckets" turned out...I ended up combining both "treats" into the same bucket....and I used one of my paper cutters to cut out some black contact paper and wrote the kids names on their buckets...I did 12 buckets for all the kids, and then 2 larger buckets for each of her teachers...

Now, let's hope it doesn't snow and school is cancelled!!  Fingers crossed!