oh great thread! i think i might make up little boxes with a mixture of gingerbread, shortbread, choc biscuits and stained glass biscuits for family and friends
I'm doing hampers to cut costs, but I'm finding that any sort of nice box or basket is nothing under $3 which when you're making 12 baskets is alot....
What have you used for the boxy bit??? Was thinking maybe wrapping cardboard boxes in nice paper... tacky???
...... Coles supermarket has a FREE Christmas Magazine with 100 pages of lots of fantastic festive food & gift ideas to make (usually pick 'em up near the registers)
I have looked at the following:
Gift boxes- $5 min each
Wicker baskets- $3 each from vinnies- not great quality
Plastic baskets from crazy clarks- $3 for the smallest suitable size
Wrapping paper- $2 a roll from Crazy's
Cardboard boxes- $0 free from back of stores...
So that's where I'm at at the moment.
What do you think?
Ella i didnt even think to ask stores for their unwanted cardboard boxes, awesome idea and then all thats needed is some wrapping paper/cellophane and some ribbon
All your other ideas are great too i guess it just depends on how much you want to spend.
Yeah well that's the problem isn't it. I would love to go buy the beautiful baskets but they cost too much so I'm thinking I will just do the boxes and cover them in some nice gold wrapping paper. I know it won't look as professional but there sure is a difference between $4 for wrapping paper and $34 for some little plastic boxes!
You could even just use a flat peice of carboard box and use the cello to wrap the whole package???
Did it all with one square peice and folded around corners, only 2 peices of sticky needed.
I think once its filled and wrapped in cello it will look absolutely devine!!!!
I want something nice but cheap to put in the bottom of the boxes- I was thinking of that sort of shredded tissue paper stuff... where do you get that???? Perhaps spotlight would be a good place to look???
i was thinking of just doing that too i think little boxes from spotlight/lincraft are pretty cheap, then yer i was just going to cover them in xmas paper, havent had a look how much they are yet though
i was just going to put slightly scrunched up tissue paper or celophane in the bottom of my boxes.. or that fine hay looking straw stuff? lol sorry no idea what it called
Ella - lst year I made my own shreadded paper by putting tissue paper through the shredder turned out ok if you put multiple sheets through at the same time
I solved the stuffing problem. Spotlight has netting on sale for $2.50 a metre, 3 metres is enough to do 9 boxes. I did matching red to go with the red wrapping paper, looks great!!!
Jess- don't bother with boxes from spotlight, I have used Bundaberg Rum boxes (the ones that hold 12 x 700ml) as my DF works at liquorland, they are the perfect size, free and look great once covered!
Another packaging idea is to get on the net and search for Christmas Box Templates. You will be surprised how many free templates there are. Bell Shaped, Bon bon shaped, Christmas Tree Shaped...Then I was either going to trace onto thick card or re use drink cartons and cover in wrapping paper.
Also another gift idea I remember as a kid was baking Christmas puddings in terracotta pots, decorating them and wrapping them up.
1 Preheat oven to 160deg celcius or 140deg celcius fan forced. Line 2 baking trays with non stick baking paper.
2 Put butter and icing sugar into a bowl and use electric beaters to mix until combined well. Mix in flour and custard powder using the edge of a butter knife. Don't over mix the dough or the biscuites will be tough.
3 Roll teaspoons of the dough into small balls and place on the baking trays. Use the back of a fork to flatten them lightly and make a pattern on the top.
4 Bake for 15mins then cool on wire racks.
Filling:
60g butter
1/2cup pure icing sugar
1 tbsp passion fruit pulp
To make the filling:
1 Use electric beaters to mix the butter, icing sugar and passion fruit pulp.
2 Using a butter knife, spread some mixture onto one biscuit, then sandwich with another. Repeat until all biscuits are done.
**I also put a tiny bit extra of the passionfruit pulp into each bicky before I put on the icing because I didn't think there was enough flavour!
Spicy sugared nuts
Makes 4 cups
3/4c icing sugar mixture
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/2tsp chilli powder
400g of nuts of your choice (I used almonds which were really yum!)
1 egg white lightly whisked
1 Preheat oven to 180deg celcius or 160 fan forced. Combine sugar cardamom, cinnamon, chilli, nuts and egg white in a bowl. Stir well to combine.
2 Line a baking tray with non stick baking paper. Spread nuts on the tray in one even layer.
3 Bake for 10mins or until golden brown. Cool completely on tray. Use a wooden spoon to break up and nuts that are stuck together.
4 Serve or store in an air tight container for up to 5 days.
Another packaging idea is to use the little chinese boxes with handles. You can get them from $2 shops cheaply. I got some for DD's bday for party bags.
Or how about using some decent quality plastic plates (like bbq/throwaway plates) and just pretty them up with cellophane and ribbons. I got some melomine (sp) plates from my local $2 shop for $1.50each to serve up my gift biscuits. I put some into little christmassy patty pans and put them onto the plates and wrapped them in clear callophane with a ribbon around it. Looked great!
Ohhh, another recipe for you all that I made the other day too...
Triple dipped choc strawberries
**This is just something I have made up so if I miss something in the 'recipe' or preparation just ask me!
I got two punnets of fresh strawberries. Chill them for at least an hour or so in the fridge.
Melt about 250g of white choc, dark choc and milk choc in large mugs(one at a time) in a big pot of lightly simmering hot water, filled enough to reach about 3/4 up the mugs. Be careful not to burn any of the chocolate!
Wash the strawberries and trim if you wish. Put the strawberries onto the end of skewers (one each).
Dip each strawberry into the dark choc, chill, dip into the milk choc, chill, dip into the white choc, chill. You have to chill them or the chocolate will all just drip off.
Make sure you have a large plate or something to stand the strawberries in in the fridge. I used some styrofoam that I had let here from packaging form our new airconditioner to stick the skewers into. Or I was also going to put them into a large gift box with the lid on and hole in it for the skewers.
These were soooo yummmy!!!!!! **DROOOOOLLLL**
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