Rethinking the Free Pile: Beads and String.

How I came up with these fun Candy Free Halloween favors.

When I was a kid, Halloween came with strict rituals.

1. Grab the biggest pillowcase you can find, even if it must come straight from mom or dad’s pillow.
2. No matter what, keep up with big brother.
3. Never miss a house.
4. Once done trick-or-treating, commence indoors, dump everything out.
5. Separate into categories.
6. Once all parties are done organizing, move on to ‘tradsies.’
7. Never get bullied into trading your favorite candies.
8. Discard unwanted items. In other words, create a free pile that usually is eaten by dad.
9. Hide your stash.
And finally,
10. Eat everything within a week. (Before big brother finds it).

Number 8 is interesting to me. Because it is this very free pile, this unwanted, undesired, unattractive sort, that I have been pondering through, as to what my child shall receive from us, for Halloween. And then I thought, who am I kidding? Peanuts? Raisins? Apples? (Back when apples were given by normal people and not the evil witch). 

Not going to win anyone over, let alone my toddler. And so I conjured up this:

(For your convenience, there are some affiliate links in this post at no cost to you.)

I took old glitter containers I had from decorating our pumpkins, peeled off the sticker, painted the caps black and filled them with assorted Halloween colored beads. I then bought some black plastic gimp rope and tied it around each tube. (You can also use test tube containers that you can find here and get a bunch in bulk.)

I thought it would be a cute and fun gift for Els, and some for her playmates as well.

So colorful and fun. Not to mention, great practice for their little fingers.

And appealing, even if it is essentially – candy-less.

I would like to think, these would NOT have ended up in my discarded, black licorice filled free pile…Right?

*Warning: Always supervise small children when playing with beads.

For more fun Halloween crafts check out our glittery pumpkins and jack o’ lantern popsicles!

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