Candy Pencils

This is Brianna's first year at preschool, so I'm a newbie at all this stuff. I got to preschool this morning to drop her off only to realize everyone at school was walking in with gift bags.

Christmas presents for the teachers? Hadn't even crossed my mind.

I dropped her off and then went on a Walgreens run. I had to get toilet paper, baby wipes, and packaging supplies anyway, so I got Mentos while I was there. I paid just over $1.00 for everything.

Got home and started pulling out my supplies!

• Tube of Mentos (you can also stack Rolos)
• Any Hershey's Kiss (the almond or caramel look the most like a pencil tip but all I had on hand were raspberry. I think it served the purpose!)
• 1 sheet of yellow construction paper
• a small strip of aluminum foil
• a glue dot (I used hot glue)
• clear tape (I used both double sided and regular)
• black marker
  

First of all, use your glue dot or hot glue gun to stick the Hershey's kiss onto one end of the Mentos roll.



Next, measure your construction paper to wrap all the way around the pencil. Make sure it will wrap around the part where the kiss meets the Mentos because that is wider than the Mentos roll. Use scissors to cut to length, and cut the end with the Hershey's kiss with zig-zags if you like.

Write your message in the middle of the paper with a marker.

Wrap the paper around your roll and secure with tape.

Take a small piece of aluminum foil and trim off the serrated edge. Wrap around the eraser end of the pencil, covering where the paper and the eraser meet.


Okay, mine were done in a hurry because I was frantic. I knew I couldn't afford to just go out and buy stuff for both her teachers so I just had to get creative. I used the mint Mentos (blue package) because Walgreens was out of the fruity ones but the fruity ones have a pink wrapper so they would look more like erasers.

Then I went into my goody box (where I keep all my "nice" sales items!) and found two Air Wick candles that I got for free from Rite Aid last year! Nice! These retail around $5.99 so I know they are good quality candles that last for like 40 hours or something like that.

With my dad being a teacher, I know that teachers don't want a lot of "stuff". So I think they appreciated this gift - one was cute and edible and the other was useful for their house. So I am happy!

I got the instructions for this craft from here. (An awesome blog to check out!)