12 Ways to Use Up Leftover Halloween Candy!

Halloween might be over, but it is not forgotten at the Frugal Upstate household. Despite the fact that we get over 200 trick or treaters a year, we still somehow wound up with leftover candy and the perennial question: “What do we do with leftover Halloween Candy?!”

I asked my friends on Twitter and we came up with 12 great ideas for using up leftover Halloween candy:

1. Save it for your holiday gingerbread houses (via VisitFingerLake)

2. Freeze it for later.

3. Add a cup at a time to rice crispy squares (via Jeremy Wright). If it’s chocolate or easily meltable let the mix cool a bit first

4. Chop and roll candy apples into crushed candy.

5.  Chop and use as icecream topping or as a decorative/tasty topping for an iced cake.

6.  Toss into homemade trail mix.

7. Chop and mix into brownies. Peppermint Patties or any chocolates/candy bars are especially good.

8. Make Molten Candy Cookies. Just take chocolate chip cookie or sugar cookie dough and wrap a ball around a mini chocolate bar.

9.  Make Leftover Candy Cake.

10. Make Chocolate Candy Corn Cookies (via Feels Like Home)

11. Donate the extra candy to a rehab center (via MommyBlogExpert) a nursing home (via backhomeagain) or a shelter (via luciagia)

12. Sell it to your dentist (via KingdomFirstMom and jodirotondo). Really! There is a program called “Halloween Candy Buy Back” that many dentists participate in.

So what do you do with your leftover candy. . . besides eat it!

How to Reuse/Recycle Christmas Cards

Remember how, when you were a kid, it used to be so exciting when you got mail? It was thrilling! Then, as you grow up, the mailbox quickly became the source of bills, statements and junkmail. I rarely get an actually note or letter these days.

But at Christmas, ah Christmas, the flood of cards begins. Every day I run, like a child, to the mailbox to see what treasures it reveals. Photos of children growing like weeds. Letters and notes from far flung friends telling us of their busy year. . . . It brings the joy back into my mailbox.

I always display the cards somehow-usually by taping them to the kitchen cupboards (with blue painters tape-easier on the finish). I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and it is one of the least decorated rooms seasonally, so it really makes me smile to see them all there. Then in January, when all the decorations are coming down, I can’t bear to throw the beautiful cards away.

But what to do? I used to pack them up with the ornaments, then I’d feel a vague sense of guilt in December when I pulled them out again. Shouldn’t I have found something useful to do with them? Did I save them all year just to throw them out now?

So I made a decision. Last year, right after the holidays, I made the cards I received into gift tags for this years presents.

But gift tags aren’t the only thing you can do with them. All Free Crafts has a few quick, cute crafts you can make out of old Christmas cards:

Gift Card Ornaments
Gift Card Mini Boxes
Gift Card Placemats

What other ideas do you have for reusing Christmas Cards?

Easy Children’s Christmas Craft: Paperclip Angels

Need a quick and easy craft for your kids to make for teachers, bus drivers and friends? How about angel necklaces?

This idea comes courtesy of my good friend Cherie, and has to be one of the easiest and cutest gift projects for little kids to make. It only takes a few minutes, the kids can help, and buying enough supplies to make a whole bunch only costs a few dollars.

Materials:

Special Paperclips (don’t know the name but they come in a box of like 30 or something)
Sliver Pony Beads
Silver Disk Beads (preferably with fluted or beaded edges)
Ribbon

Take the ribbon and tie in a loop. Thread a disk and then a pony bead onto the ribbon and push up to the knot. Loop the ribbon through the clip and then through itself (see picture) slip both beads back down to sit flush with the clip.

Tada, you are done.

What other quick and easy holiday crafts for kids do you do?

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