They did it! Spooky Treat Boxes!

I hope you had a great Halloween this week (Monday of course, LOL)! 

This year we held a Halloween Treat Box Camp, and wow, was it super fun! These girls decorated up a storm, making many different spooky cupcakes and scary donuts. 

My favorite part of the camp is watching the girls work together to plan the baking and design. And watching them feel so proud of their work... it's amazing.

And honestly, I just love helping kids explore their inner "designer". This probably comes from my own exerpience of not having so many options for this kind of thing... so now, I just love giving back :).

If you are also interested in spreading this kind of love by hosting similar camps. Here's a breakdown of what I do to prepare and create these camps:

Prep

- Invite kids in advance for a headcount

- Set up enough table space for each child (I had 7-8 kids in this camp)

- Purchase and set out enough baking and decorating supplies for your treats; we used chocolate cake mix, white chocolate wafers, marshmallow ghosts, white sprinkles, cupcake liners, and small plastic decorations and candy from the dollar store

- Set out handheld mixers for every two kids (I have the kids bake in pairs to help with speed and collaboration!), our hand mixers are by Black & Decker from Bed Bath & Beyond

- Set aside decorating tools for the kids to share, such as piping bags and tips. We used 1M and 4B tips as well as our piping bags

- Decide on and prepare project packaging

Note: I like to host these camps on two consecutive days (3 hours each day). This allows for focused time to bake, and focused time to decorate. I have tried this all in one day and let me tell you... it was a bit too much and everyone was super tired LOL

Day 1 This day is all about baking. We worked together to calculate and plan how many cupcakes and donuts they wanted for each treat box and how many mixes we would need to make. 

Then the girls prepared and poured their batter. At the end of day 1, the girls had their cupcakes and donuts all baked. In day 1 you can also include making your buttercream, but to make this camp a bit simpler I had buttercream all ready to go.

Day 2 Is the day that the decorating comes to life! On this day, the girls choose the colors they want to use and the decoration styles they want to try. I usually make a few examples so they can see some possibilities. It is just so fun to watch them explore and create such fun designs. Do you see the spooky hand over the donuts on some of these pics? This design was created by one of the girls and they all loved it!

And did I mention how much I love watching them encourage and support each other :D

And after all of that work, yes it is a bit of a clean up process for me LOL, but I wouldn't change a thing. 

Happy designing to you!

Christie