Frugal Birthday Treat

Every year at my child's school, parents arrive on their child's birthday with a treat for the kid's class. Our school has a strict no homemade food allowed policy (only store bought), thus this means parents arrive at the school carrying a box of 24 cupcakes that cost approx $18.00 to hand out to little Johnny or Suzy's classmate. This cost is on top of the birthday party that the family is throwing for little Johnny and Suzy - you can see how this can quickly add up. However you don't want your little Johnny or Suzy to be the only child who does not have anything special to hand out to the class on his or her birthday.
So I was thinking "This is crazy!", "I don't want to spend approx $20 for kids to eat a cupcake for my daughters birthday - when half of them are coming to her birthday party and will have a piece of her birthday cake then. So I think I came up with a cute, frugal solution. I went to the store and bought 3 pieces of scrapbook paper approx $3.00, 2 of them were solid black, 1 of them were cute decorated bday paper. I cut the 2 solid black pieces of papers into squares. Then because this was for a daughter's day, I took pink thread and sewed the 2 pieces together leaving an opening at the top(I used my sewing machine to sew them together) Basically a pocket. Then I cut the cute decorated paper into a little smaller square than the pockets turned out to be. I then glued the cute (slightly more expensive paper) onto the front of the pockets. Now to glam it up a bit: I glued on little black bows to the front top side of the pocket. (Now I had this black ribbon already at home, I know, you hate it when someone says this, but it's true. However this inexpensive, thin black ribbon is sold for .50 cents at Walmart). I had cute little pink shiny stickers that I put in the middle of the bows. (I did run out 1/2 way thru - so I did not sweat it, some had the sparkle others did not).

Then I went to the store and purchased 3 packages of mini Hershey candy bars. (Dollar General sales a package for $1.00) then I placed a candy bar into each pocket. Filled the basket with the pocket of goodies and off to school I went to deliver my daughters treat for her class in honor of her birthday. (The picture at the top of this post shows the basket filled with the little pocket treats) The teacher really loved this idea because she did not have the mess of the icing from all the cupcakes to pickup. So in the end my daughter got to be the center of attention handing out her special treat for her birthday,and all I had spent was approx $6.00 - whew!! Kept my budget, and my reputation as a loving mother. I luv it, when it all comes together! Hope this helps another mother looking for some alternatives to the "cupcake" game.