Creative Packaging for Homemade Gifts (Bath Powder)

This post is from when I was creating other bath products (here) with my grand daughter Alybeth. So this is rather late, as I just found the photos I thought were lost, but hopefully it can be useful later on.

We made our own bath powder allowing the fragrances to set for a week before packaging.

As far as containers go, they needed to be economical for Alybeth to give them as gifts for family and friends, so we tried to buy items that would keep the cost range at around $5.00.

Price wise these are a very good start. 

I bought several sets of salt and pepper shakers for a $1.00 a set at a discount store.

This design seems to disguise the fact that it is a salt shaker and looks cute as well.

The items used to make the snowman powder container in the previous photo are these:

 A salt shaker, a snowman face and buttons printed on card stock and formed into a sleeve to fit around the shaker.  The hat was made using a baby sock. To hold the hat in place and also section off the hat's shape clear hair bands were used. The bell is attached with jewelry findings. The scarf is just striped tee shirt material with the ends cut into fringe.

Using a glue gun to attach ribbons, stickers, and charms, here are a few more designs options for more elegant yet still price conforming containers.

It's important to keep the powder from getting away before it gets to it's destination so

 a decorative envelope seal was used to cover the holes. 

On the ones below a seal or a small piece of tape was added to the rim before the top was screwed on.

For a container with a more elegant look, I embellished a decorative glass salt shaker with rhinestone trim and ribbon. It looks great on it's own as well. 

 I bought this set at a discount store, so using just one as a gift will still be slightly over $5.00, but to be fair I already had the ribbon and rhinestone trim on hand from previous crafts. 

 We made bath powders in many different scents so I decided to use the leftover bits by pouring 

them into these mini shakers and packaging them together as samplers.

  I bought these shakers as a set of 12 for about $7.50 at a discount store. A package of four is well under the $5.00 limit.

Note: Take the tops off and cover with a piece of tape to keep the powder from getting out, replacing the tops of course.

This is the only photo I found of the penguin designs we did. 

The smaller penguin is again a salt shaker from the double pack at a discount store. The larger penguin design printout is covering a foaming hand soap container. We actually made our own soap and added a gingerbread type fragrance.

♥ Happy Decorating ♥

Creative Packaging for Homemade Gifts (Bath Salts)

With the Holidays coming on fast and furious my dining room looks like a craft store exploded in it. Right now my table, the floor, and almost every other flat surface is covered in ribbons, beads, glitter, bath powder and salts as I try to make ornaments with my daughter Kim, and figure out different gift packaging ideas for homemade bath and body products at the same time.

I'm showing just a few options I've started for packaging homemade bath salts.  I'll be working with one of my grand daughters at a later date helping her to make gifts, and wanted some prototypes finished for her to see.

My main goal was trying to keep costs down, but still have them look nice rather than tacky and cheap. Hopefully I accomplished that.

These came in for under $5.00 each except where noted.

As a disclaimer I will say I am a crafter, make that with a capital "C". I have decades (ask my kids) worth of ribbons, trims, flowers and what-not left over from other projects so it's hard to accurately add in the cost of all of those things I might have used. Just remember discount and dollar type stores as well as coupons are your friends.

My version of a bath cupcake.

This small gift only has enough bath salts for a single use, but the battery operated tea light (not visible here) will make it a useful gift later on. The monogram letter style I had initially (no pun intended) wanted to use was more expensive (just the one letter) than the candle holder, so I went with this one instead. It was part of a whole alphabet set with duplicates of some letters.

Here are the components. 

A bath glove, battery operated votive candle and holder, bath salts, a ribbon, and a pretty snowflake sticker.

The bath salts are in a baggie I twist tied to close. The excess baggie was cut short and covered with a decorative envelope seal. The bath glove (shown flat here) was rolled up to form a rose around the tea light. I also added a decorative monogram sticker (which I forgot to add to the photo) to the glass votive.

This is an upscale version using a nicer tea light holder. It still has a single portion of bath salts, along with a battery operated tea light wrapped inside the rolled rose body glove. The flowered jewelry pin adds a nice touch and becomes an added gift. The top hat candle holder was $3.00 and the pin cost about $4.00 at a discount store, so this will be higher than the $5.00 I was going for. 

Here's an even less expensive way to go using the items shown in the picture below.

As you can see the components here are just a nut cup, a bath glove, a single portion bag of bath salts, a decorative paper sleeve to go around the nut cup and a reindeer button. This paper sleeve is just one of my old cupcake collar designs, but Christmas themed scrap-booking paper would work too.

This one was inspired by the cocoa cone. The bath salts are placed in a separate sealed disposable decorating bag and the excess bag trimmed short. This is placed into a second bag adding the bath pouf on top. The whole thing is tied with a ribbon and ornament/tag. The sticker on the front is an envelope seal. 

A Dollar Tree Store find with added trim, ribbon and a snowflake sticker.

This holds about 3 portions of bath salts. A snowflake pin could be added to the ribbon instead of the sticker for an added little gift if you don't mind upping the cost.

I've seen variations of this idea all over the place. 

This is made using a plastic soda fountain glass, homemade bath salts, a bath pouf, Christmas straw, bell, ribbon and sticker. I sealed the salts inside a baggie before adding the bath pouf.

I have also seen many different design versions of this one as well. A plastic Christmas ornament filled with bath salts. I added ribbon and a decorative snowflake sticker. Once all the salt is gone, it can be filled with fake snow and hung on the tree. 

This one will need to be packaged with the cap upright as I couldn't find a way to get a really tight seal due to the way that prong-hanger-tension-thingie is going through the cap. 

For the Princess on your list. 

Without the bath salts and pouf this would work for an actual cupcake as well.

The components for this are a small domed covered drinking cup, bagged bath salts, a bath pouf, 2 curly ribbon hair clips, a paper party crown and a plastic party favor ring. 

That's it so far, and forgive me for being away for so long.

♥ Happy Decorating ♥