DIY Trick or Treat Bag! A quick and easy idea to compliment your child's Halloween costume!

I teamed up with Netflix and the #StreamTeam for this post. 

Halloween is almost here! This will be my little guy's third Halloween (he's just over two years old), but this will be his FIRST time trick-or-treating! I think he's finally old enough to understand the concept and I couldn't be more excited to load him in our wagon and cruise around our neighborhood on Halloween night. Since my toddler is OBSESSED with trains lately, I knew I wanted to tie that into his costume, so when I saw an adorable train conductor costume on Amazon I snatched it right up! It was perfect, but I still needed a treat bag for him. Unfortunately, the pillow cases we used as kids just don't cut it nowadays, so I decided to DIY a little trick or treat bag for him to compliment his costume.

First things first, you'll need to gather your supplies. You'll need a tote bag (or you could even do a pillow case if you're feeling nostalgic) and iron-on fabric transfer sheets. I bought a package of 6 transfers for about $10 at Staples, but they're pretty widely available at craft stores and some large big box stores. I had this reusable tote bag on hand already since I found it on clearance a while back for $2.

Now onto the design! I decided to go with a Thomas the Train theme since my little guy will be a conductor, but you could customize this type of craft to any costume. Simply search for "free printable" online and save the file or image to your computer. I found this adorable image of Thomas the Train over at Coloring Kids and knew it would be perfect, but I needed to resize it larger. So, I logged onto PicMonkey (it's easy, trust me!), and saved the file as a PNG, then printed it at 150% (use PNG instead of JPEG so the image won't get too grainy as you enlarge it). In case you want to replicate mine, you can use my PNG of Thomas the Train HERE. I thought the image of Thomas was adorable, but wanted to jazz it up a little with the words "trick or treat". I also created this in PicMonkey and it's easy to do, just remember that when you're ironing on words that they need to be backwards (or mirror image). You can see what I mean HERE.

Simply print your image(s) onto your iron-on fabric transfer sheets and follow the directions on the packing. Within 5 minutes, I was finishing up my treat bag!

As I was creating his treat bag, I took the opportunity to talk to my little guy about Halloween and the act of trick or treating. The privilege of trick or treating is kind of unique, so I wasn't quite sure he was grasping it all. It's not everyday that I allow him to go door to door asking our neighbors for candy. I decided a great way to explain the holiday was to let Jake and Neverland Pirates do it! I hopped on Netflix to stream season 2, episode 15 - "Tricks, Treats, or Treasure" and it was exactly what he needed to see. Jake and his crew (who, by the way, my son ADORES) addressed the 3 golden rules of "trick or treasure" (as they called it): say "trick or treasure", don't take all the treasure, and say "thank you" once you receive a treasure. How perfect is that?! We're working on our manners, so this was so timely.

I think we're officially ready for Halloween!

What's your child going to be for Halloween this year? 
Is it their first time trick or treating?

Disclosure: I'm a member of the Netflix Stream Team. I've received a complimentary subscription to Netflix and a promotional item for participating. Amazon links are affiliate links. All opinions are my own.