Crap -- I mean Grab -- Bags

I have a dollar store problem.

I like them.

A lot.

I go on my lunch hour, all sneaky like, like I'm hiding something. Which I suppose I am, except when I'm here exploiting my issue on my blog.

Between the 99 Cent store and the Dollar Tree, I've bought so many things for our party favor bags (that we're handing out at our housewarming party because we're the cutest!!) that my roommate is soon going to judge me.

...More than she might already be doing.

Packets of tissue. Noise makers. Candy. Gum. Spinny tops! What are my party guests going to do with a spinny top?! Nothing! But they're getting one in their party favor bag!

Also.

Abby and I have been decorating paper lunch sacks to make our very own party favor bags. We've been using markers, crayons, stickers, and cutting out pictures from magazines and gluing them on to the bags.

[Photos courtesy of the best roomie ever.]

 Each one is one of a kind. Here's one Abs made:

Now you're wishing you lived in LA and could come to this party, are you not?

I've always loved party favor bags.

I enjoyed filling them up when I had my birthday parties as a kid. My parents would show me how to assemble one and I would fill the rest.

Then as I got older the party favors became a thing to fill a void. That may sound dramatic, but I have never been one to take a good party lightly.

As I reached a certain age, I began to get jealous of the other birthday girls and boys in town. Whenever a classmate or a friend would have a birthday party, I suddenly was upset that I wouldn't get any presents.

What's worse -- I had to go sit and watch my friends open their presents.

This was also around the time in life that I started to get a sense of what being a "good" person was all about, so I felt this aggravating nudging that when I watched my friends open their presents, I should do so with a gracious smile on my face.

Yuck.

Anyway, it was the party favors! that got me out of my little grump slump regarding the gift issue.

I realized at some point that I wasn't leaving these parties empty handed. I was gettin' little baggies full of junk!

I continue to be a sucker for cheap and free stuff in my adult life. And I figure: who says the party favor fad needs to stop just because we're all (sort of) growing up?

Hence the recent late (read: 9 p.m.) nights with the roomie, slapping glue onto paper bags and chuckling at our creativity for design. We are pretty clever, though, really.

So all this to say that I think party favors make the world a better place, and I can't wait to hand them out next weekend to our family and friends.

Maybe Office Max will help us hand them out. ;)

All in all we're set to have about 40 bags, but the crazy junk-loving, dollar store-prowling me wonders if that will be enough...Hmmmmmm.