Fall Cookie Basket

My boss gave me an unbelievable task: take $50 and get us 7 centerpieces, name tags, three gift bags and place cards for the holiday party for the employees. Um... what?

But, since I'm crafty, and also thrify, I realized how cheap it would be to make cookie baskets!

I used my usual sugar cookie recipe. Pretty simple. Stuck a stick in them when still warm and sat down ant thought.

I wanted to do the whole veins in a leaf type thing but the first one I made was... kindergarten scribble.

So instead I covered them in colored royal icing and then the same color sugar. Dry, wrap, done. :)

Onto the baskets, if you've never made a cookie basket, they're really simple. All you need are a few simple things:

Baskets
Zip bags
Rice
Floral foam blocks
Tissue paper
Cookies on a stick!

I put three cups of UNCOOKED rice in a zip bag and in the bottom of the basket.

Then I cut a foam block (they look like bricks and may need to be cut to size) and squeeze it into the basket. Since the baskets I got taper at the bottom this was easy. If your baskets don't taper you can use some ribbon, stick it through the bottom of the basket, wrap it around the rice and foam, back down out of the bottom of the basket and tie a knot under the basket... did that make sense?!

Anywho, stick in 3 or 4 pieces of tissue paper and stick the cookies into the foam (through the tissue too) and voila! Cookie baskets! 

I guess I didn't get the greatest pic but there are large and small leaves in red, orange and yellow. I know you get the idea! 

We put them on all the tables and then raffled them off at the end of the dinner. Most of the kids who won them didn't get to take them home though... they ate them with their bowling teams!!! Too cute, and yummy!

Oh, and if you're wondering, between cookie sticks, 7 baskets, foam, rice and tissue (I had all the baking ingredients and baggies) it only cost $29 and some of my time. :)