DIY Hot Cocoa Cones

*This was originally posted over here as a wedding favor, but it's so gosh-darn cute, cheap, and easy to make that it'd be perfect for a stocking stuffer or a little Christmas gift. This would also be perfect with a cider, tea, homemade hot chocolate mix, or even powdered lemonade in the summer.


We had a hard time justifying the cost of including favors at our wedding. Simply put, favors can be really, really expensive for something that typically gets thrown away. I wanted something that would fit with our wedding and that would actually be (hopefully) used after our guests went home.

After searching and searching, I finally found these Hot Cocoa Vials and fell in love.

Everything was perfect until I priced everything out for the above DIY favor and found they'd cost around $1 per favor, which would come out to around $150 and that's way more than we wanted to spend...so the search continued. 

Then I found Hot Cocoa Cones...

source

PERFECT! I found several different tutorials on how to make them, so I set out to make our own.

My mom and I made our favors for less than $.40 each and in under 10 steps:

 

Cast of Characters (to make 150 cones) *obviously, make some changes if you don't want make that many hot cocoa cones!

(3) 100, 12" Disposable Decorating Bags (bought these from Michaels using their 40 and 60% off coupons - regularly $19.99)
(2) Nesquick chocolate powder (we got ours from Costco for around $6)
(2) 75 teeny, tiny hair ties ($5)
(4) Marshmallows (from Walmart, $1 each)
Yarn (Michaels for $2.50)
Favor tags
Total spent: (around) $56. We made 150, so they came out to $.37 each!

  Step 1: Cut decorating bags to around 6.5"

Step 2: Fill bag with 2 tablespoons (or whatever your chocolate powder suggests) with chocolate*:

Step 3: Use the teeny, tiny hair tie to close off the chocolate. (You may need to cut the access bag after tying it off. The picture below, for example, should be cut so there's just about a 1/2 inch of bag showing after the hair tie.)

Step 4: Insert chocolate filled cone into another decorating bag; make sure seams line up.

Step 5: Scoop out a 1/4 cup of marshmallows and poor into decorating bag on top of the chocolate cone.

Step 6: Tie a piece of ribbon, yarn, or string above the marshmallows. You need to make this tight so the marshmallows don't dry out. I tied it into two knots:

Step 7: After string is secure around bag, add your favor tag and tie it into a pretty bow. (I simply created one in a Word document, but you could easily just add a gift tag!)

Step 8: Repeat as many times as necessary

And there you have it, a quick, easy, and cheap DIY favor or Christmas gift!