Door Hanger Craft

Tonight we decided to crash the Fire Dept. meeting. We showed up about 30 minutes early so we could catch them standing around chatting before the meeting started.

Anybody that has sold cookies (competitively), has some in the freezer when the next cookie season rolls around. Well, I had 2 cases left. I got stuck with a 10 box sale plus the ones I ordered for myself -and for this year's taste test. What can I say, after we had our fill I blocked them out forgot about them! So I gave a few boxes away to neighbors and friends to make room for this year's. And we thought maybe if we gave out cookie samples we might have better sales this year :)

But - passing around a box of cookies to a group of people is unappealing to me and possibly even a little distasteful...

So this is how we served 'em up, and I think it's pretty cool even if I do say so myself.

Step 1. Download your council's door hanger from their cookie page. They're all different depending on what kinds of cookies they are selling this year. (Check out all of their cookie selling tools while you're there.)

Step 2. Go to www.pdfescape.com and fill it out for free on their site (I messed up 2 door hangers trying to fit my handwritten email address on those cards before I just gave up!)

Step 3. Trim your cards and carefully crease then fold the card like this:

Step 4. Put your Girl Scout to work to put a cookie in small plastic snack bags (or small craft bags). Insert the filled bag like I've shown below and staple. Make sure to staple like a matchbook.

Easy peasy. At first I thought I could cut these up and staple them like snack toppers, but I think the matchbook setup is way better because the order form just folds out.

These door hangers were formated perfectly to fold them this way. I printed up extra to punch holes in the top and use them for their original purpose, but using them for sample packs was a very happy situation for my Little Brownie. We put Toffee-tastic in half and Rah-Rah Raisin in the rest. (I marked them with a small "T" or "R" so I could look slick when people asked for a certain kind.) Those are the flavors that people I've spoken to ask me to describe. Then people give you the hairy-eye when you describe them like they are afraid to try them out anyway :( This was a no-commitment solution for them.

My daughter handed these out and got orders from all but 2 of the guys there, but they still had the order form and our contact info so they could order later. (They admitted that they wanted to ask their wives which kinds to get.) Not one of them refused the sample. I love handing out samples anyway, I really think they make a difference. I call them "gateway cookies", and even went so far as to bring thin mint brownies to our cookie booth last year. I had printed up the recipe cards from the Little Brownie Baker website and put them on the table with the brownie samples.

In case anyone is wondering, each order tonight included at least one box of one or both of the sample flavors.

And I have room in my freezer for this years cookies. Win/win!

On to the next adventure - Good luck and Happy cookie sales, my friends!