Make Your Own Party Picks
Making your own party picks is easy, inexpensive and fun!
- Start with regular wooden or plastic toothpicks.
- Stick the top end through olives, veggies, grapes, little melon balls, mini marshmallows. etc.
- Stick the other end into a cheese cube, pineapple chunk, or any small tidbit that looks nice, stays in place, and tastes good with the food on the other end of the toothpick!
- Place a couple of small dishes or cups on the table for disposal of toothpicks. Put one or two in so people know what they're for! (If you can find a little receptacle that's shaped like a trash can, so much the better - people won't mistake the used toothpicks for clean ones. If not, you could just drop an olive pit in the used toothpick dish...that'll keep people from accidentally reusing them!)
For larger party picks, use bamboo, plastic or metal skewers.
Even if the appetizer cannot be picked up with the toothpick, it can still be used as a decoration.
Another way to decorate toothpicks is with flags.
Print out some flags related to your party theme, and glue them to toothpicks for your appetizers. Use non-toxic glue just to be safe.
Use card stock for sturdier flags; or make your flags double-sided on regular paper, whether or not the back is printed. To do this, cut out a rectangle equal in size to the flag, just to the left of it, so it's double-wide, plus a little extra to go around the toothpick. Fold it around the toothpick to make sure it's just right, cut additional flags to match, then glue them to the toothpics.
If you do print the back, be sure to flip the image horizontally for the back side. If you don't, when you fold the images back to back, and look through the paper, the images won't be lined up the same, and if light shines through, it won't look as nice.
To purchase snazzy party picks, drink charms, swizzle sticks and stirrers, visit PlumParty.com.