Every year, our friends host a spectacular Patriotic Party for the Fourth of July, but they won’t let us bring a thing. In fact, they threaten to send guests home if they show up with anything other than chairs. Which is wonderful and generous of them, but one wants to do something. So this year I thought it would be fun to make Firecracker Favors for the dozens of kids who will be running around at the party. I wish I could take credit for this clever idea, but the creative folks over at Family Fun magazine are the ones to thank.

You can find the instructions for making Firecracker Favors here. It was surprisingly difficult to find Life Savers candy in bulk. I needed about 50 rolls and was surprised that Target and Cub didn’t carry packages of them. I ended up buying the Life Savers at Sam’s Club. If you don’t need quite so many, you can buy individual rolls at a grocery or drug store. I found the colored electrical tape at Office Max and the foil party picks at Michaels.

For assembly, you just have to slide the wrapper off the roll of Life Savers, wrap different colored strips of electrical tape around the roll, snip them off, and then stick a party pick in the middle of the roll. Easy peasy. Just keep in mind that the foil picks are sharp so children should handle them carefully. Have fun!