Ahoy Mateys! My friend was having a baby shower and I wanted to help, so they gave me the task of making the chocolate wrappers. Here I propose two methods of the creating them: the easy way and the hard way. I of course chose the hard way. Now you would think it’s because I’m so “hard core”, but in reality it’s because my brain tends to develop complex methods first, that don’t seem that complicated at the time. When you see the end result though it usually makes it all worth it.

Here’s what you’ll need (the hard way):

• Hersey’s chocolate nuggets (purchase bags according to need)
• Glossy Photo Paper (I bought a pack with 8 sheets from the dollar store)
• Scissors
• Kraft Glue
• Ruler
• Photo editing program
• Printer with scanning capabilities
• Sketchpad w/pencil or tablet

The shower had a nautical theme and they wanted me to design a cute baby pirate. Sorry Blackbeard. Here are the sketches.

Once one baby swashbuckler was chosen, I opened a bag of nuggets removed the paper label from a chocolate and measured it with the ruler. With my dimensions for the wrapper, I set up a template in Illustrator, then scanned my drawing. In Illustrator I made a background for the label using colors from the shower theme, illustrated my baby pirate, and placed the words Ahoy it’s a boy on either side of the design. If you’re not sure about placement just refer to the original paper label. I also made a whale version based on a whale in their decorations.

Note: If sketching isn’t your thing try searching here for clip art options.

Fit as many of the labels as possible on one page. Find your printer’s settings and make the adjustments so it prints at it’s best setting on glossy photo paper. Print as many sheets as needed and while you wait remove the paper labels from the nuggets, taking care not to open the wrapper. Cut out your freshly printed labels and glue onto the chocolates with kraft glue. The least amount of glue the better. Mine had a control nozzle, if yours doesn’t consider pouring a little out at a time and applying it to the label with tiny cheap paint brush. Hold glued section together for about 20 seconds and put aside to dry completely.

Voila! Your custom chocolate nuggets are complete. So what was so hard about that? Well it is the most time consuming method and in my case, I found out that my printer didn’t like photo paper, no matter what setting I tried. Printing took hours instead of minutes as a finagled with the device.

The easy way, here’s what you’ll need

• Hersey’s chocolate nuggets (purchase bags according to need)
• Self-sticking address labels
• Ruler
• Photo editing program or Microsoft Word
• Printer with scanning capabilities
• Sketchpad w/pencil or tablet

Sketch your design. Scan it. Measure the original label on the chocolate nugget. Set up your template. If using Microsoft Word (I don’t really recommend it for creating graphics) there should be a way to load a template based on your label type. Go forth with your design and apply it to the template. Print your custom labels. Carefully strip away the original labels on the nuggets, then peel and stick the new ones on. Much simpler right? The downside: when compared to one created with glossy thicker photo paper it will seem lower in quality.

At the shower guests thought that we had bought the chocolates that way. I also made food labels for the table using hard colored paper (my printer didn’t like that either). I designed a whale on one side and printed out a bunch of shells on another sheet of hard paper to glue on the back for support. seen below.