Candy Re-Purposed

Candy, summer can be filled with candy, depending on how many or which parades you go to.  We don't really eat a lot of candy in our house, and so in the end I usually dump about half of the candy we got; usually right before Christmas, before we get more candy.  

One day I was having a play date with a friend and we got to talking about the candy we got from the recent parade.  She had a great idea, shortly after getting the candy she sorts it.  

First she tosses all the candy that didn't make it, the ones that fell in the water, or melted, or got smushed.  Plus as she's putting aside candy, she always makes sure she uses the better ones, because they are going to last longer.   

Next, she pulls out those dum dum suckers, you know the ones that you always get a bunch of, and saves them for her kids' Valentine's Day parties at school.  She just makes sure she knows about how many stuents are in the class and that's how many she saves.  The suckers make great little butterflies, with some paper attached.  I found this tutorial on Pinterest: Skip to my Lou

Here are some other sucker Valentine's options too: 

Owl Valentine

Mustache/Lips Valentine

Super-Hero Valentine

Then, she grabs the carmel squares.  She told me they are great to add to your chocolate chip cookie recipe.  I haven't tried that yet, but it's on my list, I mean carmel and chocolate...YUM!! 

Finally, she takes the rest of the candy and keeps what she wants to have for her family.  Then the rest gets saved for Halloween.  That way, she only has to buy one bag of candy and mix it in with the parade candy she set aside and she has enough candy to pass out at Halloween. 

Now, maybe some of these things aren't up your alley, or maybe you'd rather just pitch the candy than have any of it in your house, totally your choice.  But, if you are looking for ways to make that candy go a little farther without having to eat it, or you need ways to save on those Valentine's candies or Halloween night then hopefully this helped.  

What are ways to save that candy?  I thought about freezing ours in smaller portions to then grab out later on, but not sure how candy freezes?  Any thoughts?  Maybe I'll have to do some experimenting.