Tag Archives: candy

December 11, 2011 · 10:17 pm

Easy Christmas Candy Houses

Easy Candy Houses

 
 

Making Candy Houses. Macy age 6

 

Candy House Scene

 
 
 

For years we have made candy houses for a christmas craft and decoration.  Just like traditional gingerbread houses ours are decorated with candy, cookies and royal icing but I dont have to sweat building the structure.  Our candy houses are built with a sturdy cardboard box base. Juice boxes, milk cartons, cake boxes and other small boxes are perfect to use as long as the cardboard is not too thin because it has to hold alot of weight from the icing and candy.  Its a super easy craft that lets kids jump right in and build their Sugarplum Dream House without fear of the house breaking.  And most importantly the sky is the limit when you are using cardboard….every year we do a skyscraper! 

 
 

Candy house villages

 

Candy houses arranged on a cakeplate

Pepermint cottages

 

The only tricky part of this craft is the getting the correct consistently with the royal icing.  You need it to be thick and full of meringue powder to dry quickly holding the candy pieces in place.  I work the boxes on their side, one side at a time, so there is some drying time involved before you can complete one house.  This craft will take a few hours.  We usually build entire villages and display them as sets on separate cake boards or I arrange them on cake plates. 

 
 

Brooklyn Candy Houses

 

Candy House Party

 
 

We have hosted Candy House Parties and asked that everyone bring 2 bags of candy and a few boxes.  The more variety the more creative you can be, but some candys are a must.  Definately pick up M&M’s, pepermints, gumdrops, Neco waffers and graham crackers.  Creating additional trees from gumdrop covered styrofoam cones or paper can turn a few houses into a village scene.  Dont forget the paths, mailboxes, lamp posts and ponds and add Schleich animals or Lego men to inhabit the village.  My favorite part of this craft is it is one that I let go of my perfectionist tendency and just let the kids create, our houses never look like a storybook gingerbread house and I dont mind a bit because its candy and no matter how they turn out they always look colorful and fun.

Dont miss my favorite Winter Candy Craft, Sugar Cube Igloos here.

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June 8, 2011 · 7:38 pm

Hawaiian Birthday Party

Aloha Macy!

Its HOT!  Its summer here in the city and as we begin planning Macy’s 9th birthday party I thought it would be a great time to post her 8th birthday party, Aloha! A Luau Pool Party.  I bet there is alot of people planing a luau party this time of year, its the perfect summer theme and I hope you find ours inspiring!  We had her party at our community pool and it was a such beautiful venue that it didnt take much to decorate.

Macy's 8th Birthday Celebration

Hawaiian Party Table

There are a few consistent elements in Macy’s birthday parties, I always make the cake and the invitations are handmade.  This year was no exception,  hand cut hibiscus flowers were the front of the invites and the party info was on a medallion on the back. In her earlier years, our parties included a lot of  friends and family & I had to make about 5o invites.  But now that she’s older and we dont live near friends and family anymore her party guests are school friends and total less than 20 guests.  This years cake was a Hula Girl Barbie and she was so easy to make!  (I’ll talk more on her in a future SugarCoated post)

Luau Party Invataion

Hula Girl Barbie Cake

When it comes to buying party supplies, there are a lot of Luau and Hawaiian themes to choose from.  I tried to keep ours simple and I was very careful to not go overboard or cheesy. Lots of color is a given when you are do a luau, but since this was a girl’s party it was easy to add in more pink and orange to give it a focus. A few plain white tablecloths were a great investment I made a few years back and this was another party that I was glad we were able to use them.  The grass table skirt was safety pined to it and because it was cloth I didnt have to worry about the weight of it tearing a plastic tablecloth.  The party and favors included a lei and hibiscus hair clip and a flower printed tote to stuff with candy & treats from the pull string (the only kind I do) pink flamingo pinata. Cool treats like fresh fruit served in a half pineapple and Hawaiian Punch in a coconut shell cup was all that was needed to entertain these girls.  I could hardly keep them at the table long enough to even sing happy birthday, because they were very anxious to get in the pool and just have fun.

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May 27, 2011 · 12:05 pm

Hudson’s Elmo Cake

Elmo First Birthday Cake

I have such spoiled little mice!  They often get two fabulous birthday cakes each year.  Its because their birthday parties and their actually birthday don’t always fall on the same day.  If this happens, we still celebrate on their birthday even if it’s just for us.

Elmo First Birthday Cake

 

The day Hudson turned one we celebrated his birthday at home, just us, his big birthday party  with friends and family happened a few weeks later ( and 900 miles away ) and it was an entirely different theme, “Arctic ONEderland”.    Hudson loves Elmo and I wanted to make him happy for his first cake.  Elmo’s fur was easy to create by piping out a thinned squiggly line of icing in a furry pattern.  But before I got going with that I had to make a few pieces of his face in fondant.  It was super important to me to get the shape of his eyes and nose perfect or he would look like a knock-off.  I often shy away from doing well known characters if I don’t think I can make them exact.  What made this Elmo more special was the 3D feeling of his eyes and nose coming forward and his mouth beneath the fur piping.  As I’ve said before when I do cakes that are just for us at home I usually do some experimenting. Sometimes I like to color my cakes as a surprise when they are cut & served. (you can see my white snow flake cake in red velvet in a future post)  I used a white cake mix and mixed a few of my blue gels to see if I could get an exact shade of blue that I use in his room.  It worked perfectly, but Hudson wasnt worried about it either way.  He was very excited to dig his hands in that yummy Elmo, no matter the color inside.

Inside the Elmo Cake

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May 4, 2011 · 6:31 pm

Hudson’s First Celebration

Hudson gets his first Celebration!

Hudson turned one in February.  I initially decided that he would have the same circus theme as Macy’s first birthday, “Under the Big Top”.  But Macy made the suggestion to do a winter theme with animals instead, so “Arctic ONEderland” was conceived!  I choose the color palette: black, white, blue and orange first, then  I created the Arctic Friends characters: penguin and polar bear in an acrylic painting to make the theme completely original.   Inspired by the new trendy and lavish dessert tables, I focused with much excitement on creating my first one in that style. I made sketches for the table layout, sourced colored candy, made all the treats and designed printables in photoshop to unite the colors and characters.  Keeping the background and vessels white was perfect for the winter theme and simplified the task of finding and matching pieces during set up.  And I have to add that I packed up the entire collection and flew 900 miles to set it up!

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