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| Finished Star and Bell |
Today I put some edge candy on the star and finished the bell. I might add some sort of ribbon to the top of the bell. But I’ll wait until I get it put on the tree to see if it needs it.
Category Archives: Something Sweet
Candy Day 4
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| almost finished star |
This week I’m focusing on the other ornaments. I’ve decided to let the heads dry a few more days. I’m going to try to get this weeks projects done asap and then go back to catch up last weeks stuff. Today’s goal was the bell and the star. I got the bell painted but that was it. The star is almost done but not quite. It needs some border candies around the edge to finish things off. I also unwrapped a bunch of hard tootsie rolls that I’m going to use on the Yule log.
Candy Day 3
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| head and hands for Mary, Angel, Elf, Kris Kringle, Three Wisemen plus their gifts |
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| manger and baby Jesus |
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| my other try at a manger |
With the addition of a new 8 week old puppy into our household not too much has gotten done this week. But with Bill home today I got some stuff done. Not near what I had planned but progress is progress. I made all the heads etc. for all the people and animals. They are made from rolled fondant. I also made the gifts the wisemen will hold to make sure the hands worked with them. So now they need to dry and then I’ll be able to handle them safely to make the rest of the body and attach everything together. I didn’t much like the manger I made earlier so I made another one.
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| soon to be an ice skatr |
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| reindeer parts and gingerbread man |
The green candy came for the tree so I played around a bit and put a little bit around one of the lights. I realized that I’ll need to wrap something around the base of the lights because I didn’t get them sunk into the tree structure far enough for the tree candy to hide them. But I really like the tree candy. I think it is going to look great.
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| some of the candy on the trre |
Candy Day 2
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| rock candy on Christmas light |
Today I got the lights covered with candy. I thought I was going to use gum drops from the stash of candy I got from Kathryn but it didn’t look like I had enough and they are hard and difficult to work. So I experimented with other candy and decided to use crushed up rock candy. It is good because it transmits the light well. It kind of adds some sparkle in the way it diffracts the light. It took over four hours to get the lights done so that is all I got done today.
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| rock candy lights |
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| tree with finished lights |
Candy Day 1
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| tree trunk cover with tootsie rolls |
Today I actually started gluing candy onto the structure. It wasn’t much but it is a start. It has been so long since I worked with candy that I’m a little tentative so I started with something simple – the trunk of the tree. It isn’t very visible and I knew that I wanted to cover it with tootsie rolls. So it was a good place to start.
Construction Day 9
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| finished under tree structure |
Today concluded the construction phase of this project! I got the rest of the painting done which finishes my goal for the week. I hope to take some time tomorrow to move ahead on next weeks goal. It is kind of a big milestone to be ready to start putting candy on the structure. So far I’ve enjoyed this project and I’m kind of excited to see how it turns out. I hope it is my best yet.
Construction Day 8
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| My workspace |
Didn’t get everything done today I had hoped. But I spent some time getting my workspace set up inside because we had a major change in the weather and it was very cold outside. So I’ve moved the tree inside where I finished painting it. The next step was to paint the objects under the tree but then I realized that I needed to decide what color they should be. In order to decide on the color I needed to look at my candy stash and figure out what I had that would work for each object. That takes time and I didn’t get very far. It is an important step in the long run.
I got an email from the candy company to day telling me that they only have 25 lbs of the green candy and did I want them to just send what they had. I said that was fine and I got notification a while later that the candy had been shipped.
Some other exciting but challenging news today. We will be getting a new puppy to raise for Guide Dogs for the Blind next week. We thought we were going to wait until November to get our next puppy but they have one ready for us now and we decided that would be o.k. I hope she is a good puppy and I can find good ways to work on this project while she is still very young.
Construction Day 7
I shaped the rest of the support structures for under the tree today. Plus I got more green paint and blades for my xacto knife which will come in handy later when I need to cut candy. I also ordered almost 30 lbs of green licorice pastilles. I hope I got enough. I tried to calculate how much I would need but the number I came up with was way more than I can spend and didn’t take into account all the other stuff that will be on the tree. I think I can make it work out. While I was shaping the support for Mary and Jesus I went ahead and did some for the ornaments on the tree too. So I should have the bulk of the really messy Styrofoam work done now. I meant to take a photo at this stage but it didn’t get done. Tomorrow I’m planning to paint all the under-tree stuff so I should be able to get a photo of it than. That will complete my tasks for the week. Next week is kind of exciting because I get to actually start working with the candy!
Construction Day 6
Nice change of pace today. I worked on structure for the stuff going under the tree. I cut some fabric for the quilted tree skirt, re-sized a cardboard box for the unwrapped gift, made some more gift boxes, decided the size of Mary and Jesus, and shaped a yule log out of Styrofoam. I also shaped the tree stand. This probably won’t show but I think it will help everything to look right. It was good to figure out what is going under the tree. Tomorrow I plan to shape the jacket (with a zipper) that goes into the open box and shape any substructure I need for Mary and Jesus. Then when I get everything painted on Thursday I should be ready to start putting candy on things next week.
Some good news today too. The check came from Jordan River. Yeah! I really didn’t want to have to call and see why it was taking so long. I think I’ll order the green candy for the tree tomorrow too.
Construction Day 5
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| tree structure with lights and most of the green paint |
My goal this morning was to get the lights on the tree, get the tree painted and pick up some supplies. I did darn close to getting that all done. First I picked up supplies (hot glue, rolled fondant and paint). Then this afternoon a spent 2 hours putting the lights on the tree and then painting it. Painting was much slower than I thought because of the rough texture I put on the surface. The only flaw was that I ran out of green paint! I’m close but I didn’t quite get it all done. But not bad to come so close to my goal. I had to move into the garage soon after I started painting because it started to rain.
telling family tales 