Tag Archives: Candy Window Display

Candy Window: fondant faces update

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I finally figured out how to do the faces for the figures. Yeah! The first one I did was the Nutcracker and I didn’t like how he turned out but wasn’t sure what to do about it. He just looked old and not very happy. Bill suggested that the fondant was to bumpy. I was pretty sure this from the texture of the Styrofoam base.

Nutcracker

So taking that into account I tried again with man. I put some extra fondant down for his cheeks, forehead, chin and nose. This was to give the flat form of the Styrofoam more of the shape of a face. Then I rolled out a really thin sheet of the fondant (it is actually half fondant and half gum paste) and laid that over the whole face area. I smoothed that out and did a little adjustment to the shaping. Next step was to roll out a thicker layer of skin colored fondant and put that down over the other two layers.So far so good, I was feeling hopeful at this point.

man

After smoothing that out, I added his ears, a nose, cut in a mouth and poked holes through the fondant for his eyes. I widened the eye holes out a bit and put in two small balls of white fondant and patted that down into an eye shape. Next came two small green balls of fondant for his iris that I smooshed flat and finally two tiny black balls for the pupils, also smooshed flat. I like how he came out! I also got the woman done. There is hope after all! When I get the rest of the faces done, I will probably go back and do the Nutcracker over. But I’ll wait in case time gets critical and I can’t get it done.

woman

We had five kids from the Youth Council come on Saturday. The cars for the Ferris wheel are almost all covered on the outside with licorice. Bill got the pillow blocks for the Ferris wheel axle. The batteries for his drill died so he went to get some new ones and ended up with a new drill. Same price as buying two batters plus it included a charger. Then he got called back into work so he only made a little progress. Bill is thinking about taking a couple of days off this week so he can get some more time in on the Ferris wheel.

Candy Window: update

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I got all the figures shaped in the last week. Yeah! That is a big load off my shoulders. Bill got sick Friday night so no progress to report on the Ferris wheel structure. But the Youth Council made some progress on getting licorice on the cars. This week I hope to get the figures painted and their faces done. Fondant is the plan for the faces but I’m checking into gum paste that a cake decorating friend recommended.

(I forgot to take photos of the rest of the figures and can’t seem to find my camera at the moment. I’ll add photos soon.)

Candy Window Update: figures & Ferris wheel

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Bill with the spokes of the Ferris wheel

We made some good progress on the window last week. The cars for the Ferris wheel are ready for the candy. A couple of them have pull ‘n’ peel licorice on the back and bottom of the cars. I also got 6 of the 16 figures shaped and ready for paint. That feels really good. Bill also got the spokes of one side of the Ferris Wheel welded. That was super exciting to see happen. We put in a lot of hours on Saturday so it was good to see such progress. Our new puppy, Fable handled all the noise of cutting metal and welding like she’d be around it all her life. She is amazing.

Clara and the Nutcracker

woman and man

Santa and Mrs. Claus

Candy Window: update

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close up of the hardware on the Ferris wheel seats

This week we made good progress on the cars. Besides painting the cars, half of them have the hardware for attaching to the Ferris wheel welded in place. There is some touch up painting to do because I knocked one of the cars off the table and it cracked on the sides by the foot rest, so Bill reinforced all the cars there. Plus where the hardware attached needs some painting too.

partially done tree

We made some progress on the trees. The third tree is about half done. I need to get some more apple fruit slices to finish it and the fourth tree has some of the lights candy on it. The fifth tree is getting closer to being ready to glue together with most of the green gel material hole punched to let light through.

to scale figures

For me the part that feels the best to get done last week has to do with the figures. I decided on the scale of all the figures and sketched rough outlines to scale of paper. There are 16 figures, more than I’ve done and a different size than I’ve done before. The next step on the figures is to get Styrofoam rough cut to size for them. That is my big goal for this coming week.

Candy Window: Ferris wheel cars

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Bill with an assemble seat for the Ferris wheel

We made some good progress on the window last week, especially on Saturday. I got the cars cut out with a band saw on Tuesday and picked up Styrofoam scraps for all the figures. On Wednesday only one girl showed up form the youth council, so we worked on the trees. I was hoping to do some more prep for the cars but ran into a snag. Four youth came on Saturday and they continued worked on the trees. We now have two trees done and two more assembled and one of those with some candy on it. Just one last tree to assemble.

Bill worked hard all day and got all six cars for the Ferris wheel assembled! He needed my help from time to time to hold a part in place while he drilled holes or inserted screws. Bill also figured out how to get the threads cut in some of the metal rods. The first set of thread cutters where too cheap and that was the problem. With a quality die, it was simple to cut the threads. It felt good to make such progress. So much ahead and more hurdles to jump.

Today I picked up some green paint for the cars and green pull ‘n’ peel licorice. I thought I’d need to order the licorice but it turns out that Walmart had the best price for it so I picked up a dozen packages. We may need more. I’ll know better after we get one car covered. Now that they cars are built I can start working on all the figures. There are a bunch of them and that isn’t something that I can ask the kids to do. They can help cover them with candy once they are shaped but I’ve got to do the shaping for two reasons. Because I have the experience and so that all of them have a consistent look and feel. For me that is the next big hurdle. For Bill it is cutting the metal for the big Ferris wheel and getting it all welded together.

Candy Window Update: welding

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Bill getting ready to weld a part of the Ferris wheel

September is here and we are still working on the structure. It was so unrealistic to think it could be finished by now. The main strategy I’m following is making sure I have stuff for the Youth Council to do when they come.

One of the biggest tasks with the most unknowns is building the structure for the Ferris wheel. It is going to be metal except for the cars, they are out of plywood. So Bill has to do lots of welding. He took a shop class in high school and did a really nice job with the spot welder. We are borrowing a wire welder from one of the other candy window artist and Bill is getting the hang of that. He has run into a few hurdles and has found ways over or around some of them. One was how to hold the short metal bars in at a right angle to the washers that he wants to weld them to. The washers will be attached to the cars and the metal rods will connect to the Ferris wheel. Last week he learned about an inexpensive jig with magnets that is perfect for what he needs to do. Yeah! So today he worked getting all 12 of those welds done.

finished parts

I worked on prepping the plywood for the car pattern. I’m hoping we can use their band saw tomorrow to cut them out when we return the welder. We can only use the welder on weekends when their shop is closed. Bill helped me by cutting the 4’x8′ sheet of plywood into 16″x12″ pieces. We then screwed 6 of those together and spray mounted the paper patterns on top. We the table saw we cut all four sets of straight pieces and trimmed of the straight edges on the back and the side pieces. Yeah for progress.

Bill is still trying to figure out how to get the threads cut in the ends of some of the metal rods. He isn’t sure if the problem is too cheap of dies that her purchased to cut the threads or if it is something else.

The South Jordan Youth Council kids will be coming on Wednesday and Saturday this week. We have 3 more polycarbonate trees to assemble and lots of candy to put on those. Getting wholes punched in the green gels to line the trees is a big pain. But I haven’t come up with a better way to do it. It doesn’t look like I have enough mini green gummy bears for the trees. I have to decide if I want to use a variety of green candy for the trees or if I should get another case of mini gummy bears. The ones I have are left over from last year. Also the gummy gumdrops I got for the lights aren’t going to be enough. I need to get more or pick another kind of candy to add to it.

I think I could have the kids paint the seats on Wednesday if they are cut out. It should work to paint them first and then assemble them. Not sure if my drilling and screwing skills are good enough to get them together in the really square fashion that they need to be for them not to cause problems when the Ferris wheel turns.

Something Sweet 2014: South Jordan

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polycarbonate tree for this years candy window

I haven’t posted anything on the Candy Window project all year. It is about time I did. So first thing to do is catch you up on what has happened so far. In January we picked the theme “Hearts All a Glow”. Then not much happened for several months. I thought about window ideas but didn’t settle on anything because I didn’t know where my window was going to be and some ideas just aren’t very conducive to some spaces. Things have been up in the air on funding. Last year the developer of the shopping area gave us some money but the property was sold to a new developer and we still don’t know if they are going to come through with money. The back up plan is the South Jordan Arts Council.

I had hoped to work with the Bingham High School Art Club (they helped a little last year). But the adviser for the club has too much going on to do the club again and no other teachers came forward to help. Then in the spring there were some rumblings about having the South Jordan Youth Council help on the project. About that same time I found out that my window was going to go between the main front doors of South Jordan City Hall. I went to see the space and it was about 4 feet by 8 feet, so generously sized. My big concern was getting power to the space. It is in the entry way between the sets of doors. Not an area that normal has electrical outlets.

About that time I got the news that the Youth Council wanted to help. So I got together with the kids and their leaders to brainstorm ideas. I didn’t want to pick an idea and then tell them what we were doing. I wanted them to feel like they were part of the project from the beginning. There are two things I’d like to accomplish by using a youth group. First is just hands to help get it done. There is lots of gluing to be done and my hands are starting to show the wear and tear of the repetitive motion. The second and in the long run the more important, teach them how to do a candy window and hopefully over the years a few of them will catch the vision and want to do windows of their own. I’d like to move into a more advisory role with the windows but to do that we need more artists.

On the day of my meeting with the Youth Council, in July, the power for the window got worked out. The city is installing outlets in the back wall above the window. I asked them to put outlets in the two side areas too. It would be super fun to have a three-part window the could be walked between. I can image it would be like walking through candyland.

half-scale model of the Ferris wheel

After some brainstorming with the Youth Council we came up with a really fun idea. A big project for sure that I wouldn’t tackle without their help and couldn’t pull off without Bill’s help too. We are building a Ferris wheel with more than a dozen different Christmas characters on and around the wheel. The plan is to have lights on it and to have it rotate. I’ve been meeting with the Youth Council a couple of times a week to work on getting things going. They start school this week so hopefully they will still have time to come regularly to help. Their leaders are great and easy to work with.

section of snow with dehydrated mini marshmallows

Last week we got miniature dried marshmallow glued down on half of the snow for the base. We have 5 polycarbonate Christmas trees that will have light inside them. All the plastic is cut out but only one is assembled and ready for gummy bears. Bill has the steel to build the Ferris wheel but has only done a little bit of the cutting. There are lots of technical details to work out on the Ferris wheel. We have the plywood for the seats on the Ferris wheel and the pattern printed and ready to go for cutting them out. The original goal was to have the structure done by the end of August. That wasn’t realistic but I hope we can have most of it done by the time the new puppy comes on September 11th.

It is kind of funny because Bill and I were busy working on the very first candy window we ever did when the World Trade Center collapsed all those years ago. Interesting the connections we make to different events in our lives.

Candy Window Update: Wreath

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wreath for over the door of Snoopy’s doghouse

I couldn’t bring myself to brave the cold garage and work on Snoopy today so I decided to do the wreath that goes over the door of Snoopy’s doghouse. Small parts like this are kind of fun because I can get them done in a day. Yeah for feeling like I got something done. This was also fun because it is the first piece of the window with lights in it. I love lights glowing through candy. To me it has such a Christmasy feeling.

wreath with lights on

I finally got some photos of the doghouse added to the post from a couple of weeks ago.

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Candy Window Update: Raspberry Pi

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Raspberry Pi Board from Wikimedia Commons

Today I thought I’d update on what Bill is doing for the window this year. The core piece is a Raspberry Pi board like in the photo above. What does a computer board have to do with a candy window display for Christmas? I’ll try to explain. There are three sets of Christmas lights in the design: one on the Christmas tree, one on the wreath over the doghouse door and two strings of the large lights that drape over the roof of the doghouse. The plan is to use the Raspberry Pi board along with some other hardware to control how the lights go on and off. We are keeping it pretty simple this year to test things out but hope to do more complicated things with lights in future years.

We are playing around with having the lights synced to music from “A Charlie Brown Christmas“. This is new territory for us but I’m excited at the possibilities. In the worst case scenario we can have the board turn the lights on in the evening and off at midnight or so. Hopefully we will get succeed in doing lots more than that.

As far as candy gluing goes I’m now behind the schedule I made for my self for getting my this years candy window done. Yakira’s career change has distracted me. The plans for getting her to Florida are mostly in place so I’ve got to get back on track.

 

Candy Window Update

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Snoopy’s Doghouse

Still plugging away on Snoopy‘s doghouse. I’m getting close though. I didn’t get any work done on it last Saturday so the roof didn’t get finished until this week. The last step is the trim which consists of around the door, the eaves and the edges of the roof (can’t think of what that is called, or maybe those are the eaves and the other is the soffit). Anyway, I digress. Around the door is done, both gable ends are done. I have a little piecing to do on the soffit on one end and about 2/3 of the edge of the roof on one side.

I’m excited to be almost done with the doghouse. That is a big chunk of the window.