Tag Archives: candy

Candy Display 2015: “The Knight Before Christmas”

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“The Knight Before Christmas” (north side)

I don’t think I’ve posted much about this year’s candy window display for South Jordan. Well, now that it is done, I realized I’d better post something. Our theme was Star Wars inspired, “Feel the Force of Christmas” or something along those lines. My neighbor, Andrea (who was wonderful to work with) and I partnered up this year to do the window. She was a lifesaver last year when I broke my hand and she enjoyed it so much that she wanted to help this year, from the beginning. Her daughter Nicole came up with our idea (Yoda reading a book to three Ewoks) and then we went to work. Besides my husband, Bill (who gives more and physical support as needed), another neighbor, Cherri helped (with Yoda’s skin) and Bryce (Bill’s co-worker) built Yoda’s chair. After too many hours of shaping, painting and gluing we finished up last Friday afternoon with several hours to spare before the official “Light the Night” opening at South Jordan City Hall. If you are in the Salt Lake City, Utah area this holiday season stopped by Town Center Drive in South Jordan and see our creation. Plus you can see last years Ferris wheel just south of City Hall in the South Jordan Library.

view from the west side

close up of Wicket

close up of Teebo

Kneesa and BB-8

looking over Yoda’s shoulder

Yoda and the fireplace

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Candy Window: Ferris wheel update

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Late Saturday night Bill came in from the garage and said “you need to come see this.” I was pleasantly surprised with what I saw. He had the spokes of the Ferris wheel on the stand plus the cars attached and they were spinning around. Not with the motor yet but with a little push the wheel turned smoothly around. It was so exciting to see that much of it come together! To see for the first time the basic structure of what we are trying to put together! I took a video but I’ll have to upload it later and share it here. [I’ve uploaded it. Just click on the image above and it will take you to the video!]

Also on Saturday, I finished all the faces of the figures. I forgot to take photos and didn’t realize it until just now. I’ll have to do that tomorrow and add them too. Then I looked at how many weeks are left until we need to install the window, just 5 weeks, and figured out how many things I need to get done each week to be ready. I’ve committed to the South Jordan Youth Council to work on the window every afternoon so hopefully more of them can come and help. From my calculations if I get one object done each day I’ll be ready. That will be tough without help from the Youth Council. My goal for today was to finish Olaf. I had a crazy morning but I worked hard on Olaf this afternoon and evening but didn’t get him finished, but I came really close.

It will be revealing how much gets accomplished this week. I’ll let you know next Monday if I’m confident, hopefully or in a panic about the next few weeks.

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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Grinch and Max ready for candy

The figures are ready for their faces. I’m trying a fondant/gum paste mixture this year instead of straight fondant. The gum paste is supposed to give the fondant more stretch. This is a key part of the window. If the faces look good the window should be a success. If the faces turn out bad it is hard to make up for it else where. I’ve not done faces on this scale before. I’ve done bigger and I’ve done smaller. Feeling a bit intimidated about getting started but just need to dive in and get going. After I get the first one done, I should feel better about things.

two kids ready for candy

Bill ended up working all night Friday and all day Saturday so no progress on the Ferris wheel structure. But I sorted through the candy that the Youth Council kids picked out for the figures and made a few adjustments because of scale or color issues. I hope they don’t mind too much. I also order some more candy. I need to pick up some chocolate and yellow licorice for hair and then we should be in pretty good shape to move forward with all the candy.

man and woman ready for candy

Candy Window: update

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Bill with the Ferris wheel – so far

Another week closer to Christmas. Hopefully we made enough progress too. Bill finished the spokes of the other side of the Ferris wheel on Saturday and the basics of the A-frame to hold it up. He found a motor and gears at Granger this week too. The didn’t have the right size of pillow blocks though. The figures are painted and the additions of pelon are done though they still need painting. I also picked up some fondant and something new to try, gum paste for the faces etc. Five kids from the South Jordan Youth Council came on Saturday and made good progress on putting candy on the cars.

This week I’m working on the faces for the figures and we will see how far I get. In may only be early October but time is starting to feel really short. Sometimes I feel a bit of panic at how much needs to get done. Then I try to take a deep breath and focus on putting in some time everyday and see how much gets done.

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: 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.

Snoopy – Candy Window Installed

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Snoopy and his doghouse

Finally coming up for air after a couple of weeks of total focus on finishing this years candy window. Last night was the unveiling and though we had some snags and challenges along the way Snoopy and his dog house look great. If you are in the Salt Lake Valley during the holidays let me know and I’ll give you directions to find the window. There are 8 other candy windows too, including my Frosty from last year. I only got a couple of pictures snapped. Hopefully I can get some more next week of Snoopy and the other candy windows too.

Christmas from A to Z at Festival of Trees

Part of what made this week extra crazy is that we donated the candy sculpture (Christmas from A to Z) I did two years ago to the Festival of Trees. It was in pretty bad shape and I spent 12 hours fixing it up. Good news is there were multiple bidders and it sold for about $650. All that money goes to Primary Children’s Hospital.

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Christmas From A to Z: book

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When I made the Christmas from A to Z candy sculpture two years ago, the idea I had was to use it as illustrations for a children’s book. This year the tree is being donated to Festival of Trees to be sold to raise money for Primary Children’s Hospital. I want to have a copy of the book to go with the tree so pushed this week to get it finished and yeah, I finally got it done! Clink the link below to see a preview. For some reason I can’t get the preview to embed properly.