Finished Mary

Today I worked on Mary. I had a false start on what to use for her dress and had to rip the candy off because it was just too bulky. I’ve learned that at this scale I really have to be careful about the bulk of the candy I use on the people. But I got her done though not as fast as I had hoped. The wise men are all ready to go for tomorrow. I’m thinking it should get faster as I’ve learned things from the first two figures and the rest of the figures are simpler in that they go on the tree so that their backs don’t need candy on them.

Wise men ready for candy

Finished Angel

Today I got really serious about moving forward on my people. No more procrastinating. It took me a while but I got the angel done! Yeah! I was hoping to get Mary done too but it took me too long to get the angel figured out. I hate it when I glue a bunch of candy on and then decide it doesn’t work and I have to figure out how to get it off again. Between that and just figuring out how I was doing the basic structure for my people at this scale it all took too much time. I did get Mary’s body all ready to put candy on. I need to go get some chocolate licorice for her hair. I just don’t have any candy that will work for her hair.

Mary ready for candy

Green and yellow gift box

I didn’t get as much time to work on this project today as I thought I would. Yesterday I started on another box for under the tree. It is bigger than the red box and the pieces take precision to put in place so it is taking awhile to get it done. I’m past the half way point. I really love these little star candies. In between the green stars are yellow tart n’ tiny candies.

Close up of green stars and yellow tart n’ tiny candy

Candy cane with bow

My goal today was to make the candy cane and the mistletoe. The candy cane was easy. I had a bunch of candy canes in my candy stash and I picked on of the traditional sized ones. I really don’t like the proportions of the little ones. They are all hook and almost no staff part. I ended up making two bows. The first one I decided would be better for the mistletoe so I made a second one that was more like a bow on a package. I think it worked better.

Mistletoe

I’ve been thinking about how I would make the mistletoe for several days now. Yesterday I stopped by the store and picked up some more green licorice belts. While there I search to see what else they might have that could help with the mistletoe and I found some licorice whips in red, green blue and yellow. So I used the green whips for the stems and cut and shaped belts for the leaves. The white berries I made out of gum balls with a tiny snip of yellow whip. I was happy with how it turned out.

Red package with blue and red bow

With my goals for this week finished I decided to put some time into the extra packages under the tree. I covered the red package with mini red gummy bears with red and blue licorice belts for the ribbon.

Holly leaves and berries

On the docket for today was a poinsettia and holly. I didn’t find any green candy I wanted to use for the holly leaves so I went with rolled fondant. For berries I selected 3 small red gum balls. The holly didn’t take long to finish. I haven’t decided yet just where the holly will go. It could go on the yule log, a package or on the tree. The poinsettia took a bit longer. I found some gummy lips that I liked the color and texture of so I cut them apart and used them for the red part of the poinsettia. Green Swedish fished became the green part and a few yellow nerds in the center finished things off. Just like the holly, I’m not sure where the poinsettia will end up in the final project.

Poinsettia

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.

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.

head and hands for Mary, Angel, Elf,  Kris Kringle, Three Wisemen plus their gifts

manger and baby Jesus

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.

soon to be an ice skatr

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.

some of the candy on the trre

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.

rock candy lights

tree with finished lights

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.