Candy Cake for the Kids

It's so pretty.

My 9 year old walks past it and takes a big sniff about 5 times a day. 

This is my version of the Candy Bar Cake...or whatever they are called on pinterest! I searched images and pinterest pages looking for directions or even amounts of candy to buy. Let me tell ya...there is not a lot out there. Sure, there are tons of pictures...some great, some eh...but not a lot of how to! So, I thought I'd contribute to the how to and hopefully help someone out!

I made this little beauty for Belvedere Elementary School's BoxTops collection contest: Classroom Prize. I think it will go over well...hopefully. I mean, my kids and even my husband drooled when they all saw it- so that is a plus in my eyes.

Let me start by saying I just winged the construction. I went to the dollar store because they have lots of floral supplies. I was hoping I would find some sort of foam- and what a great suprise when I found floral wreaths and squares! Score!!!

I got two of the wreaths and one square. So that's about 4 inches tall in the circle cake, and another 4 inches with the square on top. I left the wrapping on the foam- just less messy. I also found some pretty duct tape at the dollar store. Woohoo!!!

I thought the glue would stick to the duct tape and the duct tape would stick better to the plastic wrap rather than the foam itself. Years of experience working in a flower shop lead me to believe that nothing sticks to floral foam but water and flowers!

So I wrapped up all three pieces in the duct tape. The two circles I went ahead and taped all together- just to make it sturdy. The square at the top- I left a small space so I could poke lollipops through the top without having to fight with the duct tape again. Pretty smart, right? Yes, I thought so too!

I arranged all the candy I bought, also at the dollar store! Oh and let me say now that I spent about $15 total on this cake. I think that is a really great price for making this super looking prize! So a big fat thank you goes out to the Dollar Store! * 8 little bags of candy,  3 foam,  2 duct tape*

I did pick up one small bag of the mixed mini chocolates to fill in some holes...but I only used half of the bag- the others will be donated to my husband's mental well being fund...he might share with the kids...maybe.

Oops...forgot about the bottom. I just made my own cake plate out of cardboard and wrapping paper...but if you happen to have one of those golden shiny cake plates, that would be alright too :)

Now for the fun part...assembly!!!

I hot glued all the foam pieces together, then onto the cake plate.

I used a low heat glue gun..and just did a dot on each piece of candy. I was pleasantly surprised that everything stuck so well to the duct tape! Yay me!!!

Sorry some of these pics are fuzzy. I was battling with a puppy to stay away from the hot glue area while taking pics. No animals were harmed during this photo shoot! Wheeewww!

So I just kind of placed candy around to see what fit where...and when I got a sort of placement down I began gluing. It went really quickly and was actually fun! I just moved the cake around until all of the candy was used up.

The lollipops poked through just great.  They look so cute up there as the topper!

I finished it off by tying party ribbons around to give it a little extra sturdiness. There will be kids manhandling this, so, of course- sturdier is better!

I also made a little BoxTops Superstar sign for the top. Like I said before- this is for the winning classroom who brings in the most BoxTops this month...so it should say BoxTops on it somewhere, right? 

Look how cute..it matches the teacher's turn in box!

Oh- so you see those little holes on the cake...that's what I bought those little mini chocolates for...to fill in those gaps. Plus I wanted it to look so stuffed with candy the kids would go nuts! BTW...there is no candy on this cake that has nuts in it. I stuck to nut free candy to be safe for allergic kids!

 

That's it. My Candy Cake instructions. It was easy to make and didn't break the bank! Good on both counts!!! Hope the kiddos love it! Happy BoxTopping everyone!

~Casey