I’ve been having so much fun getting everything ready for our wedding this week! We are having a sweetie table for the evening, because EVERYONE likes sweeties. Recently, at Mum’s school’s prom (obviously she’s a teacher, not a student!) they had these amazing sweetie flower decorations, so we borrowed the idea and the bases for our do.
Here’s how you make them:
You will need:
- a little flowerpot with a small stick cemented in – this is the trickiest part to source
- oasis balls (that weird material you use for flower arranging – you can get it in spheres)
- some tin foil
- some cling film
- coloured ribbons
- coloured tissue paper
- cellophane shred (that stuff which is like long strands of tinsel - comes in various colours)
- sticky tape
- scissors
- lots and lots of cocktail sticks
- lots and lots of sweets
- cellophane sheets (the kind you use to wrap up flower bouquets or fruit baskets)
Step One:
Decorate your flower “stem”. We started with the bases that Mum has borrowed from her school, which were already decorated blue and pink. Our wedding is green, orange and red themed, so we covered the stick in silver foil, then wrapped a length of thin coloured ribbon around it. This we held in place with a little bit of tape top and bottom.
Step Two:
Now you need to create your flower. First, wrap your oasis ball in cling film (so you don’t get powder gushing out every time someone removes a sweet), then wrap it in tin foil. Neither of these layers need to be taped in place – they should hold on just fine. Next, you need to use a pair of scissors to stab a hole in the bottom, through the foil and cling film layers. Push the ball down onto the stick, very gently. Some oasis will sprinkle into the flowerpot, but it’s ok, you can just tip or flick it out. It needs to be on really firmly, otherwise the weight of the sweets will make it wobble off, so give it a good firm push.
Step Three:
Place the flowerpot on a sheet of tissue paper, pull up all the corners, pleat in and shove it all into the flower pot so it holds. Then tie a coloured ribbon around it, partly to hold the tissue paper in place, partly because it just looks sweet. We also added some cellophane shred (long strands of tinsel like material - you can buy it in packets) to bling it up a bit:
Step Four:
Now you should have your flower ready for the sweets! You need to choose the type of sweet to use sensibly. Clearly, M&M’s, though delicious, are not going to sit on a cocktail stick! You need something squishy. Each sweet will need to be poked gently onto a cocktail stick, then you simply poke the stick into the ball.
You need to put the sweets on in a logical order – I recommend going all the way around on one axis, like this:
(Disclaimer: posing your mother’s head behind is entirely optional and will not affect the quality of your finished flower.)
Then, you can turn the flower 90o and go all the way around on that axis, so that you gradually fill in the spaces. We nearly came a cropper with the jellybaby flower because we started loading it up from the top down, and without any jellybabies hanging underneath, its centre of balance was too high. We had to do emergency balancing before it fell over! If in doubt, start filling from the bottom. And be aware that not all sweets are created equal; some are heavier than others! (Clearly, Mum and I both love jellybabies, as is evidenced by how tightly we packed them in! That’s our heaviest flower by far!)
Step Five:
Carefully manoeuvre your flower onto the cellophane, pull it up each side to it can meet above the top of your flower, pleat and tuck the sides in and tie at the top with a ribbon. Ta da!!
So so pretty!!
Because there are many tasty sweets which cannot be poked onto cocktail sticks, we also have lots of sweets beautifully displayed in jars, with little labels on ribbons. I’m so pleased with how they look!
I know, I know, one of the jars is entirely empty and two are looking only half full (half empty if you’re a pessimist). It’s because we forgot to purchase flying saucers (Rach is on a mission to find them today during her lunch break) and I have topped up the M&M’s and chocolate buttons since taking this picture – we overestimated how much space they’d take up!
It's going to be such a beautiful sweetie table! And we haven't even STARTED on making the cupcakes yet!