A Candy Cake!

Tyson turned 11 on May 11th.  This is his last year in elementary school and celebrating his birthday, with his class, as a whole, is probably NEVER going to happen again.  Middle School is on the horizon! So.... I wanted to create a memorable and unique way to celebrate Ty's birthday, with his peers, in class. Ty had been requesting cupcakes and I just kind of ignored it.  I was tired of cupcakes and donuts.  I've also done ice cream before, but that still wasn't "impressive" enough for me.  I thought about the things that Ty loves and candy was definitely on the top of his list. The light bulb immediately went off in my head.  "I've got it!!!! I'll make a cake made out of candy!".

Two weeks ago, I went to Five Below and purchased a ton of UNIQUE candies that both Ty and his piers PROBABLY had NEVER had.  I wanted everything about the cake to be fun and enticing.  I bought 4 of each candy that I thought Ty would enjoy.  NO CHOCOLATE.  Ty doesn't like chocolate.  I purchased approximate 60 pieces of candy ranging from .99 cents - $1.99.  I know, a tad expensive, but hey... I was WELL WORTH it.  The cake got RAVE reviews.  

Darren and I went searching last weekend for some nesting items that I could use to create the cake.  We first bought square floral foam in different sizes, but that wasn't really what I wanted.  THEN... we found paper mache, nesting boxes. 

I had all of the necessary items (oh you need a glue gun TOO!).  It was time to get to work.  The hard part was next.  FIRST, I stacked the boxes and played around with placement of the candy.  Being I wasn't securing everything, it was a tad frustrating because if you accidentally touched a piece of candy, while placing another piece of candy onto one of the boxes, it would fall and then all the candy would fall and I would have to start ALL OVER.  Just envision dominos and you will understand what I am trying to say.  SO, this was the hardest part. Above and below, you will see what my initial decisions were on placement.  I think it came together really nicely. This part took about 30 minutes.  

The candy on sticks and the flexible candy packs had to either be added on the exterior of the boxes or at the end as a finishing touch.

Start assembling... Hot glue the back of the of the candies and adhere to the box.  The below photos show an excess of glue.  I did this on the first layer because I felt it needed to be the sturdiest layer, but I do NOT recommend using this much glue on each piece of candy.  You don't want the glue seeping through the candy package.  I don't believe glue dots would be sturdy enough for some of the more heavier candy packages, but you could try it for the more light weight candies.

 Here is the turn out of cake layer 1.

 I think my absolute favorite candy addition was the emoji pezz.  These were $1.99 at Five Below.  

On layer 2, I first covered the brown box with warhead sour dipping pucker packs.  

Then I hot glued the candies I planned on using for cake layer 2, with a thin layer of glue, onto the pucker pack.  

Layer #3 - I wrapped the brown box with candy buttons.  

Then assembled the candies I chose for layer #3 on top of the candy buttons.  At this point, I was able to use less and less glue, if any at all, because the candies could be wedged into the taller candies.  

So far, this is what all three layers looked like.  I did NOT hot glue the boxes on top of each other.

I inserted the lollipops on top of the final layer, but I didn't like that the brown box was showing, so I decided to saturate the top of the box with hot glue and then pour sprinkles on top of the glue.  

It was a really colorful way to finish off the cake!

In the process of adhering the sprinkles, I had an oopsie.  AND I DID CRY OVER SPILT SPRINKLES. I also allowed the dogs to enjoy some of them, haha, making their poo colorful.

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I used a few small pieces of candy, from our collection of candy we have from Halloween and birthday parties, to fill in the gaps.

The cake from above.

There is NO denying that this cake is just simply gorgeous.  

So gorgeous, that it was featured on FIVE BELOW's Instagram Account.  How cool is that??? It got over 1,400 likes.

My favorite comment on Five Below's IG was "I never knew cavities could be so beautiful!"

I delivered the "cake" to school along with a brown paper bag that contained #'s 2-24 inside.  

The #1 was on the outside because clearly the birthday boy was going to go first.  Each child would choose their favorite piece of candy slice of cake in chronological order.  I wish I would have stayed to help with this and document it, but I had a birthday dinner and dessert to make for Ty.  

Here is a video clip of a 360 degree view of the candy cake!