Happy Valentine's Day - New Take on Gumdrop Roses

Daughter and I waited 'til the last minute on her Valentine's cards for school, again. If you read last years post on our Stash Buster Cards, you'll know that we've made the decision not to buy store bought cards. We brainstormed for days before I finally remembers a project my own mom and I made for a school treats when I was my daughter's age. They were gumdrop roses.



Originally made with large gumdrops and toothpick stems, the daughter and I took our own approach and made a few improvements. Couldn't find jumbo gumdrops, but the slices work just fine. We replaced the slightly dangerous toothpick stem with a pretzel stick and planted the rose in a bite-size Reese's Peanut Butter Cup pot. It's the perfect pot!



This was then incorporated into our Valentine's Day card display container made from a single serving yogurt cup and a clear 9 oz. plastic cup. We were pondering how to keep the roses from getting smashed in their paper sack "mailboxes". We were just going to use cardboard circles inside the upside-down plastic cups, but had a stroke of genius at home when we tried the yogurt container under it. This gave us the additional space below to store some extra candy for those who didn't want to eat their roses.



We covered up the Yoplait label with our own which included two different short poems.

"Poppies are pretty. Daisies are dandy.
No Flower's as sweet as this rose of candy."

or

"What can beat a Valentine treat
made with sugar so it's sweet to eat?!"

The daughter didn't want anything mushy. So, we kept them about the roses. :) We printed them in black and white and colored with markers.



I won't go into all the details of how to make the roses. There are an abundance of free tutorials online with many different options for forming the petals. The real trick is to use lots of sugar when rolling out the petals and leaves. Pressing the candy in the sugar frequently while rolling will keep it from sticking.



Butter knives work really well for cutting the flattened gumdrops. Doesn't have to be sharp. Besides that, be gentle wrapping the pretzel stems. Pre-drilling the holes in the top chocolate layer of the pots with something pointy helps, too.



This really is a fairly simple and fun project. And, the best part is you get to eat the mistakes! Mmmmm... I made it a point to mess up on quite a few Peanut Butter pots. ;)



Can't believe we hadn't made these in over twenty five years. My mom was shown how by a wonderful neighbor we had when I was growing up. She was a great lady. She always used to make us the best cookies and other treats all year round always happy to share her recipes and was always there when we needed her. Being a forgetful "latch key kid", I was frequently locked out of our house. :) I also remember my sis and I inviting her granddaughter, a year younger than me, over to our house to play whenever she was visiting. She introduced me to daddy long-leg spiders and chewing on raw spaghetti noodles. Those were some good times. :)

If you'd like the label we used for the cups, you can find a layout of 4 including both poems here. Thanks for stopping in! And have the happiest of VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!