Candy Pacifiers For Baby Showers

Candy pacifiers make cute baby shower favors, decorations and even food since they are edible. They are very inexpensive to make...another plus. 

When I asked the co-grandmother of "our" new baby due in April what I could do long-distance to assist with a baby shower she was having, I was assigned to make life saver pacifiers. I had seen them at baby showers (they were always a hit) but I had no idea how to

 make them.  I googled. 

The main ingredients are life savers and jelly beans. 

The "glue" to stick them together varies. 
One tutorial suggested frosting. 

Do NOT use frosting... it is not strong enough to hold the 

pieces together. Believe me.  Another tutorial used royal icing.

I don't know why but my mind glazes over with the thought

of making royal icing.  I don't think you can buy it in a can.

I have used candy melts in the past to "glue" food pieces 

together so I decided to try it for this project...it worked!

Candy melts are readily available in craft stores.  They are not

expensive...maybe $3 per bag. It does a LOT of pacifiers. 

The life savers vary AND the jelly beans vary.

The life savers that you get in a roll are smaller than the life
 savers that you get individually wrapped. Jelly Belly jelly beans are smaller than the jelly beans that you get in a bag....things to think about. 

Initially, I wanted all pink jelly beans since "we" are having a girl!  I went to a candy store in the mall so I could get all one color of jelly belly candy.  They were all out of pink jelly bellys but they did have a neutral color (grapefruit flavor) that was a pretty good second choice for the pacifiers. 

Here is a good tip: ten candy melts in a sandwich bag put in 

the microwave for 60 seconds gives you a good supply of

"glue" to start putting your pacifiers together.  

At the end of melting the candy wafers, squish them up in

the plastic sandwich bag towards one corner and cut a

teeny tiny end off of the corner...now you have a piping bag. 

The first "batch" that I made, I piped a line of melted candy

wafer across the embossed "Life Saver" side of the candy

and stuck another life saver vertically on top of it. 

The individually wrapped life saver candies are easier to find

and larger (but a pain to unwrap each one).  

The only place I found the life savers in a roll was at 

Dollar Tree...they are smaller but cheaper. 

After the melted candy wafer "glue" had dried for about

30 minutes, it was sturdy enough to move on to adding the 

jelly bean "nipple" to the pacifier. 

Make a new "batch" of melted candy wafers in the sandwich 

bag.  Pipe a glob of  melted candy in the life saver hole.

Put a jelly bean (or jelly belly) onto the glob immediately.

At first I was holding the "pacifier" upright for about a  minute to let the melted candy set up long enough  to hold the jelly bean upright before placing it gently down  and continue to harden. That was taking WAAAAY too  long if I was going to be making a bunch of these. 

I remembered some beans that I had used for decoration at Thanksgiving that could be used to hold up the pacifiers while

they "set up".   These beans are henceforth only for decor (or

for being a useful second set of hands to hold stuff up). 

You could also use rice or sugar to serve the same purpose

(or if you still have kids at home, maybe use them to hold

the pacifier about a minute till the melted candy sets up slightly.)

On some of those jelly bean "nipples" it was difficult to make them stand up straight or to center them because  the candy "glue" was filling up the hole.  

So for the next "batch" of pacifiers I tried putting the nipple (jelly bean) on first then adding the handle. 

Pile a circle around the center of a life safer then add the 

jelly bean nipple.

After the nipple had time to set up well (about 30 minutes),

 the handle of the pacifier was added...

...with more melted candy "glue". "A little dab'll do ya".

This time the beans held the pacifiers jelly bean side down
so the handle could dry/set up straight. 

After trying both ways, I recommend the "jelly bean first" method.

A couple of times my sandwich-bag-turned-piping-bag popped at the seam and made a little pile of melted candy wafers. 
 From these incidents I learned that you can just dip the life saver or jelly bean in the melted candy instead of piping it on. You just have to work quicker before the air-exposed melted candy hardens.

If the melted candy in the sandwich bag gets hard before it is used up, you can put it back in the microwave for about 5-10 seconds to remelt it. I used a new sandwich bag for each 10 candy wafers I melted. 

Here are a bunch of pacifiers made with jelly bellys...

Here are some pacifiers made with multi-color jelly bellys
that came from a bag at Dollar Tree.

If you want larger nipples on the pacifiers you can
use regular jelly beans.  They are cheaper than jelly bellys.

Here are pacifiers with regular jelly beans...

I was making these pacifiers assembly-line style and forgot to keep count of how many life savers I needed to finish pacifiers I had started.  Ooops! None of the stores close to my house had the rolls of Life Savers which I had been using mostly.  They are smaller than the bagged ones. 

These already-started pacifiers with a small life saver top...

...got a large (close to my house) life saver bottom. 

I call them the "hybrids".  To hide the difference in size
I used these pacifiers on top of cupcakes.  

I thought the icing might hide the size difference.

The life saver held up in the icing much better than I thought it would (i.e. it did not "melt" the life saver). It would probably be better to add the pacifier close to the time of the shower to be safe.

  Also, if you can, avoid adding the pacifier before it has to travel in a car to  the shower. The pacifier makes the cupcake top heavy. 

The hostess at the baby shower my pacifiers are going to is going to use some of the pacifiers to tie onto bottles of pink nail polish for a baby shower favor.  Cute idea, huh?

Another way to use these pacifiers as a baby shower
favor is to package a few together in a bag.  

Since the pacifiers are edible, you can put them in
 a bowl on the food table at the shower too. 

They even look fun just scattered on the baby shower
 food table like confetti.  If you want to make the candy
pacifier fit the gender of the baby, you can add a ribbon.

Hey, I just had an idea...these candy pacifiers with ribbons
 would be cute at a "gender reveal" party too!  

However you decide to use these candy pacifiers 
at a baby shower or gender reveal, they will be a hit!

How To Make A Deco Mesh Ruffle Wreath

Recently, I saw a deco mesh wreath that had the mesh 

attached in such a fun and fluffy way that I inspected it to see

how it was done.  Although I couldn't find a tutorial on the

 internet of how to make this wreath, I decided to give it a try. 

I don't know what it's official name for this type wreath is

 but for now I am calling it a "Ruffle Wreath" 

because the high mesh loops remind me of fluffy ruffles. 

The original wreath used a standard wire wreath form.

For the pink wreath an 18" form was used and for the 

blue wreath a 16" form was used.

It may not be necessary but I like to paint the wreath forms for

deco mesh wreaths in the main color of the mesh so it won't

be as obvious through the open weave of the mesh. 

It doesn't have to be a perfect paint job...just enough to 

break up the visual lines of the dark green wires.

In the past, I have used pipe cleaners (also known as 

chenille stems) to attach the deco mesh to wreath forms but 

the wreath I was attempting to copy had zip (or cable) ties 

attaching the mesh to the form.  I wasn't sure if that was a 

necessary element in making the wreath or not but I was 

afraid not to use them.  They are available in the electrical

department of home improvement or hardware stores. 

The wreath I wanted to copy used clear cable ties but I
 thought those were too expensive so I went the cheap-o
 route and got this pack of 200 assorted sizes for less than $5.  Sometimes Dollar Tree has zip ties in their hardware aisle.

I've never used cable ties before so I looked on the
 internet to find out how.  Here it is in a nutshell:

The color of the cable ties leaves a lot to be desired so they

got the same paint treatment as the wreath forms. 

Really, only a small portion of the cable tie needs to be

painted if the color bothers you too...on the smooth side

and near the head of the cable tie...that is all that might show.

I did three at a time...it goes quickly...doesn't need perfection.

To start attaching the mesh to the wreath form gather/pinch

the mesh width-wise about 8" from the beginning of the roll.  

This leaves a "tail" that you will eventually pull to the back 

of the wreath form and attach.

This first round of mesh on the wreath is the 21" wide size. 

Keeping the mesh pinched, place it on one of the wires.

Attach the pinched mesh to the wire with the cable tie.

The head of the cable tie should be on the backside of the 

wire wreath form. Bring the tail of the cable tie around the

wire, on top of the pinched mesh, then again to the back. 

Be sure the smooth side of the tie is on the outside of the

loop and the ribbed side of the tie is on the inside. 

Push the tail through the head of the cable tie and pull

it until it holds the gather snugly on the wire. 

To keep the size of the poufs uniform, I found it 

reassuring to measure the mesh for this type wreath. 

For this larger wreath, the gathering/pinching spots 

along the mesh were 10" apart. 

I'm not sure the original wreath kept each color on a 

certain wire on the wreath form, but for this one I did...

well, I meant to...I made a couple of boo-boos. 

This first color of mesh was (mostly) on the third wire 

from the center.  Place your second gather of mesh about

two to three inches from the first attachment point and secure

it with a cable tie. Again the head and tail of the tie

will be on the backside of the wreath for aesthetics. 

You might want to not tighten the cable ties as much as 

they will go until you see all your poufs to determine if they

 need to slide a little bit one way or another along the wire. 

Here is the backside of the wreath after the first color of mesh:

Pull the beginning and ending tails to the back and 

secure them also. 

Here is the front of the wreath with one color:

The second color of mesh on this wreath is a pink and

white check.  It was gathered and attached on the second

wire from the center of the wreath form.  It is also a 20"

wide deco mesh.  The different colors were started and

stopped at different spots along the wreath form so the 

"tails" would not make one spot too bulky on the back. 

Here is the front after the second color mesh:

Really, it is very full with these two colors and you could 

very well stop here but I had some pink "window pane" 

mesh that I also wanted to add too.  

The 6" mesh was a better color match so I went with that. 

The length of mesh is shorter on the smaller width mesh roll

so I only put half as many poufs of it so I would have 

enough to go all around the wreath. It was attached to the

outside wire on the wreath form with the cable ties. 

In the end less then half of the solid pink roll was left, more 

than half of the pink and white check was left and even some

of the 6" roll was left.  

After the three meshes were attached the poufs were

fluffed and pulled in towards each other to integrate the colors.

When I was pretty happy with the way it looked, all

the cable ties were pulled as tightly as they would go to

secure the poufs/ruffles in place along the wires. 

The tails of the cable ties can be trimmed down on the back.

This wreath turned out to be about 22" wide...

...and a fluffy, ruffly 10" deep. 

You could certainly add more embellishments to 

personalize it for a certain person or color scheme. 

If you would like a smaller version of the ruffle wreath,

the basic techniques are the same, just use a smaller wreath form.

All of these deco mesh rolls came from Hobby Lobby.

They are the 21" wide version.  The regular meshes are 30 feet

 long and are $9.99 (but can be bought with a coupon or when

 on sale). The window pane meshes are $13.99 per roll.

Actually, I thought I had a roll of solid blue regular mesh

to use for this baby boy's wreath so it turned out a little

lighter than I had intended.  The blue and white check mesh 

was attached with cable ties to the third wire from the center.  

The length between gathers along this mesh was about 8".

The spacing between attachment points was 2-3" along the

wire.  Here is the first color halfway through:

I learned that it took about 60 cable ties to do a wreath going

 around three times (I used three colors but you don't have to).

Here is the back of the wreath after the first color:

The tails of this first color got tied down with twisty ties

'cause I didn't want to run out of cable ties for the poufs.

White mesh got added to the innermost wire of this wreath.

The white poufs were still 8" long and 2-3" apart along the wire.

Here is the wreath after the white mesh application:

The different color mesh poufs in the above picture have been 

more or less integrated with each other by pulling the poufs

towards each other and almost alternating the colors around 

the wreath. You could pull the poufs back from the center

more if you like a more open center. 

Then the blue window pane mesh was added along the 

outermost wire of the wreath form with cable ties. 

The window pane poufs were also integrated in with the

other meshes by pulling them in between the other colors.

When you are happy with the look of the wreath, pull

all the cable ties tightly and trim off their tails on the back. 

This wreath is about 20" across and about 10" deep.

Although I didn't measure what was left on the mesh rolls
when the wreaths were finished, I would say for 
this size wreath, allow about a half a roll 
(15 feet)  per each time around the wreath form. 

Other embellishments were added to this wreath to go

to a baby shower.  The mom may also use it on her 

hospital door when the baby actually arrives. 

The cable ties on the two wreaths above held really well

and did not slide along the wire after they were pulled tight.

I was curious, however, to see if the same ruffle effect 

could be achieved by using pipe cleaners to hold the poufs

in place instead of cable ties. 

Last year I never got around to making a Halloween wreath

so I decided to do the experiment with totally different colors

than the baby wreaths and get a head start on Fall decorating.

A 16" wire wreath form was painted black on the front

 then 20" wide black deco mesh poufs were added to

 the third wire with black pipe cleaners cut into thirds.

Even twisted tightly, the pipe cleaners allow the mesh to 

slide along the wire if they are not secured. One way to make

the pipe cleaners stay in place is to glue them onto the wire.

Another way is to use the left over "legs" of the pipe cleaners

and twist them along the wire.  Gluing is better if you have the time.

After the black, orange mesh was added to the outermost wire.

The orange mesh poufs (8" long, 2-3" apart on wire) were 

attached with pipe cleaners that had been cut into thirds.

Here is the wreath after the orange mesh had been added:

Michael's has started carrying a small supply of deco mesh

in the ribbon department.  The purple mesh came from there.

It was added on the innermost wire of the wreath form

with purple pipe cleaners.  Since you can see the different colors

of mesh more in this wreath, I wanted to show what the ruffle

wreath would look like if you wanted to keep the poufs more

separate and not pull them together and integrate them. 

Here is the wreath with the colors pulled together:

To give the wreath a quick finish for now, this glittery spider

on a web was added to the wreath.

So, yes, you can use pipe cleaners to attach the deco 

mesh poufs to the wire wreath form instead of cable 

ties to achieve the ruffle wreath look. 

Either way, when you make one of these wreaths for

yourself, you may have folks stopping to inspect it to

try to determine "how DID she get that look?" just 

like I did.