How to Make a Candy Flower Gift Basket

If you currently run a Gift Basket business or are thinking of starting one, a Candy Flower Basket can be a great addition to your line. This type of gift basket is very artistic and creative, and it's pretty, too! The Candy Flower Basket is easy to make, and will turn heads wherever it is given.

MATERIALS

1) Basket - preferably around, the size of a medium to large flowerpot
2) Large piece of flower arranging or art Styrofoam - large enough to fit in the bottom of the basket and reaching up to around 3 inches below the lip of the basket
3) Plenty of stiff, green wire used in flower arranging
4) Green flower tape
5) 2-1/2 inch green wood sticks, pointed on one end, blunt on the other
6) Thin wire
7) Variety of wrapped hard candies, preferably with colorful wrappers
8) A good amount of bright, colorful cellophane sheets (green and red, especially)

Many of these supplies can be found at craft stores or flower arranging supply stores.

INSTRUCTIONS

Let's start with the candy flowers. Cut the stiff green wire into 1-foot lengths. Make around 15 for a decent size basket. Now, sort your candies by wrapper color. You'll need 5 or 6 candies per wire. Take one of the candies and hold one twisted end of the wrapper against the end of the wire. Now, wrap the green floral tape tightly around the wrapper and wire a few times. Don't tear the tape; once the candy is firmly attached to the wire, continue the tape down the wire and wrap another candy around 1 to 1 1/2 inches below the first, depending on how many candies you'll put on the wire.

Continue this down the wire. When you've wrapped 5 or 6 of the same candies on the top half of the wire, trail your tape off another inch or two on the wire. You've just made your first candy flower! Set that one aside and start on the next one. Try to have at least 4 different types of candies, so all the flowers won't be the same color.

Next, wrap the Styrofoam in green cellophane and put it into the bottom of the basket. Take your colored cellophane sheets and cut around fifty 6" x 10" rectangles. Don't worry about making them perfectly sized. Take one of the rectangles and loosely fold it in half the short way (to make a 6' x 5" rectangle) and then in half the long way (to make a 3" x 5" rectangle).

Don't crease the folds, and again, don't worry about being perfect -- it'll look better if it's not. Insert this rectangle into one of the open spaces closed point down (the point that would be the center of the rectangle, if it were unfolded.) Do this with 20 to 25 of the rectangles, until the open spaces are filled, though not tightly. Fluff the open corners of the rectangles out.

Now, insert your flowers into the Styrofoam. Space them out evenly, and put around four inches of the wire down into the foam, so it's secure. Slightly curve the wire and insert it at a slight angle, so the flowers sit realistically, Real flower bouquets don't stand straight up.

Finally, take one of the remaining cellophane rectangles, and fold it in the same way as you did with the "fill-in" rectangles. Now, take one of the short green sticks and a six-inch length of the thin copper wire. Wrap the wire three or four times around the blunt end of the stick, around 1/8" from the end. Put around 1/2" of the closed corner of the rectangle against the blunt end of the stick, and wrap the remaining wire tightly around it. Insert this in the Styrofoam, in between the flowers. Do this with the remaining rectangles, cutting more if necessary to completely hide the Styrofoam and fill out the basket. When done, fluff the open corners out.

You now have a Candy Flower Basket. The best thing about this is the fact that it looks better after the candy is removed! Put a note in with your basket suggesting that people unwrap only the unattached end of the wrapper to remove a candy. The candies look like buds while they're wrapped; they look like blooming flowers with the candy removed!