October is here! Which means lots of talk about costumes, pumpkins and candy.  If your kids are anything like mine, the promise of insurmountable amounts of sugary, chocolatey goodness is almost too good to be true. My six year old has a sweet tooth like no other, so making candy worlds is something I know will make her very happy.  We actually made these candy worlds this summer at Art Camp.  They were such a gigantic hit that I knew we had to bust them out again for Halloween.

Each candy world is totally different.  There is no right or wrong way to do this, unless of course you eat all the candy as you go.  Here are the basics of making your own candy worlds.  You’ll need…

Materials

a shallow dish of some kind.  we used a plastic planters dish.

candy, of course (choose candies that are soft so you can stick toothpicks through them)

colorful straws

beads

cut out house shapes from foam core

toothpicks and glue

a piece of paper for a sign

Steps

1. Fill your shallow dish with rainbow colored playdough.  Here’s my favorite recipe for homemade play dough. We bought our dishes from a local nursery.  You can use terrecota plates as well, like we did for these fairy gardens.  You could probably even use the lid of a shoe box and it would work just fine. Once you have the play dough the way you want it, it’s time to start creating your candy world.

Step 2.

Like I said, there is no right or wrong way to do this.  We set up a buffet of super colorful and engaging materials for the kids to choose from, demonstrated a few ideas, and let them have at it.

As you can see, the kids really liked using the straws to make garlands. They looked awesome and added some height to the worlds.   The best part of these worlds is the ease in which the kids can push the different materials into the play dough.  They can change their mind over and over again, play with play dough, and squish things in there over and over again. Kids made candy rivers, rainbow swimming pools, candy houses, all kinds of fun things.

I love this project because pretty much any age can do it and both boys and girls love it.  Even some moms got in on the fun.

For the kids that made the candy houses, they glued pieces onto the foam core and let them dry before pressing their house into the play dough. Sorry I don’t have any pics of that step but it was pretty straight forward.  Brush some glue on the foam core and add your candy.

After a few hours, the play dough will start to get hard so you can’t take objects in and out at this point. It still looks really great when dry and will make an awesome Halloween display.  Ooooh, maybe we have to make some haunted Halloween Worlds like this.  That would be so cool!

However you do it, just have fun.  Shockingly, we didn’t even have any tummy aches after this.  Now, that’s a win.  Happy Halloween! xo, Meri

all pics by Neil Apodaca