February 18, 2014

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!


14 comments

  1. Gayle-Those are so darned cute. I wish I had seen this before my daughter's baby shower. It is just a darling idea. What fun---a bit of work--but cute! xo Diana

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh my word, these are amazing. I love this idea. How cute and clever. Thanks tons for linking to Inspire Me. Hugs, Marty

    ReplyDelete
  3. So cute! I'll have to give these a try.
    Patti

    ReplyDelete
  4. How cute, and I think they look best as a cupcake topper. So cute! Thanks for stopping by and leaving your sweet comments about my Bonnie Blue. I appreciate it so much!

    ReplyDelete
  5. They are absolutely adorable...I am going to show this to a friend who will be planning a baby shower soon!...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh my those are so adorable. I have never seen anything like them. I would be eating more than my share!

    ReplyDelete
  7. These are soooo cute! I don't know if you remember me, but we sat at the same table for the ASCP class last year at Haven! Hope to see you there again this year!! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks so much for this tutorial. How far in advance can I make these?

    ReplyDelete
  9. These turned out so, so cute!! Try using a wire cooling rack to hang the pacifiers until the jellybeans set. Of course, it needs to be at least 1 inch tall for them to hang properly. Thanks for the adorable idea for a baby shower.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. After my first comment, I realized I put mine together differently! So hanging them in the cooling rack would only work if the two Lifesavers had already been attached, which I did first and then turned them upside down until set, before attaching any of the jellybeans. Sorry if my tip was confusing. Either method of assembly, they're adorable! :)

      Delete
  10. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often. ikea antilop accessories

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi. How far in advance can I make these?

    ReplyDelete

Thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to comment on my blog!

© Miss Kopy Kat. Design by FCD.