Pick a themed cup to make the perfect base as the holder
for a candy bouquet in a coffee cup. It would be the perfect
for Mother's Day, Father's Day, teacher's gifts or any occasion.
It's like two gifts in one...the candy AND the coffee cup.
You can personalize a plain coffee cup with a special
saying that you like, a name, an initial or a cute design
to make it even more special.
There are further directions later in the post about how to make the design
you do yourself last through dishwashings.
In addition to a coffee cup you will need candy, clear
tape, wooden skewers and foam.
Since a coffee cup is relatively small, you can get by
with putting small (and less expensive) candy in them.
These candies came from a bag of miniature candies.
Although if you want to use full-sized candy, the
weight of the cup will support those too.
This red pot (from Dollar Tree) is not officially a coffee cup but it is ceramic and
has about the weight of a coffee cup...it just doesn't have a handle.
Use clear tape to attach the candy bar on to the skewer.
Wooden skewers can be found in different sizes in the kitchen aisle of most grocery stores.
A craft stick (like a popsicle stick) or candy sticks (in the cake/candy section at craft stores) can be also.
If you want to hide the skewer on a candy bar, pull up
the flap on the back, place the skewer along the fold,
and tape it down securely. Then pull the flap over the
skewer and take the flap down.
The larger the candy, the larger the skewer you will need.
Really small candies can be used as "fillers" and taped
on to a toothpick even. I have also used these plastic cocktail
"forks" I happened across at Dollar Tree to tape candy on.
You can use floral foam (usually it is green) or styrofoam
inside of the coffee cup to hold up the candies on skewers.
These foams came from the floral aisle at Dollar Tree.
The floral foam is easier to cut to size, the styrofoam (above, white) is harder to cut but sturdier.
Cut the foam to fit as snug in the cup as possible.
You might need to "whittle" the bottom of the foam some
to fit the narrower bottom of the cup.
.If you are making a lot of these at one time, you might
consider spray foam to save money on foam. It is trickier
to use than pre-made foam but if you want to see more
When you are pushing the skewered candy into the foam,
push on the stick and not the candy. The candy might pop
off of the stick if too much pressure is applied to it.
If you want to hide the foam or just add some more interest
to the candy bouquet, you can use crinkly basket filler or
these paper "fluffs". The "fluffs" can be made with tissue
paper, paper napkins or even cupcake papers.
Cut the tissue paper or napkins into small-ish squares.
This napkin from the Dollar Tree had squares already mapped out for me.
If a napkin is two-ply and the second ply is white, you might want to pull it off to keep the fluff colorful.
Pinch the paper square in the middle and make a "stem".
Tape the stem in place. Fluff the remainder of the square
upwards to make it almost like an opening flower.
You can push the "fluff" in between the cup and foam or
you can tape the "fluff" onto a toothpick by the "stem" and
push it directly into the foam.
If you want to see more ideas of how to embellish the top
want to personalize your coffee cup yourself, you need to
use an OIL-BASED pen to keep your design from coming
off in the dishwasher. (Who wants to hand-wash? Not me.)
I could not find an oil-based Sharpie but I did find oil-based
paint pens at Michaels. They were about $5 each...you
could use discount coupons if you have them.
You don't have to use two colors or colors at all...black would work well too.
Although I did practice using the oil-based paint pens
before writing on the white coffee cups, I don't like how
my writing turned out. You can probably do better than me.
I wish I had seen this tutorial by Cassie at
Pink Heels Pink Truck blog about how to transfer a
saying onto a mug before drawing mine on.
Here is a Pinterest page with more ideas about drawing/
painting on coffee mugs for your coffee cup candy bouquet.
Even though I probably won't give my "less than perfect"
hand-written coffee cup candy bouquets to anyone else,
I will enjoy reading the sentiments myself in the mornings.
I'm gonna put them out there anyway... (cringe)....
to show the candy placement, etc....
Here are some other candy bouquet coffee cups
with professional designs on them...
Depending on where you buy your coffee cups and
how much you want to spend on candy, these candy
bouquets can cost as little as $3 each...and up from there.
Folks will love getting these two-gifts-in-one
from you!
If you want to see ideas for candy bouquets
