Creating Lollipop Centerpieces

For a recent photo shoot, we created simple, elegant lollipop centerpieces:

Photo by Heather Immoor

The basis for the centerpiece is the 4" cube from Blumebox with the cake pop insert. They're a terrific canvas for your creativity. In this case, I got some understated silvery wrapping paper from my local Papyrus stationery shop to cover the sides of the box.What I love about wrapping paper is how versatile it is - our customer Sandy used a colorful, playful pattern to decorate Blumeboxes for a baby shower.

The cake pop insert is kraft cardboard, so it looks a bit plain on its own. There are lots of ways to decorate it; this time I used decorative Roost Snowfall - fake "snow" that was given to me by one of my retailers. The result was a very understated look that let the beautiful aqua lollipops take most of the visual focus. The fake snow was really neat stuff, not static-y at all; unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available directly. Still, any similar fake snow or confetti would fit the bill.

Looking for more inspiration? the Ideas in Blume blog has loads of that to spare!

Wedding Favors

With Valentine's Day and New Years' in the recent past, newly-engaged lovebirds are about ready to come down from Cloud 9 and start thinking about their wedding plans... We're here to help with favors!

These luscious, elegant, cream-colored lollipop favors in Pina Colada flavor work beautifully for a wedding with a tropical theme. Call it "Hawaiian Honeymoon" on a stick.

Pina Colada lollipops in lovely off-white

The clean, uncluttered appearance of the lollipops in unlabeled bags can be very appealing and offers a very quick turn around time. Spring green and aqua blue are just some of the beautiful colors we can create:

Spring green lollipops in Black Pepper Melon flavor

Aqua blue lollipops in Blueberry Muffin flavor

Other celebrations opt for our custom initials label service, which was featured in Seattle Metropolitan Bride & Groom a couple of years ago:

(photo by Lara Ferroni)

We'd love to help bring your dream day to reality with sophisticated, delicious lollipop favors. Drop us a line at thischarmingcandy@gmail.com and let's get started!

Gift Box Set of Lollipops

Thanks to a recent photo shoot, we've updated the photos of the gift box set with all of our gourmet lollipops:

 

The pops come in a snazzy white box with a clear lid that's perfect for gift wrapping. 

Inside, you'll find all 22 of our super delicious flavors:

Apple-Anise

Birthday Cake
Black Pepper Melon
Blueberry Muffin
Bubble Gum
Cherries Jubilee
Hazelnut-Coffee
Honey-Jasmine
Guava Colada
Maple Sugar
Nutmeg Creme
Pineapple Heaven
Pistachio-Marshmallow
Root Beer Float
Salted Anise
Salted Caramel
Sweetened Grapefruit
Tangerine-Clove
Tart Pluot
Triple Berry
Vanilla-Cardamom
Watermelon-Basil 

We nicknamed this variety collection "All of the Above"; before that we jokingly called it "Girlfriend In A (Sugar) Coma". Enjoy!

Photos by Heather Immoor Photography

Lollipop Orgy?

That pile of artfully discarded lollipop wrappers makes the scene look a bit like everyone just disrobed and jumped into the hot tub! After all, these are the Red Hot Love lollipops... 

Photo by Heather Immoor

Simple Presentation for Lollipops

For casual parties, we've found it's easiest to fan out lollipops in a circle and pass them around on a plate or in a small basket. One of our customers did that for her street's block party and we think they look so inviting! Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best ones.

A tisket, a tasket... lollipops in a basket!

How have you arranged our lollipops for sharing? We'd love to see your photos! You can send them to us at thischarmingcandy [at] gmail.com, or leave a link to your own blog post in the comments below...

Reading: Star Wars and Natural Food Coloring

I love the original Star Wars trilogy, and have taken some ribbing in my time for being geeky enough about it to make moisture farming references. But the truth is I can only aspire to be this awesomely geeky... first Inside the Battle of Hoth, and its follow-up, Defense Nerds Strike Back: A Symposium on the Battle of Hoth. The original piece posits:

[O]f all the Empire’s failures, none is a more spectacular military fiasco than the Battle of Hoth at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back... It’s a classic fiasco of overconfidence and theology masquerading as military judgment — and the exact opposite of the Empire striking back.

The responses and rebuttals include:

To Vader, the Imperial force at Hoth — and the battle against the rebels — was a pretext for his real goal, finding Luke. He wouldn’t have minded wiping out the rest of the rebels, and he was happy enough to use the Imperial fleet to try to stop rebel ships (Luke’s ship) from leaving the system, but that’s not why he was there. Vader didn’t care at all whether or not they defeated the rebels that day.

and

Had Vader not botched the defense of the Death Star, the Battle of Hoth would have been precluded and Grand Moff Tarkin would be rightly recognized as the greatest strategist the galaxy has ever seen.

I will stop here before I quote the entire thing, taking a final moment to recommend reading the first posted comment to the original article, because it is completely perfect!

-=-=-
Much less amusing was this industry article about the challenges of using natural food coloring, which mentions that Nestle found it needed 21 kg of natural food coloring to achieve the results of a mere 100 grams of artificial coloring. Wow. 

Natural colours are here to stay…but there are still challenges

Synthetic colours may still be more prevalent than natural colours in foods and beverages, but natural is catching up as manufacturers increasingly look first to natural ingredients in developing new products – however, challenges remain.