Valentine's Day Candy Roses

I'm trying to be better this year about getting things done ahead of time and not waiting until the last dang minute.  That being said, my daughter and I put together some teachers gifts this weekend for Valentine's Day. We made Hershey Kisses Rose Bouquets.  The rosebuds came out so cute, I thought I'd give a quick tutorial on how to make them. (Funny - I didn't see all that dust on the table when I was taking that picture! Oh well, such is life.)

The things you will need to make the rosebuds are:

Hershey's Kisses with the red, silver and pink foil, floral picks (leaves), floral wire, floral tape, Elmer's glue(not pictured).  I bought the floral pics in the bridal department at Michael's and the floral wire and floral tape at Michael's in the floral department.

Start by taking two kisses of the same color and dabbing the bottom of each with a little Elmer's glue.  Press together and let sit until dry.  They will slip and slide around so we used a plate with a lip to prop them up against until they were dry.  I used Elmer's glue because it is the least toxic I could find.  Continue gluing kisses together until you have enough for your bouquet.  We made 12 rose buds per vase.

While the kisses are drying, take your floral wire and if it is cloth floral wire (like mine) you will need to unravel about an inch to an inch and a half or so of the cloth from the wire.  If you have plain floral wire you can skip this step.  It just makes it easier to insert the wire if the cloth isn't on it.

Next, take your dry kisses and insert the wire through the middle of the first kiss up into the second kiss about midway.  This will help keep the rosebud from falling apart.  Don't worry if you still have bare wire showing.  We will cover that up in the next step.  Clip off the cloth that you removed in the previous step.

Once fully inserted your rosebud should look like this.

In this next step, you will need your floral tape again.  

Take a short piece of floral tape and starting at the point where the wire is inserted into the kiss begin to wrap the tape around the base of the rose bud.

 Your rosebud should look like this.

 For this next step you will need two of your floral picks and a small piece of floral tape.

 Beginning just under the leaves start wrapping your floral tape around the wires of the pics to make your rosebud have leaves.

 Once finished, your rosebuds should look like this.  Aren't they adorable?

We decided to dress our rosebuds up a bit more so we took an old mason jar (left over from the Peppermint Sugar Scrub we made for her teachers for Christmas) filled it with Hershey's Kisses.  We added a piece of ribbon to the neck of the jar to jazz it up a bit.

Then we took a plastic rose bush that we bought at Michael's and arranged the flowers and the buds to look like a real bouquet. We also added a little spray with hearts on it to the mix.

I think Claire's teachers will love the roses, don't you?  Who could resist all those candy kisses?

XOXO,

Susan


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