Makin' Fireflies!

BUT, before we do that, I must give thanks to Maricris over at Zen Ventures. She gifted me this totally awesome award, which is actually FOUR, count 'em, FOUR awards in one!! Rock on! Yes, so fireflies. I needed lots of fireflies for my birthday cake. Actually, the book only said I needed something like 12 but I made extra for two reasons: 1.) I have a tendency to screw things up B.) they were fun to make and I didn't want to stop! So I made eleventy million fireflies (possibly and over exaggeration) and 6 moons (again, made extra).

Get yourself some candy melts. They sell them at Wally World and craft stores. I got dark chocolate and white chocolate. They also sell them in various colors, which is awesome. However, if you're going to be coloring your own, you need to be sure and get dye that is intended for coloring chocolates. It MUST be oil based. If it's water or a gel, your candy will seize and then you're screwed. It's not fixable.

Melt your chocolates down, either using a double boiler (preferred method) or in the microwave. If done in the microwave, set it to defrost mode and stir it in 30 second increments. *NOTE* do not lick the spoon! Your saliva will cause the candy to seize if you mix it up with the spitty-spoon.
You can buy little squeeze bottles in the candy making section of your craft store if you so desire. But, if you're a cheapskate like me, you'll opt for the option of making your own bags. Either pour the chocolate into a sand which bag and snip off the corner or make some piping bags out of a few squares of cellophane. Cut squares and starting at the top, twist the corner down toward you. A conical shape should form. Tape off and snip the point off when you're ready to work with it.

Now, the easy and fun part! You can pretty much make any image out of chocolate, although the simpler the better at this point. Simply place the image under some waxed paper or parchment and trace the main shape using dark chocolate. Next, fill in with the desired colors.
If the colors spill outside the lines, who cares. It adds to the uniqueness of the piece.

After I did the fireflies, I needed to make some moons. For this, I took dark chocolate and made little swirls and dots all over my waxed paper. I selected the areas with the prettiest swirls and drew a big white chocolate circle over it. Ta-da! Moons!
Now, you may be wondering what book I keep referring to. It's this one.I recommend picking this little baby up. It has lots of fun ideas and they go into greater depth about using candy melts. BONUS: They have lots of yummy recipes!!

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Before I got, I'd like to give a little shout-out to my lil cyber stalker/lurker. Peek-a-boo! I see you!!! Keep on lurking my friend. Or, better yet, why don't y'all move on down here so we can hang!