Candy Buffet "Fishers of Men"

9-13-10 
  I finally reloaded my candy buffet pictures.  I was so frustrated the last time I tried to post them and my camera was telling me the pictures were already downloaded but most of them weren't showing up on my computer! So here they are....finally.
  This buffet was done back in July for a coworker, Latissa, who wanted to do something special for a women's group at her church, Greater Emmanuel Pentecostal in Rockford Illinois.  Latissa only requested the Hershey Bulbs for each lady but I really wanted to do a buffet.  So I mentioned that I wanted to do the buffet to Latissa and that it would have a Christian theme.  Even though it was a women's group I went with the scriptures "Fishers of Men" because even women are called to be fishers of mankind.  I loved doing the buffet and look forward to doing others.  I will say it is a lot of work but I enjoy being creative.  And it was because of this buffet that the name "Anna's Edible Arrangements" was given by Latissa.  I originally didn't want anything with my name in it but I did want something that included all of my other creations so this name seemed to fit.  So here is the buffet which included 9 bouquets and one especially made for Latissa's Pastor.

Staged buffet at home #1 (left)
Some of the candy didn't get its own individual photo like these Twizlers.
I separated them by color and arranged them like a rainbow.

2nd (middle)
I wasn't able to include all of these clear shell dishes for lack of time. 

3rd (right)
I REALLY wish I would've gotten a better close up picture of this tall vase. 
It was one of my favorite & pricier vases.  I filled it with Star Burst candy.
This shot had 4 other candies that I missed individual pictures of in the final display.

1st of  9 Hershey Bulb Bouquets
(F.Y.I...The previous 4 photos are smaller because enlarging them interferes with the side bar options)

2nd & 3rd

4th

5th & 6th

7, 8  & 9th

Special bouquet for the Pastor
This shot had some strawberry filled candy in a dish that was trimmed with shells.

This one was made with hard candy.  Mints, butterscotch,
country time lemonade candies, cinnamon disks and
red candy rose suckers.

Like all of the Hershey Bulbs, there was a special inspirational tag to go along with each bouquet. 
I added little jewels to each one to make them even more unique.
The Pastor was the only one with a little star gem on the tag and flower gems on her ribbon.

I tried to find something to gather the table cloth with that went along with Fishers of Men. 
It took me a long time and I didn't think I was going to find anything until I saw this.

It wasn't the actual scripture for Fishers of Men but it did flow with the theme. 
It was actually a small wooden model that I added a table clip to.

Jonah was my next attraction. He wasn't as hard to find as the boat.

 I had this image of a live fish swimming in a large vase with a cross in the water

 from the very start of putting the buffet together.

This was the bottom half to the Jonah center piece.  Jonah was on top.
  I used a wavy looking vase with tissue paper and shells.  I probably should have used blue (water) but I liked the bright chearfulness of pink.

Jonah decided to check out the lit candle and take center stage.  What a show off huh?
The water was a bit bubbly so the picture wasn't so clear.

This was a vase full of malt balls & foil wrapped carmel filled chocolate balls.  I also made some chocolate cross suckers.  I arranged them in a vase filled with York Mint M&Ms.  I made little fishes to attach to the center of the crosses.

I really liked the way the ball shaped candies were in a ball shaped vase. 
You can't see it but the tongs were ball shaped too.

These were some chocolate carmel apple fish that I made.  I put them in a shell shaped dish.
I thought it looked so cool the way I layered the fish to look like a school of fish swimming.

 I loved these fish platters that I found.  This one had butter mints wrapped with scriptures.
(Not sure why this picture is squooshed?)

 I found so many wonderful vases, platters & candy dishes.  This was a very realistic looking shell
that I filled with milk chocolate stars.

This was one of my favorites too.  The platter had shells on it which you can see in the 2nd picture posted because there's nothing on it yet.  I surrounded the chocolate covered strawberries with chocolate rocks.  The chocolate rocks basically tasted like M&Ms.  The one thing missing from this dessert though was the fact that I ran short of time and wasn't able to make the strawberries stuffed with cheesecake...oh well maybe next time.

This was another one of the fish platters with tootsie rolls and frooties.  Frooties are like tootsie rolls in fruit flavors. 
These were apple, cherry and blue raspberry.

These were some chocolate stuffed peanutbutter cookies that I made.  If you like Reeses you'll love these.

I really loved this glass fish shaped platter.  I made chocolate sunflower seed clusters to top this one.

Although this picture wasn't taken on the actual buffet, it was included.  These were strawberry marshmallows stuffed

with a cherry and topped with milk chocolate and baby M&Ms.  I also used these in the candy bouquets that I did.

Like many of the shell shaped dishes I found this one which was a solid white shell that I filled with nerds. 

I wanted to have a variety of candy for everyone's tastes.  I personally don't prefer sour candy. 

If it were up to me everything on the buffet would have been..........CHOCOLATE!

I loved these spoons!  I bought as many as I could get because they looked like shells.

Had to include these Sweedish fish.  Why do they call them Swedish fish anyway....Are they from Sweden?  

If you like sunflower seeds you would've liked these.  They were candy coated chocolate covered sunflower seeds.

I tied the Fishers of Men ribbon to the scoop.

And once everyone was SUGARED OUT there was yet another shell filled with some salty nuts.

This was a close up of the chocolate cross suckers I made.  I liked the way curling the gold ties looked.

The white fish were toffee chocolate crosses & the peach colored fish were carmel chocolate crosses.

I made this very simple cupcake bouquet which almost didn't make it to the table.  While I was entering Latissa's church the bouquet and I almost had a race to the bottom of the stairs.  You can see that the bottom left flower is a little squooshed.  I loved the ribbon "sweet Jesus" with the cupcakes on it.....PERFECT!

The cupcake bouquet could've been more creative like the Greenbay Packers one I've done but this wasn't my main focus.

With the exception of one lady being alergic to strawberries, everyone liked these strawberry lemonade cupcakes. 

The icing really tasted like lemonade too.

CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES WITH CHOCOLATE ICING WOULD'VE BEEN BETTER  

Along with all the candy and a few mixed nuts, I couldn't resist these multicolored cheddar fish crackers. 

I also included some of these marshmallow twists. 

 If you look to the left you can see a pair of tongs standing upright on the end. 

 I thought it was really cool the way they stood up. 

I added the Fishers of Men ribbon to each of them for the theme's extra effect.

This was one of the side views of the Hershey Bulbs.  The vases were filled with a mixture of regular, baby & peanut M&Ms.  I placed them on mirrors with battery lit candles underneath.

I spread out a bunch of treat bags so the ladies could take their candy home with them.  There was way too much candy to eat that day but plenty of family to take the candy home to.  I liked the cross/fish design on the bags.

I placed a little tin of mint fish to go along with each Hershey Bulb.  In this shot you can see a top view of the candy rings at the base of the vases.  I had to make something to stabilize the top heavy arrangements.

I took a very short video of the buffet for FB but it was a little dark. 

 I shouldn't have been talking but I was explaining why I was doing it so quickly to Latissa. 

 I mentioned that FB only allows for a certain amount of time but it's actually not the length of time

 but the size of the file.

And here's Jonah's curtain debut.  Step aside Charlie and all you other fish starlings  .......THE END