Wreck-It Ralph Sugar Rush Candy Decorations

Sugar Rush decorations from Wreck-It Ralph

For Halloween I participated in a Truck or Treat event with some friends. The theme we chose was the Sugar Rush game world from the movie Wreck-It Ralph (I've already done write-ups on my Vanellope costume and wig).

Here's a list of all the decorations we made:

• Peppermint trees
• Giant cotton candy
• Giant lollipops
• Giant jawbreaker
• Gumdrop lights
• Rainbow bridge/finish line
• Hero and cookie medals

And here's how we made them:

Peppermint Trees: These were made out of scrap wood and painted with pink and white latex paint. There's a hinge on the back of the trunk of each tree that is connected to another piece of wood that helps the trees stand. We were inspired by the trees seen in the Sugar Rush decorations at Kara's Party Ideas.

Giant cotton candy

Giant Cotton Candy: We used this tutorial for fake cotton candy by iViViFiED on deviantart. I started with a small, upside-down trash can. I made a cone out of poster board and taped it to the bottom. I then wrapped packing paper around the trash can to fill it out and taped the paper in place. The "candy" is made of a queen-sized sheet of polyester quilt batting - the cheapest one I could find.

To color the batting, I deviated from the tutorial after the watered-down paint recommended did not work for me. The paint wouldn't dry and it gummed up the spray bottle to the point where it wouldn't work. Instead, I used watered-down red food coloring. I hung the batting outside on a line (very important to do it outside to avoid staining stuff indoors) and filled up a spray bottle with water and red food coloring (I experimented to find the right ratio of water to food color). I sprayed the colored water on both sides of the batting and let it dry. I had to go back over several times to fill in places that got missed. I think I ended up using about a bottle and a half of food coloring.

After the batting dried completely, I tore it into strips and wrapped them around the trash cans, tucking the ends of the strips under each other. The tutorial recommends cutting the batting into strips with scissors but I found it looked more realistic when it was torn. Be aware that the food coloring is not waterproof and it can rub off on your clothes or anything else it touches. I wrapped them in trash bags before putting them in my car to keep the color from rubbing off on the interior.

Giant Lollipops: We used this tutorial. Instead of wrapping paper tubes we used PVC pipe. To keep them standing up on the asphalt, we cut holes in some planks of wood and stuck the PVC pipe in.

Giant jawbreaker

Giant Jawbreaker: This was a $3 plastic ball from Walmart. I painted it with brush-on white latex paint then dabbed on acrylic paint in blue, red and yellow. I made the mistake of trying to use fancy spray paint meant for plastic first - it never dried and ended up gross and sticky. I went over it with the latex paint afterward and it worked beautifully - not sticky at all.

Illuminated gumdrop lights

Gumdrop Lights

I got the idea for the gumdrop lights from The Felted Chicken. Those gumdrops didn't light up, though, so here's how I made ones that did:

IKEA cup

1. I got twelve multicolored children's cups. These were Kalas tumblers from IKEA.

Cut out cirle from craft foam

2. I cut out a circle slightly larger than the mouth of the cup from craft foam in the same color as the cup.

Clip edges of craft foam circle

3. I clipped the edges of the craft foam circle so it would easily fold over the mouth of the cup. I also cut a small "X" in the center of the circle for the light to go through (not shown in the above photo, unfortunately).

Tape circle to cup

4. I taped the circle to the top of the cup.

Cover with plastic wrap

5. I covered the whole thing with plastic wrap, taping at the top. Usually this required covering the "X" in the craft foam, so I had to go back with some scissors and slice through the plastic wrap and tape to make a hole for the light. I did this step because I didn't want to glue the Epsom salts directly to the cup - I wanted the option of reusing the cups afterward. If you don't care about reusing the cups, it would probably work better to glue the salt directly to the cup.

6. I spread Elmer's white glue over the whole thing (except for the hole for the light) then rolled it in Epsom salts. I added more glue and sprinkled on salt in any place that didn't get enough during the rolling stage then let it dry completely.

"Salted" gumdrop

7. I took my gumdrops outside and gave them a thorough spraying with a clear coat spray paint. This helps the Epsom salts stick to the cup a little better, but even with that the salt was constantly falling off. I definitely wouldn't recommend using the lights inside because of the mess the salt makes.

Illuminated gumdrop light

8. I got a short string of holiday lights and stuck one into each hole in the top of the gumdrop then hung up the string and lit them up.

Rainbow Bridge/Finish Line: The rainbow was made from taped-together strips of colored construction paper (the kind that comes on a roll). The finish line was white paper with a grid drawn onto it.

Hero and cookie medals

Hero and Cookie Medals: These were made from craft foam and ribbon. For the hero medal, I used a wood burner (and the proper safety equipment - burning craft foam makes fumes) to burn the star and marks into the craft foam. I used sticky foam letters to write "HERO" and then painted the whole thing gold. The cookie medal is a layer of brown foam and a layer of white foam glued together, with sharpie and paint used to make the icing and sprinkles.