We're Making Chocolates Over Here

I've been wanting to try this for a while now...and I've taken my time picking people's brains and figuring out my game plan. The candy supply aisle is about the only one I haven't hit at Michael's and Joanne's. I've been chatting it up and kicking it around....and more importantly I was hoping it would be a fun activity for Cindylou and I to do together...she was enthusiatic about it...so we decided to make candy for our friends for Valentine's Day. My real-life friend Joy from Joybeadworks dropped off a TON of candy molds a few days before I got started.....
You can seriously make ANYTHING out of chocolate!



I spent some time going through them...and got things a little more under control.



But for our first attempt we decided to got with the 2 molds I got at Joanne's a while ago...



...and this idea I saw in Family Fun magazine using mini candy canes to make lollipops.



We also decided to make little chocolate covered pretzels too. The girl who does our hair told us about Almond Bark.....and she recommended Hershey's chips for the best taste. So basically all I did was shave down half a block of the Almond Bark and melted it in a bowl with a bag of chips. She has a chocolate pot she got at Joanne's, but I just kept it warm in my mini crockpot. Then we got started....



We made the lolllipops first....just bake them in the oven for 10 minutes at 275 degrees...take them out and pinch them together with the stick in the middle...then put a little bit of melted white chocolate inside and sprinkle with the nonpareils.



Moving on to the pretzels....it took a little bit to figure out our technique...but people you CAN'T MESS THIS UP!!!!!!! Just be sure to stick everything in the freezer for 15 minutes...or in our case it was cold enough to just set stuff on our deck right outside the sliding glass door.



We sampled a broken lollipop and they are as good as they are cute.



We got into dark chocolate too....YUM!!!!!!!!



These are the chocolate covered Oreos. WOWZA!!!!!! Just fill up the mold and push the Oreo in. Done.



Here are the pretty white things....the little hearts are just too easy to pop in you mouth!



We had a great afternoon together making chocolates....and we were soooo happy with the results...for our first time we thought they looked pretty professional. As we were making them we kept coming up with more ideas for our next time...turtles, peanut butter cups...chocolate covered raspberries....yikes!