Hi, everyone. It’s Amy Belle Isle, from stem parties, and I promise that no paper lanterns were harmed or even used in this guest blog post. (If you’ve seen any parties I’ve done that Jenn has posted, you know how hard that was for me.) In fact, this guest post was almost an entire post about ways to use those bad boys. Instead, I’m keeping it seasonal and featuring a few ways to work with the controversial Candy Vegetable of the Gods: Candy Corn.

Love it or hate it, there’s no denying it looks festive! Here are just a few ideas:

Serving Trays:

The two versions of serving trays pictured a use inexpensive

• Acrylic box frames
• Candy corn
• Tape and ribbon.

The cupcake tray is simply one frame filled with candy and topped off with the party food of your choice. This could work for anything that is in an individual dish or wrapper. Shot glasses filled with chilled pumpkin soup, anyone?

The drink tray could be used to give some height and pizzazz to anything you’re serving. I’d steer clear of anything too hot on the surface though. Simply take two acrylic box frames, fill one with candy, line the edges of the other one on top of it, put a few pieces of double-sided tape to secure the two together and then run ribbon of your choice along the tape to “hide” the seam. Voila!

You can hot glue the two frames together but I like to encourage tape so you can reuse them. Just think of all the ways and themes in which you can use this idea by changing the items you place inside!

Party Favors:

I love the look of acrylic obviously. It just makes everything look a little more modern. Even though I don’t love candy corn in my mouth on its own, I do love it mixed with peanuts. Give me salty-sweet any day. Am I right, ladies? Fill the boxes with the mixture, tie with ribbon, add a tag and let your guests know that you’re glad they took time out of the busy holiday season to join you.

Floral Accents:

The simple arrangement I made here is made by placing a small cylinder vase inside a larger one and then adding candy corn in the gap between the two. Fill the smaller vase with water, pick the flowers of your choice and add a few twigs to give it an extra touch of autumn. I’ve adorned this one with some ribbon for that extra touch.

Candle Accents:

Shy of buying these adorable candles from Plum Party, nothing could be easier than filling various sizes and shapes of candle holders and vases with some candy corn and placing a candle inside. Give it a glow!

Invitations:

{pictured at top} How cute are these Classic Candies party invitations (starring our treat of choice!), and Candy Corn Halloween Cards from tiny prints?!

Not enough ideas yet?

• Fill various sizes of cylinder or square vases with candy corn for a simple and chic display.
• Completely cover inexpensive frames of all shapes and sizes with glued on candy corn and make a seasonal focal wall with them.
• Use branches from your yard or the craft store and cover the branches with glued on candy corn. Place inside a vase to make an interesting centerpiece.
• Hang clusters of orange, white and yellow paper lanterns all around the party space. (I almost made it. So close.)

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Hopefully these simple ideas will inspire you to look at candy corn, as well as other small seasonal items, in a new way. Just don’t blame me if you make yourself sick dipping into your new “décor” as you go.

Thanks, Jenn, for asking me to guest post and for giving yourself a much-deserved chance to exhale and do the 153 other things you are doing right now. You inspire us all!