Rice Krispie Treat Topiary

First things first, if you have not voted for the Phoenix team in the Rice Krispie Challenge, please go HERE now and do it. First you need to "Like" Kellogg's Rice Krispies if you haven't already. Then you can click 'like' on all four of the Phoenix Team's pictures. I truly appreciate it.

Well I am excited that I get to start out by telling you how to make this Rice Krispie Treat topiary.

Photo by Jacquilyn Avery Photography

Supplies:

• 6" Styrofoam ball
• 1/2" wooden dowel cut to your desired length. Our was 17." Painted to the desired color.
  
• plastic wrap if you intend on eating the treats off of the topiary
• toothpicks
• 1/2 batch of Rice Krispie treats in your desired colors. We used pink, purple, and yellow.
• Vase or container for the topiary base
• Block Styrofoam
• Colored Rice Krispies or some kind of vase filler.
• Optional - Ribbon for a bow
  

Assembly:

• Make a half batch of Rice Krispie treats according to the recipe on the box. A half recipe should be 1.5 TBS butter, 3 cups Rice Krispies, 2 cups mini marshmallows. Throw a few extra marshmallows in for luck. It makes them stick together a little better. Make sure you add any food coloring after the marshmallows have melted, but before you add the Rice Krispies.
  
• With buttered hands, roll small balls of Rice Krispie treats with your hands. Ours were about the size of a heaping tablespoon. It would be a good idea to make one or two that were smaller in case you need to fill in gaps in the topiary.
  
• Repeat steps 1 and 2 with any additional colors you want. I used all of the Rice Krispie balls to cover the topiary, so it was 1.5 batches worth of Rice Krispie Treats total. Keep this in mind if you want to use more or fewer colors.
• If you plan to eat the Rice Krispies off the topiary, cover the styrofoam ball with a thin layer of plastic wrap.
• Insert your dowel into the bottom of the styrofoam ball about half way. The Rice Krispies are very light and we had no problems with tipping, leaning, or the top of the topiary getting too heavy.
  
• Insert a toothpick in to a Rice Krispie Treat ball at least half way through the ball.
• Starting at the top of the Styrofoam insert the Rice Krispie ball.
  
• Work your way around the ball, alternating colors. You want the Rice Krispie treat balls to be as close together as possible.
• There were quite a few instances where the end of the toothpick pushed out through the top of the Rice Krispie Treat. Cover the whole topiary and at the end you can trim any toothpicks sticking out. ** We did not have any issues with the balls that were on the underneath falling out. Rice Krispies are seriously an awesome medium for topiary making. It was easy-peasy!**
  
• Now that your whole topiary is covered, it is time to assemble it.
• Put the end of the dowel into your styrofoam block. We used a glass container so we cut down the styrofoam to a pretty small piece.
• Hold the topiary upright and pour in your vase filler. You could use colored Rice Krispies, decorative rocks, jellybeans, pretty much anything
• You may have to adjust the balance slightly, but you should be good to go!

Coloring the Rice Krispies
Coloring Rice Krispie treats is pretty easy because you can use food coloring in the marshmallows. Coloring just the Rice Krispies is a little tougher because Rice Krispies can get soggy fast. After lots of experimentation we found that Food color spray works awesome! It is an aerosol food coloring. It is available at both Hobby Lobby and Joanns as well as cake supply stores.

This is how we did colored the Rice Krispies:
1. Cover your whole spraying area, there is some over spray that occurs
2. Put a single layer Rice Krispies in a 9x13 pan
3. Lightly spray the Rice Krispies with the Color Spray. After you get a good coat on the top, mix it up and spray again. Repeat the mixing and spraying until you get the shade and coverage you want.

Here's that side shot again that we used for our entry.

Photo by Jacquilyn Avery Photography

Thanks so much for voting for our project! If you like what we have done, please help us spread the word by using the Share feature in Facebook and have your friends vote too. Thanks again everyone!

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