I'd Be 'Soda'-lighted...Valentine's Candy Bouquet

 I've been sort of, as in 12-step programish, obsessed with vintage Valentine's Day cards this year....and by this year, I mean....forever.  I saw the cutest little card (photo to follow) that said "I'd be soda-lighted if you'd be my Valentine."  Ummmm, why don't they make corny cards like this anymore?  They are all sponge bobbed, and mickey moused out, and I'm all about those cute little characters too, but what if I want to give MY friends a card that is not currently running  a show on the cartoon network?  So, I've been hunting down vintage.  I have seen approximately 8,546,345 versions of soda gifts.  I saw this super cute version here at Kara's site I tried to emulate.   Here's my version, not to be confused with version #2 I'll be posting about tomorrow. 

 The supplies needed are these little soda jars.  You can grab them for under a buck at most thrift stores, or if you are already at a supercenter, they sell them individually for $2.  I also grabbed a little strofoam ball from the craft store, Valentine's colored M&M's, a chocolate heart (foiled wrapped) candy, 25 pieces of taffy (which I learned the hard way was the exact number needed....after I ate two pieces), hot glue, syran wrap, a pokie stick, and a pixie stick 'straw.' 

 First....it took about half the bag to fill up my cup.  I'm not going to promise you'll be seeing any future crafts with the other half of the bag because there was an accident that occured.  In my mouth. 

 I covered the M&M's with syran wrap, then tripped the edges so no flakes of strofoam would join the candy.  NOT that this would prevent me, but serving styrofoam is generally frowned upon in most social settings....

 I then took a serated knife and cut the styrofoam ball in half.....man, half a bag of M&M's and half a bag of M&M's per project, it's almost like you could make two of these.....if you had any self control. 

 I then took hot glue and ran it along the rim of the flat side of the stryrofoam and popped it on top of the glass of syran wrap covered M&M's.

 Here's where my pokie stick came in handy.  I needed a hole for my 'straw', so....I used this plastic straw/stick to create it. 

 I yanked it out, and then popped in the pixie stick 'straw' I decorated with a little vintage Valentine picture on one side, and message on the other.  I hot glued it into place. 

 I then began hot gluing the taffy onto the styrofoam ball.  It took 25 pieces.  Lesson learned.  You could also use glue dots. 

 Here is the photo of the vintage Valentine I found.

 I shrunk it down, and cut it into a heart shape and spiced it up with some crepe paper 'ruffle' along the edge. 

I added the red heart candy to the top (glued it into place) for the cherry.  You could also use a heart shaped sucker.