Sugared Fruit

I have no idea why I'm so intrigued by sugared fruit but I am...it's as if it's a childhood memory that I just don't remember, but I must have experienced it in my past to be so excited about the idea of it! It started when I saw this picture, a darling little wedding cake topped with what else but sugared fruit. Voila, I have a theme for my wedding. Yes, on 9/29/07 Mike and I will be surrounded by family, friends and sugared fruit! He's such a good sport :) And if he only knew how much money we're going to save on centerpieces! Of course, I will just reallocate those funds for flowers elsewhere :) So, Christmas time rolls around I see these cute little crab apples and lady gold apples in the Harris Teeter (my grocery). I of course have to buy pounds, yes pounds of them and try my hand at sugaring some fruit! A couple years ago I had purchased apple cones for both me and my aunt who is very, very crafty. I had never used mine until this Christmas and I was thrilled with the results! Although I did end up making a second trip to the grocery store for more, yes more apples! I had to use some of the larger apples to fill in around the bottom and to make this a more reasonably priced project, those little crab apples are expensive! The leaves are from our little condo compound here in Marshview Villas - they have beautiful landscaping, so I just took some snips from outside - they worked great. So, back to sugaring. I bought a spray adhesive and sprayed each apple and then sprinkled sugar over it and that's about it, much easier than I thought it was going to be. I would like to try it again using light corn syrup(I've heard that works...), the spray adhesive kind of smells like, well, spray adhesive and although they are dry (it's been a week now) I still can kind of smell the adhesive, not a nice smell for my wedding reception. I did try something to see what might work for my actual reception (we're doing one long family style table that will seat 40 or so guests). These footed bowls (I love the way the fruit looks in milk glass) will be down the table maybe with some small (small as in juice glass small) arrangements of flowers. The good news is that the fruit is still fine after a week, so this might be something I can do myself a week or more before the wedding. Ah, the sugared fruit obsession continues, maybe I'll try lemons and limes in the Spring!