StephDRebel
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,663 
Location: Ohio
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Post by StephDRebel on Oct 26, 2017 2:24:38 GMT
The plan was to give it a test run today and then have a super fun trick or treat tomorrow. Today the belt broke. We went to store number 1 and no belts. Store two we found 4 packages ad bought them all just to be sure. 3 betls in its working and were good to go. The pretty paper straws are ready to go and I fire it up. It's a FAIL. My hands were cold and I couldn't spin the straws fast enough to make a poof. So it just went everywhere. Tomorrow's options- bag it in sandwich bags. Try again and spin faster. Just give cotton Candy to my favorite kids in town. Tonight, we had a mess. He is pretending to be frustrated but I think he really liked it. Maybe time for plan b.  |
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Post by crazy4scraps on Oct 26, 2017 2:53:59 GMT
Aww, what a bummer! I will say that there’s definitely a technique to it, and I’m convinced my arms are too short to get the hang of it. I tried it once and failed miserably. DH, with his much longer arms, was able to get it down and after one or two cones he was a master. Ha ha, maybe you could google a YouTube video and see how the pros do it! HERE YOU GO! |
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Julie W
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,209
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Post by Julie W on Oct 26, 2017 3:32:24 GMT
It is a lot of work. I have been fascinated with the cotton candy flowers made mostly in Asia, and I've been watching You Tube videos on it. That is a whole level of complexity, but even just making a regular shape seems to take a lot of practice. It's something I'd like to do. Good luck!
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Deleted
Posts: 0
May 3, 2024 7:04:11 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2017 3:33:59 GMT
Bag them and start bagging way before the first TOTers show because once word gets out, your house is going to be bombarded!
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Post by auntkelly on Oct 26, 2017 3:37:43 GMT
I would be perfectly happy to eat it out of a sandwich bag. It may not be as pretty, but it tastes just as good as the cotton candy on a straw.  |
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Post by betty on Oct 26, 2017 4:19:57 GMT
Bag it! Get ahead of the crowd that way too. I hope you can get it all worked out because this is one of my kids favorite Halloween stories..."remember the house that gave out cotton candy?!!" Of course it was a total nightmare for this mom of a T1 diabetic. lol. He PROMISED he would not eat any candy while he was out Trick or treating with his friends and then I had to walk almost a mile to catch up to him with insulin! Have a fun and happy Halloween! |
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Peamac
Pearl Clutcher
Refupea # 418
Posts: 4,218
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Post by Peamac on Oct 26, 2017 5:14:56 GMT
Wouldn't it be awkward for the kids to eat their cotton candy on a stick while trick or treating anyway? I say bag it up so they can enjoy it when they can really enjoy it.
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Grom Pea
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,944
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Post by Grom Pea on Oct 26, 2017 5:26:22 GMT
I think if you do not bag it, it will wither and shrink and get hard if there's any moisture in the air anyway, so I say bag it in Ziploc baggies.
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Post by Delta Dawn on Oct 26, 2017 6:04:08 GMT
You made some not that long ago and it looked awesome...what happened tonight? You were a pro I seem to remember. This sucks. You may have to give out candy...  |
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StephDRebel
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,663
Location: Ohio
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Post by StephDRebel on Oct 26, 2017 10:53:09 GMT
I've got the hang of the big paper cones but for tot we were going to do small ones that they could eat quickly.
I think I couldn't properly twirl because it was cold out and the straws were smaller.
If we have time to day we will bag, otherwise we will make big cones for the kids we like the best (they always stop by after official trick or treat) and hope we don't run out of juice boxes.
I could be the weird neighbor this year that gives out 6 pennies to each kid. Ha
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Post by mikklynn on Oct 26, 2017 12:21:11 GMT
I know you'll have fun whatever you decide!
We had that weird neighbor when I was a kid. It was balanced out by the neighbor that worked for Hostess Bakeries and gave out Snoballs.
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Post by crazy4scraps on Oct 26, 2017 15:17:45 GMT
I've got the hang of the big paper cones but for tot we were going to do small ones that they could eat quickly. I think I couldn't properly twirl because it was cold out and the straws were smaller. If we have time to day we will bag, otherwise we will make big cones for the kids we like the best (they always stop by after official trick or treat) and hope we don't run out of juice boxes. I could be the weird neighbor this year that gives out 6 pennies to each kid. Ha I think it was mostly due to trying to use straws if you got the hang of using the big paper cones. Paper straws are also probably smoother so there’s nothing for the floss to get an initial grip to. When we were growing up, I always felt bad for the one little old lady on our block who always gave out nickels. I always imagined it was because she couldn’t drive anymore and had no one to take her to the store to buy a bag of candy to pass out! |
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Judy26
Pearl Clutcher
MOTFY Bitchy Nursemaid
Posts: 2,834
Location: NW PA
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Post by Judy26 on Oct 26, 2017 15:29:48 GMT
Just don't give out toothbrushes with directions on proper brushing like the dentist in our neighborhood. My adult children still talk about this huge fail every year as Halloween approaches. And I, for one, love cotton candy no matter how it is packaged. But if my very young child received it on a cone while trying to maneuver at night in costume with a bag of goodies, I would be the world's biggest parenting failure as I ripped it out of her hand and consumed it myself.
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StephDRebel
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,663
Location: Ohio
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Post by StephDRebel on Oct 26, 2017 15:39:46 GMT
Argh, we had that neighbor too....and the one that gave out tracts that looked like fake 100 dollar bills that told us we were going to hell. I loved her. We will happily share with adults too, but we've got hot apple cider with oatmeal cookie moonshine for them.  The floss grips ok on the straws, I'm just not twirling fast enough to make it cute. It's the 3rd swirl and on that is getting me. Slowing the machine down may help but it was too cold last night to mess with it. We picked up treat bags this morning so we're going to start making them up and packaging to make the process quicker and to get my cussing out before the kids show up and then I'll make big cones for the teenagers that come by and for our favorite kids when their parents come back to refill their yetis and pick up my leftover lube samples I've got 6 hours until trick or treat and a couple of friends coming over. I'm convinced after a bottle of champagne they'll get prettier.... let's see how this goes! |
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StephDRebel
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,663
Location: Ohio
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Post by StephDRebel on Oct 26, 2017 15:41:21 GMT
It is a lot of work. I have been fascinated with the cotton candy flowers made mostly in Asia, and I've been watching You Tube videos on it. That is a whole level of complexity, but even just making a regular shape seems to take a lot of practice. It's something I'd like to do. Good luck! The flowers are my goal. It's surprising how hard it is to even get a good puff, let alone a shape. I'll go through 100 boxes and still be a mess. |
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StephDRebel
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,663
Location: Ohio
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Post by StephDRebel on Oct 26, 2017 15:42:40 GMT
Bag them and start bagging way before the first TOTers show because once word gets out, your house is going to be bombarded! I hope so! My dad lives in the next village over and we compete everyday to see who gets more treaters. I'm the reigning 3 year champ! |
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Post by deshacrafts on Oct 26, 2017 18:00:51 GMT
Just curious why your town is doing TOT tonight? Halloween isn't until Tuesday. If they are going to have it a different day why today? It's still a school night. I'm not being snarky, just really curious. I've only ever lived where they did Halloween on Halloween night.  |
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StephDRebel
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,663
Location: Ohio
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Post by StephDRebel on Oct 27, 2017 0:59:42 GMT
Just curious why your town is doing TOT tonight? Halloween isn't until Tuesday. If they are going to have it a different day why today? It's still a school night. I'm not being snarky, just really curious. I've only ever lived where they did Halloween on Halloween night. We're in a little tiny village of less than 500 people over 20 miles from the closest actual town and a large portion of the population is a low income 45 unit retirement apartment village and another set of apartments with 24 units of families. If we do it on Halloween we have no kids because everyone goes to the bigger towns/villages. Our population is really, really aging and we rely on kids coming in to trick or treat from other towns and the country surrounding the area or we wouldn't get to participate at all and that sucks for the old people (I include myself in that population, they're our friend  ) We always do it the Thursday before to keep it consistent. The only time we TOT on Halloween is if it's on a Thursday. It's super weird, but it works. Tonight we had REALLY big crowds, numbers were down last year and this year it started kind of slow and then went gangbusters quick. We were too busy twirling cotton candy to do an official count or take pics while the action was happening but my neighbor snapped a few pics of our line. We went through 160 juice boxes, 200 pre-made bags of cotton candy, I pulled out the carnival cones and made 100 cones of cotton candy and then had to start stuffing sandwich bags because we ran out and we still had a line two doors down. It was so much fun and a lot of the neighbors saw people walking around with their cotton candy cones and came to get their own. I was pre-making the bags until 20 minutes before we started (we only TOT from 6-7) so I didn't even get a chance to put the cider out and I was twirling cotton candy so fast after the first set of bags was out I didn't even really see costumes but we're going to buy another machine for next year and recruit the kids to help. Judging by the amounts we went through I estimate we had about 400 trick or treaters in 60 minutes. The cotton candy machine blew a fuse with 3 kids left in line. I promised them the biggest bags next year when they get here 10 minutes early and they got extra juice boxes so they hugged me and said "I love you so much!" before they left so it wasn't too bad. Best (fake) halloween ever! |
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StephDRebel
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,663
Location: Ohio
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Post by StephDRebel on Oct 27, 2017 1:02:20 GMT
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Deleted
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May 3, 2024 7:04:11 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2017 1:11:06 GMT
Love it!!! So I take it that you got to keep your championship title? |
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StephDRebel
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,663
Location: Ohio
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Post by StephDRebel on Oct 27, 2017 1:19:00 GMT
Love it!!! So I take it that you got to keep your championship title? His little village is sometime this weekend- I say because they know we're the TOT champs and got skeered. He called to check in tonight and I told him how things went and all I got was "You cheatin' b*tch" He'll never admit defeat but I might go visit during trick or treat in his 'hood so I can officially tally my win! |
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Deleted
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May 3, 2024 7:04:11 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2017 1:23:58 GMT
He called to check in tonight and I told him how things went and all I got was "You cheatin' b*tch"  I wouldn't be surprised if he runs out and buys his own cotton candy machine for next year's competition! |
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Julie W
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,209
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Post by Julie W on Oct 27, 2017 3:32:37 GMT
Steph - Wow - very cool! You are so generous and fun to do that for your neighborhood.
Can you tell me what machine you got? Are you satisfied with how it performed after that workout?
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StephDRebel
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,663
Location: Ohio
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Post by StephDRebel on Oct 27, 2017 3:55:09 GMT
Steph - Wow - very cool! You are so generous and fun to do that for your neighborhood. Can you tell me what machine you got? Are you satisfied with how it performed after that workout? This is similar to the one we have but I'm not sure if it's exact. We got ours second hand from a food truck stand who's owner went to prison. All the drama. It ran for 7 hours straight tonight before the fuse blew and we weren't even turning it off to refill. I was impressed that it kept up. After the machine, it's super fun but also pretty inexpensive to make it. I bought a 6 pack of floss cartons and went through 4 of them, the 6 pack was $22 at Sams Club and the bags were $10 at hobby lobby. I think the cotton candy sticks were less than or right around $10 too. We would've spent much more on candies to hand out and no one would remember where it came from. My secret goal is to add a popcorn machine next year too |
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Deleted
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May 3, 2024 7:04:11 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2017 5:48:26 GMT
You can buy 1/2 gallon size containers of floss sugar at a restaurant supply store. It is not very expensive.
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Post by deshacrafts on Oct 27, 2017 11:14:22 GMT
Just curious why your town is doing TOT tonight? Halloween isn't until Tuesday. If they are going to have it a different day why today? It's still a school night. I'm not being snarky, just really curious. I've only ever lived where they did Halloween on Halloween night. We're in a little tiny village of less than 500 people over 20 miles from the closest actual town and a large portion of the population is a low income 45 unit retirement apartment village and another set of apartments with 24 units of families. If we do it on Halloween we have no kids because everyone goes to the bigger towns/villages. Our population is really, really aging and we rely on kids coming in to trick or treat from other towns and the country surrounding the area or we wouldn't get to participate at all and that sucks for the old people (I include myself in that population, they're our friend ) We always do it the Thursday before to keep it consistent. The only time we TOT on Halloween is if it's on a Thursday. It's super weird, but it works. Tonight we had REALLY big crowds, numbers were down last year and this year it started kind of slow and then went gangbusters quick. We were too busy twirling cotton candy to do an official count or take pics while the action was happening but my neighbor snapped a few pics of our line. We went through 160 juice boxes, 200 pre-made bags of cotton candy, I pulled out the carnival cones and made 100 cones of cotton candy and then had to start stuffing sandwich bags because we ran out and we still had a line two doors down. It was so much fun and a lot of the neighbors saw people walking around with their cotton candy cones and came to get their own. I was pre-making the bags until 20 minutes before we started (we only TOT from 6-7) so I didn't even get a chance to put the cider out and I was twirling cotton candy so fast after the first set of bags was out I didn't even really see costumes but we're going to buy another machine for next year and recruit the kids to help. Judging by the amounts we went through I estimate we had about 400 trick or treaters in 60 minutes. The cotton candy machine blew a fuse with 3 kids left in line. I promised them the biggest bags next year when they get here 10 minutes early and they got extra juice boxes so they hugged me and said "I love you so much!" before they left so it wasn't too bad. Best (fake) halloween ever! Steph that's awesome!! I would love to do something like that at our small business. I've lived in 4 different homes since we've been married and we've never had trick or treaters (off the beaten path, on a busy street, driveway to long, etc). I miss seeing all the kids come to the door for trick or treats. I was in charge of answering the door when I lived with my Mom and Dad, loved it! Thanks for the explanation, it sounds like a really nice thing your community does. Save |
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) We always do it the Thursday before to keep it consistent. The only time we TOT on Halloween is if it's on a Thursday. It's super weird, but it works. 
