Sweet winners — Best of Provo's candy window creations took 800 hours in making

PROVO — Provo's Center Street is all aglow with candy windows.

This year there are six sugary creations, crafted under the direction of the Provo Arts Council, made entirely of edible materials answering the prompt "All I want for Christmas is ..."

First place winner Raelyn Webster, 45, of Riverton, spent about 800 hours on her sticky creation, now on display in the window of Osaka Japanese Restaurant, 46 W. Center. She has been with the candy window project every year since it began in 2000. Webster's window answers the theme "... to see if reindeer really know how to fly." A 200-pound candy blimp carries two children and a dog — all with spiky brown hair made from chocolate licorice.

The artwork is the view a person would have from a blimp if it were floating over Provo. Y mountain is various lumpy brown candies. A 10-foot-high night sky is grape-flavored hard candy. The base is city lights. Webster created this by drilling holes in blue gum balls and allowing for light to shine through the floor.

Webster is especially proud of the black licorice tire on the blimp. "It turned out perfect," she said. Second place winner Starr Stratford, 29, of Midway, worked with her mother, Kathleen Peterson, 56, of Spring City in Sanpete County. They did most of the work separately, then put their project together at Grandma's house in Provo.

Stratford's creation is a girl riding a pony. Chocolate licorice makes the girl's cowboy boots. Black licorice whips are the horse's tail. The animal's hooves are black gumdrops.

Stratford says she loves working with licorice. "You can shape it and twist it and make all different shapes," she said. Stratford said the only disaster was that she made the girl's eyes from blue taffy. The eyes began to melt in the hot window. "She looked like a creepy Halloween figure," Stratford said.

Her window is at Mullett Hoover, 184 W. Center.

The Provo Arts Council pays for the artists' candy. Generally the most popular items are Jelly Bellys, Smarties, Tart-n-Tinys, gummy bears and Chiclets, says Kathryn Allen, executive director of the Provo Arts Council.