Make Your Own Candy Kits {Review & Giveaway}

Rylie loves gum! Her grandmother gave her a piece a few months ago and she was hooked. She does really well with it and knows to never swallow it and always spits it out when she is done. When I heard about the Make Your Own Chewing Gum Kit from Glee Gum, I knew we had to try it out.

Before I tell you about all the fun we had with the kit, I want to tell you a little about Glee Gum. This is the description from their website:

Glee Gum is all natural chewing gum made with sustainably harvested rainforest chicle. It comes in SIX great flavors: cinnamon, peppermint, tangerine, bubblegum, spearmint, and triple berry. Glee Gum is the #1 healthy alternative to synthetic chewing gum and bubble gum! With no artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners (no aspartame), or preservatives, it's easy to chew Glee-fully!

If Rylie is going to chew gum, Glee Gum is definitely the one I want her to chew. It doesn't contain any of those unpronounceable ingredients that you will find in most gum. I also like the fact that Glee Gum does not contain any of the eight major food allergens: milk, egg, fish, Crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts, or soybeans. Rylie was recently diagnosed with a severe tree nut allergy, so this is very important to me. The gum tastes great and keeps its chewing texture.

We received a Make Your Own Chewing Gum Kit and six sample packs of Glee Gum for review.

The kit came with everything we needed to make our gum - chicle gum base, confectioner's sugar, corn syrup, 2 flavor packets and a black plastic pan.

We washed our hands and prepared our clean flat surface to make the gum on. The first step was to soften the corn syrup in boiling water. Then we prepared our kneading surface by sprinkling half of the confectioner's sugar onto a cutting board.

We melted the gum base in the microwave until it was soft enough to work with, and then mixed the softened corn syrup into it. Once it was mixed together (and super sticky!), we emptied it onto the sugar on the cutting board.

Then the real work began! We had to knead the gum mixture just like you would with bread dough. Of course Daddy had to do most of the work, but Rylie sure did have fun trying.

We then divided the dough into two parts and added a flavor packet to each part. The flavors were supposed to be peppermint and cherry, but Brian and I were sure the cherry smelled and tasted like cinnamon. Once the flavor packets had been added, we added the rest of the sugar and continued to knead, tug and pull on the gum.

The last step was to roll it out really thin and cut the gum into pieces.

And of course we had to chew some!

We really had a lot of fun with this, and the gum tastes really good! This would be a great activity for a cold or rainy day, and is something all kids would have fun with!

Just a little disclaimer: the kit is recommended for kids ages 8 and up. Rylie had fun with it, but couldn't really do all of the steps the way they needed to be done, so Brian had to do all of the hard work. Oh, and then there is always the mess factor when you let a 3 year old play with sugar...

There are three different Glee Kits available - Chewing Gum Kit, Gummy Candy Kit and Chocolate Kit. They can be purchased directly through Glee Gum's website for $13 per kit, or at many local retail stores. You can check the store locator to find the products near you.

Kids (and adults) will have so much fun with these kits! They are perfect for fun and learning, at home, in the classroom or in any group activity!

~*~One of my readers is going to win a Make Your Own Candy Kit!~*~

(Choice of kit is up to prize winner.)

Mandatory entry: (This must be done in order for any optional entries to count) Check out the Glee Gum FAQs and leave a comment telling me something you learned.

Optional entries: After you make the mandatory first entry above, you can get one extra entry (unless stated otherwise) for each of the following (please leave a separate comment for each):

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* Tweet about this giveaway by copying and pasting this tweet and leaving me the link to your tweet (you can tweet daily for an extra entry each day):

Make your own candy with @gleeguy! Enter to #win a Make Your Own Candy Kit from @thelifeofrylie! http://bit.ly/fMXZu5 #giveaway

* Post my button on your sidebar or your blog roll for TWO extra entries (leave me two comments with a link to where I can find it)
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Giveaway will end on February 10th at 9:00pm EST. The winner will be chosen by random.org. I will notify the winner by email within 24 hours, and you will have 48 hours to respond. If no response is received within that time frame, I will pick another winner. Please leave your email address or make sure it is in your profile so I will have a way to contact you. I will announce the winner once they have been confirmed. This giveaway is open to residents of the US.

Disclaimer: This is my honest opinion. I received the Make Your Own Chewing Gum Kit and Glee Gum at no cost for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was received. A big Thank You to Glee Gum for providing the giveaway prize!