Last spring, my daughter’s school had a huge PEP RALLY and spirit day. I made JUNK FOOD Trophies to give out to the winners of the school spirit contest.  The students went crazy over them-but I have yet to meet a teenager who’s world doesn’t revolve around Hostess Cupcakes, PopRocks and Dr. Pepper. This year, I made the Junk Food Trophies into Junk Food Monsters.  The possibilites of where to use the trophies are endless!  I think they would be  a fabulous prize for a costume contest, spirt day winners, pep rally, youth group, or any time you need to give a great prize to a teenager, child or junk food loving grown up.  If you make one, please send me your photos and add them to a flickr group I set up here.

This is what you will need to get started:

You will need an assortment of cardboard boxes.  I use an assortment of cereal, pasta and cracker boxes and bakery boxes for a nice, big stable base.

Lots of cardboard tubes from you empty paper towel rolls.

Glue Gun, Scissors, Tape (double sided tape is a sanity saver), paper to cover the boxes and cardboard tubes-I used tissue and rolls of crepe paper, Spray adhesive makes life easy.

Last but not least, you need…..

JUNK FOOD! JUNK FOOD! JUNK FOOD!

How much junk food do you need?  Well, it all depends on how big you make your trophy, but you want to have enough to fully cover the front, sides and maybe even the back.  You will know you have enough junk food and candy to make up the trophies if you start to feel extremely self conscious and embarrassed about pushing around a cart full to the brim with sugary sweets.  When you start to get strange looks from shoppers with carts full of organic vegetables and unproccessed whole grain foods and you find yourself stopping  to explain what you are doing with all of this sugar laden, artificially flavored-yet delicious junk food, then you know you are getting close.  Now, when these same people start rolling their eyes as they look at your children, who are  dancing wildly with excitement  in the aisle, and then they look back at you and shake their heads in disgust–well, then you have enough JUNK FOOD and can check out.

Now that you have all of your supplies, start planning the layout of your trophy and how you want to stack your boxes.  I always start by cutting my cereal boxes in half.

When your boxes are cut, wrap them in the paper.  It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you do want  to have a nice background that will peek through the wrappers of the junk food pieces.  Wrap your cardboard tubes in the same paper, or make it easier by wrapping in strips of crepe paper.  This is where the double sided tape and/or the spray adhesive comes in handy.  It will make quick work of the covering process.

When everything is cut and wrapped, you are ready to assemble the trophy base.  Start by placing your largest box on the bottom.  I used a cake box from my stash, but any large, stable box would work.

Stack your cereal boxes on top-I put one one each side to form the legs of the monster.  You can make your trophy into any shape you like and a lot of it will depend on the size and shapes of the boxes you are using.

When you have your boxes in place and know where you are going to place your tubes, glue them to the sides with the hot glue.  Be generous and don’t skimp with the glue.  When the junk food is in place, it will be quite heavy and you don’t want your foundation to collapse.

Finish stacking and gluing your boxes and tubes until you are satisfied with the trophy foundation, and then move on to the fun part!  Gluing on the JUNK FOOD!

Lay all of your goodies out in front of you and decide how you want to place them on you junk food base.  It helps to have a “junk food monitor” available at this stage, you know, to make sure you don’t get distracted and start eating the junk food.  At least not without sharing….

Using your hot glue, start gluing on your junk food.  I like to keep it fairly symmetrical  so I do both sides as I go along.  Make sure to keep the heavier items on the bottom.  I like to use the little cans of soda pop on the bottom tier.  They add some weight to the final product and help keep it stable and from tipping over.  From personal experience, I highly recommend using your most favorite items first.  Once they are officially glued on, the temptation to rip off those wrappers subsides. A little bit.

Continue placing the junk food on the trophy until it is completely covered.  The more the better. This is not something you want to skimp on if you are looking for shock and awe!

Once all of the junk food was added, I attached the spaghetti box arms with a generous amount of hot glue and some wire for added security.

I added a monster mask I found at Target, complete with wax lips.  You can find similar items at Oriental Trading or at your local party store.  Another option would be print, cut out and use  clip art for the facial features.  Try here, here or here.

Green paper shred are glued on top to make the hair.  I traced my hands on polka dot paper, cut them out and glued them to the ends of the spaghetti box arms.  A Giant Lollipop is the finishing touch.  Come on…you are already giving someone 10 lbs of junk food so lets go all the way with the theme and make it over the top, fabulous!

Your junk food trophy is finished!  By the way, does anyone know why the Hostess Twinkies come out of the box with a big letter “F” stamped on them?  Perhaps it’s a nutrional grade?  I mean how appropriate to label an artificially laden, yellow, sponge that is filled with faux cream with a big letter “F”.  Just in case you didn’t know what the nutritional stats were  before you opened the box they label it for you on the package.    Just Kidding, Hostess…I know your marketing people are smarter than that!  And I do, on occasion inhale a twinkie or ten.  But seriously, why the “F”?  Any ideas?

Thanks for reading my JUNK FOOD TROPHY TUTORIAL!  If you have any questions, just drop me an email or comment.  If you happen to make one, share your pics at my flickr group or send them to me by email.

Thanks and Enjoy!