Making a giant jolly rancher - any tips?

[Betty]

End of the year project for my daughters math class (geometry) was to pick something to enlarge. She has to use math to make a it X number of times as big as usual.

Her first choice, a toostie roll was already taken so she picked a Jolly Rancher - different but similar in size.

Little did I realize this included the complicated clear wrapper as well as the desire to make the candy appear translucent.

So - we've thought of making a huge block of melted sugar and adding food coloring but this sounds dangerous and prone to lots of issues.

Another idea was buying a bag of jolly ranchers and melting some down to make a large one. This one has great appeal but I hate buying a 4 pound bag of them to have enough of one color and the store didn't have bags of one flavor.

So now we go to a bag filled with newpaper and taped down, paper mached and painted or

As we discovered at wall mart: plaster of paris. Which we got and I'm now wondering if that was the best choice.

We also bought some clear 1 mil tarp and opaque pens that should color on the plastic (I hope).

Any tips on how to make this project a success would be appreciated. (I like the idea of being crafty but it's just not what I'm best at.)

(she does not have the option of selecting a different item by the way.)