Candy Cane Twine Christmas Ornaments

Today is the first day of my 12 days of Christmas ornaments! Yesterday Tina helped me make these! She had never really used a glue gun before and she did an awesome job!

Supply List:

Plastic candy canes

Twine

Scissors

Glue gun and glue

Thin red ribbon

Red jingle bells

Directions:

I found these candy canes at Michael's. However, I heard they have packages of them at the Dollar store. The city that I live in doessn't have/allow dollar type stores. So I bought these at Michael's for 50% off.

The twine can be bought at any craft or fabric store. 

Simply adhere a piece of the twine at the top curve of the candy cane. Wrap the twine tightly adding a dap of hot glue every inch or so. Finally at the end cut off the twine and hot glue the last little piece.

On the back of each candy cane glue a red ribbon loop and glue a little red jingle bell at the end of the top curve!

These ornaments would look adorable tied onto a package or on your tree! Check back tomorrow for Day 2 of the twelve days of ornaments!

Heart Lollipops Made with Candy Canes

Every so often I get called to substitute teach an afternoon Religion class. I almost always bring a little bribe for good behavior. Yesterday I bought some mini candy canes at Target. I bought the fruity primary colored candy canes and some red and white candy canes to use for Valentine's Day.

This box of 60 candy canes (which will make 30 lollipops) was on super sale at 70% off. So I think I paid sixty cents!

Supplies:

Box of mini candy canes

Parchment paper

Lollipop sticks

Small plastic bags

Coordinating ribbon

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees. Lay a piece of parchment paper on top of a cookie sheet. Lay the candy canes in a heart formation with a lollipop stick.

Bake the candy cane lollipops for 3 to 5 minutes. Watch them carefully. Mine took 4 minutes. Take them out of the oven and squeeze the lollipop stick and top of heart - so that the stick is firmly in place.

It will take the lollipops a few minutes to set - then they can be packed into the little bags and tied with a ribbon. 

This would be a fun birthday party favor! I used to make the Valentine ones for the classroom and sports teams. I also like to pass them out to neighbors.

Get your mini candy canes on sale this week! 

Simple Valentine Treats

I used the vases I made from the tin cans to hold brownies, pretzels and heart shaped lollipops.

I dipped some pretzel rods in pink melted chocolate and used Valentine themed sprinkles to decorate them.  Once they are dry they can be packaged into pretzel bags and tied with ribbon.

I also made some Valentine lollipops made out of mini candy canes.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Lay the mini candy canes out into heart shapes leaving room to add lollipop sticks on parchment paper. Bake for 3 minutes.Perhaps your oven or candy cane brand might take a minute longer.

Once the hearts come out of the oven - pinch a lollipop stick into the bottom of the heart. Be careful the candy cane is hot and sticky. Once the heart lollipop is hard - remove it from the parchment paper and place in a small plastic bag and tie with a ribbon.

Then I added little bags of brownies (the brownie pictures turned out awful) but we all know what brownies look like, pretzels and lollipops to the Valentine teases.

I hope you have a romantic Valentine's Day!

Chocolate Dipped Candy Canes

From now until after Christmas I am going to try my hardest not to go to any craft stores. This is forcing me to use up supplies from my craft closet (it is currently overflowing).

So I didn't have any white chocolate - but I had green chocolate and white sprinkles. Side note:  I also need to stop buying sprinkles. And I thought the green with white sprinkles would look Christmasy on the candy canes.

To make this project you will need:

Candy canes

Parchment paper

Coordinating melting chocolate tabs

Coordinating sprinkles

Pretzel bags

Thin coordinating ribbon

Slowly and carefully unwrap the candy canes. Lay them out on parchment paper. Melt your chocolate and dip the bottom half of the candy cane into the melted chocolate then lightly sprinkle them with the coordinating sprinkles.

I dipped traditional candy canes and rainbow colored candy canes. They have candy canes in every color of the rainbow. 

Once the chocolate is dry you can package them into the pretzel bags and tie them with a matching ribbon.

I love how these turned out! They would perfect for a holiday party favor or an easy addition to your cookie tray. 

They would also be terrific treats for the classroom or sports team.

Candy Tubes For the Holidays

I filled some of the tubes with mint m&m's. They only sell the peppermint m&m's at Target.

The bag looks like this!

I buy the tubes in the wedding section at Michael's. Then I glued a piece of polka dot ribbon around the top lid and I glued a little candy cane on top. Both the ribbon and mini candy cane are also from Michael's.

I also made some with the classic Christmas colors red and green. I used the same polka dot ribbon but I glued a wreath on top instead of the candy cane. I bought the mini wreaths at Hobby Lobby - near the stickers.

I love making these little tubes - I have used them for Halloween and Easter candy. I also used them for the baseball team filled with sunflower seeds.

Be creative!

Candy Cane Blossoms

I bought some Candy Cane Kisses - recipes for these are all over the Internet. But I decided to use the recipe that Hershey's published.

Ingredients:

1 bag Hershey's Candy Cane Kisses
1/2 cup butter. softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 egg
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons of milk
Red colored sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove wrappers from candies.

Beat butter, sugar, vanilla and egg in a large bowl until well blended. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt. Add flour mixture alternatively with milk to butter mixture, beating until well blended.

Shape dough into 3/4" balls. Roll in red colored sugar. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for 7 - 9 minutes or until edges are very lightly browned. I baked mine for 7 minutes and they were perfect.  Remove cookies from the oven and let them cool for a few minutes - then press the Candy Cane Kiss into the center of each cookie. This recipe made 56 cookies - give or take because Christian and I had a few "taste tests."

These have a wonderful peppermint taste! The Candy Cane Kisses would look festive in a candy dish.

I bought mine at Target - but I have seen them everywhere! Christian and I are going to make this recipe again. He really just likes to help unwrap the Kisses - so that he can eat a few!

White Chocolate Covered Oreo's with Crushed Candy Canes

I dipped regular Oero's into white chocolate and sprinkled them with crushed candy canes. Yum!

Okay -  after I dipped and sprinkled all of the Oero's - I still had a lot of melted white chocolate. So i decided to dip some pretzel rods.

I just dipped the top half of the pretzel in the white chocolate.

I packed the pretzels in pretzel bags and tied them with red ribbon.

Note: You can buy pre-crushed candy canes or make your own by putting unwrapped candy canes in a ziplock bag and crushing them with a heavy object!

Rainbow Candy Canes

I dipped rainbow candy canes in white chocolate.

I used different colored sprinkles on the rainbow candy canes and I think it looks really sweet!

Don't these look festive? And you can buy candy canes in so many different colors.

Tip: It takes a long time to remove the cellophane wrapper from each candy cane and you will inevitably break some candy canes. Put the broken candy canes in a ziplock bag and crush them with a rolling pin. Then you can use the crushed candies to decorate cupcakes or brownies.

Chocolate Covered Candy Canes

I made these cute candy canes today! Candy canes come in so many colors - but I just used the standard red and white candy canes.

The hardest part of this recipe is taking the wrapper off each candy cane.

Once you take the wrapper off each candy cane - lay them on parchment paper.

Now melt some chocolate. I use the above Wilton Chocolate Pro to melt my chocolate and it never hardens like a microwaved chocolate. I bought it from Michael's it was $30 and I used my 40% off coupon from the Sunday circular. I have also seen it at JoAnne's Fabrics and Party City. If you melt chocolate for a lot of recipes - this is a fabulous product!

Now dip the candy cane in the chocolate. Just dip the candy cane about half way. You could place the chocolate on the curved half or the straight half - I did it both ways.

Once the chocolate has been dipped you can quickly add sprinkles. The chocolate and sprinkles will harden in about 15 minutes. Then package in a pretzel bag and tie with a ribbon.

Don't these look festive?

I placed the finished product in a basket - because I am a basket lady. I saw some really colorful candy canes that would look great with dark chocolate - I think I will try that next!

This is a really cute classroom or sports team treat.