Yesterday, I told you I had another adorable candy cane project for you and here it is!  A star made from  candy canes and starlight mints.   How cute is this?  I think they are super adorable.  They look good enough to eat, but don't because they are sprayed with acrylic sealer!

If you know me, you know that I LOVE stars.  My family likes to tease me about it because I have them all over the house.  I can't tell you why I love stars, I just do.  They resonate with my soul, especially when they are in the night sky.  I also have a great fondness for candy canes.  Their red and white stripes are representative of Christmas time and joy and happiness.  Who can't smile at a red and white striped candy cane?  When I saw one of these stars made from - of all things - candy canes, I knew there was another project in my future.  Here is what you do.

  Start by unwrapping 10 candy canes and 20 starlight mints.  This will make one star.  (I bought boxes of candy canes at Target for $l.29 for 24 canes.  A bag of Starlight mints were less than $2.00.)  You also need a hot glue gun and lots of glue sticks, some kind of acrylic sealer (I used Mod Podge matte clear acrylic sealer), and a covering for your work surface.  I use brown craft paper.

Glue 5 sets of candy canes together at the top and bottom like this making "hearts".  Use plenty of hot glue and watch your fingers!  Let the glue set. 

Once the glue sets, place your candy canes in this order and I will try to make this understandable.   First, look at this picture.

Notice how the tops of the candy canes are laying.  I started with the bottom right "heart" and laid it flat on the table.   Continue by laying another heart to the left with the tops of the crooks butted together.  Now, lay a heart on top of these two, adjusting the crooks to cover the ones underneath as close as you can.  They will never fit perfectly.  Continue to the left by laying another heart on the table, but here's where it gets tricky, lift the left side of the previous heart and lay it over the heart you just put down.  This heart is now under the previous heart and over next heart.  Now, lay the final heart over the heart you just laid down and the first heart that started the star.  You will have "under, over, under/over, under and over".  I know this sounds confusing, but just look at the picture.  After you have them all adjusted, begin gluing them together.  Lift one side of a heart at a time and place hot glue on the candy cane underneath where it will be attached. Make any necessary adjustments and press the top candy cane into the glue before the glue sets.  Continue gluing around the star.  Don't be concerned if the glue runs.  When it sets it will simply pop off the candy cane.  Then I trimmed any "globs" with small scissors.  Your star should look like this at this point minus the starlight mints.  Again I forgot to take a picture.  

Now, working one junction at a time (where the hearts join together), put a generous glob of glue at the top and bottom of each heart and place a starlight mint over the glue.  Let the glue set and turn the star over.  Glue mints to all the junctions on the other side.  After the glue is good and dry, remove all globs and glue webs.  After all the glue sets, spray both sides of the star with clear acrylic sealer to preserve the candy.  That's it!  You are finished. 

This really is not hard I promise you.  The hardest part is unwrapping the candy canes without breaking the crooks!  Make sure you have some extras on hand.  I saved all the broken ones to use in peppermint bark.   

Make a hanging loop at the top with ribbon or string and hang your stars wherever you want.  I hung a couple in the front window because our porch is done in a candy cane theme.  I could not get a great picture, but this is what they look like.

This is a really fun, inexpensive and easy craft.  It makes a thoughtful gift for a secret santa, neighbor, friend, or teacher that comes from your heart and hands.  They also don't cost you a lot of money!  How about tying some on Christmas gifts?  That would be lovely.  There are lots of possibilities here.

I hope you enjoy making these beautiful stars.  They will "light" up your Christmas.  

Everyday Donna

Things to Remember:

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.
Vincent Van Gogh

Have you ever had so many projects you wanted to complete that you can't seem to do them fast enough?  That is indicative of my impatience issue which leads to my procrastination problem which leads to hurrying and THAT leads to impatience and on it goes.  Hopefully, you don't have that problem.

This weekend I helped the daughter of a friend who recently moved to Nashville with some crafting projects that she will be giving for Christmas gifts.  We had a wonderful Saturday afternoon of listening to Christmas music and crafting.  Let me say, she is a natural -- picked right up on the new skills she is acquiring and created some really lovely Christmas gifts  Before we began, she told me she had no creative abilities.  WRONG!  Everyone has an inner artist and it is so much fun to see someone discover hidden talents.  

While I was helping her, I worked on a few projects myself.  Lots of decorating has been done this last week, but there are more things I want to finish and add before I consider the house "complete."  Of course, things are never done as far as I am concerned, you just finally say that's it!  

This is one of the projects that I worked on while helping Erin.  Aren't these candy cane striped snowflakes adorable?  Even your children or grandchildren could made these.  Our two oldest grandsons, who are 8 and 5, made these while they were visiting Thanksgiving week.  We had so much fun.  I found these on Centsational Girl's blog site and, of course, knew I had to make some.  She used paper straws, but I found these lovely red and white striped plastic straws at the Dollar Tree right before Thanksgiving and I knew they would be perfect for this project, and they will hold up better than paper.  I also found a package of little foam Christmas decorations at the Dollar Tree which had a bunch of little white snowflakes that I used for the center.  This is an inexpensive craft!

Here is what you need:

a package of red and white straws

white chenille stems (pipe cleaners)

small red beads

Decoration for the center - hopefully foam snowflakes 

First, cut 4 white chenille stems in half.  You will have 8 halves.  Cut off a piece of chenille stem that is about 1.5 inches and twist it tightly around the center of the 8 halves and then fan them out like a snowflake.  It will look like this.

Now, cut two plastic straws into 8 pieces about 2 inches long.  You want the straw pieces slightly shorter than the chenille stems.

Next, slide the cut pieces of straw over the chenille stems, leaving a small end exposed.  Cut 1 inch pieces of chenille stem and twist them tightly around the exposed end above the straw pieces.

At this point, you will have 3 pieces of chenille showing.  Take some small red beads and slip them over the pieces of chenille and trim the ends.  Place a snowflake in the center of the spoke and TADAH!  You are finished.   This candy cane snowflake is about 5.5 inches across.  Makes me smile!

Now, how cute is that?  Add a ribbon or string for hanging and you can use these on a tree as ornaments, tie them on packages for gift giving or do what I did.  I made this cute little banner to hang over my sink.  We do not have a window over the sink, so I try to keep it interesting.  I painted three wooden letters I have had since last year in a candy cane stripe and then highlighted it with gold leaf.  Sorry, the picture is not the best.

I have some red and white striped rope that I bought at Hobby Lobby, so I hot glued the letters to a length that would fit between the cabinets and tied two of the candy cane snowflakes, one on either side.  It looks like this.

Again, it's not the best picture in the world, but you get the idea.  The sign underneath the shelf says Candy Canes, 5 cents.  I have had that sign for years.  It just makes the kitchen a little more festive don't you think?  I placed some ornaments I gold leafed on the shelf and placed some candy canes in the coffee cup to complete my Christmas arrangement.  The red and white striped jar is used to hold sugar all year round.  Yep, came from the Dollar Tree.

I hope you will give this project a try.  It's lots of fun and would make a great inexpensive classroom project if you have a party coming up and need a craft for the students to make.

Check back tomorrow because I have another beautiful candy cane project for you.  It's one that I simply love.  Talk to you soon.

Everyday donna

Things to remember:

I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month. 
Harlan Miller