Candy Cane Centerpiece

Pinterest has been inspiring me all season long!   Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, its only increased my need to be crafty, which is both expensive and time consuming.

One craft I decided to try this holiday season was a Candy Cane Centerpiece for my dining room table.

There were several posts on Pinterest that inspired this project.   All were slightly different. 

So I made my own.

Supplies:

• A round candle holder.  You have to make sure its not to tall for your candycanes.  
• Candy Canes, I bought 6 boxes at the dollar store and used almost all.  You do need to be prepared for broken candy canes or candy canes that are mis-shaped or to short for the project.
• A hot glue gun.
• Ribbon of choice.
• Flowers (real or fake is your choice), I made mine with fake poinsettias and a pretty red robin.

Steps:

First prepare your container for flowers.   Since I used fake flowers I stuffed the bottom the container with styrofoam.  Then because you can see through gaps in the candy canes I wrapped red paper around the inside of the container.  

Next prepare your candy canes and hot glue gun. You can leave the candy canes in the wrappers or take them out.  I chose to leave mine in.  Carefully hot glue your candy canes around the container.   It's pretty simple but you do have to make sure they are on straight.   

Then add your ribbon.  I glued my ribbon to the candy canes at 5 different points to ensure that it stayed on.   I actually chose to use two ribbons.  The bottom ribbon was a candy cane stripe pattern, then I added sparkly red ribbon (that goes with my decor) on top of the candy cane ribbon.   Create a bow with the ribbon.  You can complete it with a peppermint candy if you want.  (See Pinterest picture above).  

Because I used dollar store candy canes (and this might be a problem with all brands), the candy canes were all different heights.  I could have cut them before hand, to make them all the same height, but anyone who has ever tried to cut a candy-cane should know that its near impossible to do a clean cut on them.   So instead I tried to pick the best ones from the bunch.  Then I added the ribbon to the bottom as well as the center, to cover the different heights.   Where a candy cane was really short, I cut another piece of candy cane, and glued it under the ribbon to keep the look even.  

Then all you have left to do is arrange the flowers in the container.