How to Make a Holiday Candy Cane Stick Candle

Christmas is next month? Where did the year go? Will there be enough time to accomplish everything you want to do? Will you have enough money to get everyone gifts? Have you ever felt like that around this time?

Time and money are not something we should invest too much for gifts.

You do not really have too. A quick and simple wonderful gift to make for others is a candy cane candle!!!

Purchase a box of candy cane sticks from your local Wal-Mart or wherever you shop. The thick ones are my preferred choice, but even the slimmer ones will work.

Place the stick next to a 4x4 candle (red or white preferably). If the canes are too long for the candle, a nifty trick I have learned is to find a jar lid to glue under the candle. Paint with acrylic paint to match your candle. This will raise the candle and you will not have to try and "saw" down the sticks.

Those rubber bands you have lying around your home (my mom used to keep hers around doorknobs throughout the home): well, take a thick one and place around the candle.

One year, for my daughter's Christmas party we made these- but we glued the candy canes all around the soup cans and placed a candle inside. However, no matter that the glue was permanent; some of the candy canes fell off. Bless all the ten year olds hearts, it was a disaster. (However, all the parents still loved them as gifts!!!!)

Thusly, I researched an alternative and better way to make these candles.

Unwrap the candy sticks and slip them inside the rubber band next to then candle. Go all the way around the candle. (Approximately 25 candy sticks.) Straighten the sticks as you place them around the candle.

The rubber band? Unsightly, right? Tie a velvet ribbon around the candle to hide the rubber band.

To make the candy cane stick candle even prettier, glue (using permanent glue) some holiday twigs or vines at the center of the ribbon. Tie a bow or even add fruit or more candy. Here is where mini candy canes and peppermints (green) will sparkle!

This is the quick and simple way I use to give out candles as gifts. A few of my friends have come to expect this candle each year.

Your own creativity can come into play here. You can use smaller candles and mini candy sticks, or cinnamon sticks (one of my faves!).

This is something your children can help you with or do by themselves (with minimal supervision).

Not a lot of money, or time but a gift that will last for hours ( or years depending on whether or not it gets burned a great deal).

A trick to help with the burning: the first time the candle it lit, burn it only until the well is 1 inch from the edge. The well will not get any wider the next time you burn it.