tiptoefairy

An inexpensive and easy to make office decoration is a candy wreath. Before I had children, I worked at the local hospital in administration and we always decorated for the holidays. One Sunday afternoon my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and I made big candy wreaths out of coat hangers, and I took mine to the office. My coworkers, and even my boss, just loved it. I would see them frequently cutting off pieces of candy.

I took a wire coat hanger and shaped it into a circle, then cut the hook off and added a fabric loop to hang it from. I cut strips of red christmas fabric with pinking shears and used peppermint and spearmint hard candies for the red and green look. I first tied strips of fabric to loosely cover the entire hanger, then I tied the candy on with the fabric strips by knotting the fabric around one end of the wrapper.

I like to make it very full and heavy with lots of candy. I also attach a pair of scissors hanging from ribbon on it to make it easier to cut off a piece of candy. You can use any kind of hard candy or even bubble gum or tootsie rolls as long as it has wrapper ends that can be tied with the fabric strips.

My office loved it so much, I've been sending one to my husband's office for years now. They have an informal "office door" decorating contest for all the big holidays and the candy wreath is definitely one of the big winners every year.

When I was a child, my mom had us buy or make gifts ourselves for our grandparents. I wanted to start this same tradition with my children, so when I had my first child, we started early. She was only 3 months at Christmas, so I decided to make handmade footprint ornaments for her grandparents.

I used the Crayola brand Model Magic clay that air dries quickly and is very lightweight. You can find it in many colors - I chose pink. I rolled out a small piece clay and then pushed her foot into it. When it was dry, I punched a hole with a regular crafting hole puncher and added ribbon to hang from the tree, then I put her name and the year. I attached the ornaments to their christmas gifts as tags, and they all loved it. Since it was such a big hit, I made sure to do it with my second child a few years later.