I will be the first to admit that my Christmas decorating spirit has been a little lackluster lately. Some of the past years I struggled with even getting my tree up. But, this year is different, I am happy to say. I have been infected (is that the right word?) with the Christmas Spirit. I have already been counting down the days until Christmas and visualizing my living room full of Christmas decorations!
To start my decorating, I wanted a new garland for my mantel. I saw a candy garland on a family member’s tree years ago (yes, Debbie, I still remember that) that I admired and with that memory in mind headed to the store.
I wasn’t sure what kind of candy I wanted but had an idea of what I wanted my finished result to be. I briefly considered Jolly Rancher candies, but really liked the mixed hard candy bag that included green and red starlight mints. I went with a multi-colored garland because I wanted to keep my options open if I decide to purchase (or make) new Christmas Tree ornaments.
So, after heading home with my bag of candy, I started experimenting with different adhesives to figure out what would hold my candy together in a string. After a few failures, I tried my hot glue gun. Now, keep in mind that this is a LOW-temperature hot glue gun. I don’t know if I would get the same result with a higher temperature gun, or if my candy wrappers would melt.
Here is the great part! Once you decide what order you want your candy in (if you have more than one flavor) you are ready to go! All you have to do is glue the wrappers together and Voila! Instant festive garland! I was able to assemble my candy into a garland in just a few minutes, since all I had to do was hold each glued spot for about 10 seconds to make sure it was secure, before moving to my next candy. Once I had all of my candy glued together, I watched TV for about 30 minutes to make sure all of the glue had cooled down completely.
Next, I put some Command hangers on my mantel-board, so that I would not have to deal with nails when dusting for the next 11 months after Christmas, and I was ready to hang up my garland. I have to admit, this was the launching pad for my newfound “Christmas Cheer”!
