DIY CANDY CANE RAG WREATH

Some of my favourite Christmas memories since starting a family have been opening Christmas gifts that my children made and wrapped at school.  They were made with so much love and attention to detail.

I'll never forget the anticipation on their little faces as we opened their gifts on Christmas morning to see if we really liked what they made us; of course we did, we LOVED every single thing they made over the years and kept them near and dear and actually bring them out for Christmas to display to rekindle memories of their youth.

These 'make your own' gifts were the best and are still the most treasured gifts we have; they didn't require a lot of money to make and the pride and workmanship put into their craft was simply amazing.

One of my all time favourite pieces I was gifted was the DIY Candy Cane Rag Wreath that one of my sons gifted us; I personally think it's adorable, so when my young niece wanted to make something special for her parents I thought of helping out to create one of her own to wrap and gift to them. 

I picked up just over a yard of a cotton blend candy cane material at one of my stops to Joanne's Fabrics during one of my frequent trips to the US for $2 on their remnant/end of bolt racks and this creation was born just shy of $3 in total , including the cute little chalk board she can write a personal message on that I am most certain her parents will cherish for years to come.

MATERIALS

1 - 1/2 yards of festive material (a solid with a printed patterns looks great or you can opt for 1 type as we did)

1 wire coat hanger

strands of raffia

large and small candy canes

pliers

scissors

ASSEMBLY

Cut the coat hanger with pliers and form into a circle (our circle is 10 inch round)bending and looping the ends together by depressing them with pliers; or they can be duct taped together.

Cut material into 7 inch sections and then cut them down to 1 inch strips.

Start by tying the strips of material onto the coat hanged with a double knot, pushing the knots closely to one another; this will help the wreath look fuller.

Once you've used up all the material and the wreath is nice and full we started to 'wreath scape' by using scissors to trim and layer the strips of material and cut out little 'V's' into most of the ends.

Once the wreath looked full and presentable for display we shock out any loose threads, tied candy canes around the wreath with raffia and voila a wreath was born.

This cute little project took approximately 2 hours to complete.