Puzzle Piece Candy Cane Christmas Decoration

Looking for Christmas decorations on a budget? Do you have puzzles with missing pieces? Instead of throwing them away, recycle those old puzzles. Make a candy cane wall hanging. The following instructions are for an 18" x 12" candy cane but you can adjust your candy cane to any size that suits your needs. If you don't have any puzzles on had that have missing pieces, look at tag sales (garage sales) for some.

• Puzzle pieces*
• 18" x 12" Piece of foam core board or cardboard
• 1 Yard of green 2" wide wire edged ribbon
• Tacky glue or Elmer's glue
• Acrylic paint in white and red
• Paint brush
• Painters tape or masking tape
• 5" Piece of pipe cleaner or wire
• Hot glue gun

Our puzzle pieces ranged in size from 1/2" to 1 1/2".

1. Cut a candy cane shape from a piece of foam core board or cardboard. If you are using brown cardboard, you may want to paint it white and let it dry before proceeding to prevent any brown from showing through.
2. Apply a layer of white glue to the candy cane shape and cover with puzzle pieces. Add a second and even a third layer if you like for more texture and depth. That is what we did with our sample.
3. Paint the whole candy cane white and let dry completely.
4. Using painter's tape or masking tape, tape of the areas that are to remain white.
5. Paint the spaces in between the tape with one to two coats of red paint. Let dry then remove the tape.
6. Cut a 5" piece of pipe cleaner or wire and twist the ends together forming a loop. Hot glue the ends to the top of the hook section, on the back, as a hanger. If you want your candy cane to hang on an angle like the sample, glue the hanger at an angle when gluing it. Hold the hanger in place to see how it will hang to make sure you like the angle before applying the glue.
7. Tie a piece of ribbon in a bow around the candy cane to finish it off.

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