Picture the tiniest flurry and my husband saying, “Debbie, it’s way too early for Christmas music!” and me replying, “What are you talking about!? It’s snowing!!!!!!” Yesterday after dinner, we had to make a family trip to Walmart to buy two of the three kids new winter boots (MAN, their feet grow fast!), and we were playing the kids favourite version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town in the van on the way to the store. My 6 year old, my 4 year old and my husband all started to sing along to the music and I had the BIGGEST smile on my face! lol How cheesy am I that it felt like a dream come true to hear all my peeps singing away to Christmas tunes in the car!?
Have you ever gone to the craft store, spotted a little bag full of small, silver jingle bells, and picked it up to give it a gentle shake to test out the sound? I LOVE doing that. There is something that’s simply magical about the jingly sound it makes! I absolutely love it! When I was making the melted bead Christmas ornaments last week, I was thinking how easy it would be to make these melted bead candy canes freehanded instead of using cookie cutters! And they were the PERFECT opportunity to use my leftover craft jingle bells! I tried tying fancy ribbons around them, but I just couldn’t get it to look right. So I stuck with the simple look of jingle bells. And I was so happy with how beautiful they turned out!
Melted Bead Candy Canes | Candy Cane Bead Ornaments
The full printable instructions are at the end of this post, but here’s what you’ll need:
Clear Pony Beads Fishing Line Silver Jingle Bells
I’m pretty sure at this time of year you can buy a bag of pony beads in Christmas colours? I still had TONS leftover from the cookie cutter melted bead ornaments I made last week, so I just picked out the Christmas colours from the assorted bag.
In retrospect, I think these would have looked AWESOME if I had made these melted bead candy canes with opaque white pony beads instead of the clear ones. But the clear is all I had. They still look pretty beautiful I think!
Line a small pan with aluminum foil and arrange the pony beads in a candy cane shape. I used 12 beads in each candy cane, alternating the colours as I went.
And again I got to look like a crazy person by putting our toaster oven outside on the porch to keep the plastic vapours out of the house. But it worked like a charm, and at least I didn’t have to worry about toxins in the house! You can melt them on your barbecue as well.
I baked them for about 7 or 8 minutes outside until they had fused together. Keep in mind that since I live in Canada, it was really cold outside when I made these with a temperature of 2ºC (35ºF). So if you make these at a warmer temperature, it will probably take less time for them to melt.
I let them sit outside in the cold for about 10 minutes to cool completely. You can put them in the fridge or freezer if it’s not cold enough outside, but I do recommend keeping them outside for at least a few minutes to let the melted plastic smell dissipate a bit before you bring them inside.
I used fishing line to attach the jingle bells to the candy cane.
Just thread the two jingle bells onto the fishing line, tie a quick knot to keep the bells from separating, then tie them around the candy cane. Aren’t they beautiful!?
If you’re planning to hang them on the tree, attach another loop of fishing line to use as a hanger. I made them in clear and red patterns, clear and green patterns, and red, green and clear patterns. Again, if you make your own melted bead candy canes I recommend trying them with opaque white beads instead of the clear beads. They’ll be a lot more visible on the Christmas tree. (And if you do make them, I’d love you to share photos of them in the comments below!
The kids LOVED these! They were so excited for me to finish my photo shoot so they could steal them to play with. My 6 year old even took hers to school… although, it came back from school broken. So heads up, if you are rough with them, they can snap apart.
These melted bead candy canes are SO EASY to make and they’re the cutest homemade Christmas ornaments ever! It’s so easy to get the simple candy cane shape freehanded! And best of all, you get to decorate them with the best Christmas craft supply ever – Jingle Bells!! If you’re looking for more fun things to make with melted beads, check out our cookie cutter ornaments! These were also really easy to make and they ended up looking BEAUTIFUL!
