Christmas Candy Countdown

I remember making a Christmas Candy Countdown when I was little.  I know its sign is still one of the ornaments my parents put on our Christmas tree even though the candy is long gone.  

This is a great alternative to the traditional advent calendar.  It's great for kids to put together, and I'm sure they will love eating the candy after.

Supplies:

• Candy - 25 pieces, it needs to be the kind that closes on each end so you can tie them together
• Red, Green and a tiny bit of Yellow paper for the sign
• Silhouette Cameo or Printer
• Glue Stick - to put the sign together
• String - I used size 10 white with green sparkles crochet thread.  Yarn can work too and would probably be easier for kids to work with.
• Little piece of Cardboard

This is a fairly quick project and doesn't take that much time.  You spend most of the time tying them together and that won't even take that long unless you want cute little bows like I did.

I have provided the silhouette document for those who have that at their disposal.  I had to zip it because it's too big to upload.  Sorry about that.  I also provided the PDF's for those who would like to print it.  They are all separate and there is one where they are all together.  So you can either print them on one page or print on different color pages.  The star document is just the star.

I based this off of a candy countdown I made when I was younger.  I don't remember what it said, but I know it was this shape.  Anything will work :)

Measurements:

• Outer Rectangle: 3 x 5 inches
• Inner Rectangle: 2.5 x 4.5 inches
• Holes: .1 x .1 inches
• Tree: 1.405 x 2.065 inches
• Star: .305 x .290

Once you have your pieces cut out, just glue them together!  You don't have to, but I saved the centers of the o's, a's and d's.  

To put it together glue the main piece onto the back piece and then glue the star and little inserts on. 

When I was almost done with my project I added the cardboard, but you can add it now.  Just cut out a piece that is about the size of the main piece 2.5 x 4.5 inches.  I just used a glue stick and glued this right to the back of the sign making sure not to cover any of the outer holes.  Before I put on the cardboard, the paper sign couldn't support the weight of the candy and started to bend, adding the cardboard prevents that from happening.

Time to tie up your candies.  From my 14 oz bag of Jolly Ranges I was able to get 16 cherries (red) and 9 green apples (green).  This makes exactly 25, so I lucked out there.  You don't have to use just red and green candies, I just figured I would since I could.  

If you want your candies in a specific order, plan that out ahead of time.  I would have liked to have mine go every other, but since there wasn't the right amount I tried to make a sort of pattern with the alternating green and reds.

Once you are ready cut off a piece of string or yarn that is a couple inches long.  You can simply double knot them together if you want, but it will make it harder to pull off one each day.  I decided to tie one knot and then a bow.  It was a little difficult to do such a small bow, but I just cut the strings longer to start with and then trimmed off the excess once I had the bow the size I wanted.

Try to get them tied together where the wrapper meets the candy (Photo 5).  This will be the strongest connection.  Continue to tie them all together until you have them all connected.

You just need two pieces of string for this step.  No specific length, just make sure one is long enough to tie the candy to the sign and the other is long enough to tie between the top two holes with enough room to hang.  You can always trim off the excess.

I tied a double knot around one of the candies on the end (Photo 2).  Then I pulled the ends through the two holes at the bottom of the sign, front to back (Photo 3).  I double knotted this (Photo 4) and then tied a little bow (Photo 5).

For the top, get another string and tie each end to each corner.  I trimmed off the extra (Photo 7 and 8).

No just find a place to hang it!  A doorknob or a bed post are both good locations, but you'll want to make sure you don't eat all the candies too fast!