DIY Candy Cane Ornaments

Learn how to make these super sweet DIY candy cane ornaments! They will last forever and you won’t have to worry about them getting eaten!

Welcome back to part two of my four-part candy Christmas ornament series. Today I am sharing these adorable DIY candy cane ornaments with you. I absolutely love how these little candy canes turned out! They are easy to make and don’t even require hot glue to make them!

If you want to check out the other ornaments in my Christmas Candy series, here are the links:

I will be sharing how I made the red and white classic looking candy cane in this post. You can also see how I made the red and white thin striped candy cane in the video that is included in this post. I feel like the mostly red and white ones are pretty self explanatory after you see how I made the first two.

I’m not the only one who loves these little candy cane ornaments. Our cat, Elsa, loves them too! She keeps playing with them on the tree and taking them down. I have had to chase a couple down. Little stinker! So I guess you may still have to worry about the candy canes disappearing off your Christmas tree after all! Ha! 😉

Watch the quick video

Don’t want to read all the instructions? I have included a video in this post showing you how to make these DIY candy cane ornaments. If you can’t see the video, turn off your ad blocker. Also, if you ever want to slow down the video, just click on the three dots in the lower right hand corner of the video and you can change the playback speed. If you want more detailed instructions, continue reading.

Supplies to make DIY candy cane ornaments

*There are links to products in this post that I use or are similar to products I use. If you buy something from one of these links, I may make a small commission (with no additional cost to you) from the purchase. I will not recommend anything that I would not buy myself.

Prepare your rope and wire

The first step in making some DIY candy canes is to cut some rope and wire. I cut the rope to 8″ long and the wire to 7.5″ long.

To give these ornaments a candy cane shape, we need to use some wire that is strong enough to hold it’s shape but not too thick. The wire will be inserted into the whole length of the rope and that is by far the hardest part of this whole craft. I was having a hard time getting this done as the cut end of the wire was catching on the rope and wouldn’t let me push it through all the way very easily.

Mr. Wonderful suggested that I bend the wire over at the top and that did help a little although it was still not a breeze. The wire would bend pretty easily when I was trying to push it through. It may have been easier if I used a sturdier wire but I already had this one on hand so I wanted to use it.

My biggest tips for you on this is to push in the wire initially as far as it will go. It may pop out the side of the rope but you can pull it back in and guide it to run up the middle again. Pull on the bottom of the rope as you push the wire into the rope. As you get closer to the middle and top, it is easier to scrunch the rope together ahead of the wire, then pull the rope down around the tip of the wire inside and then pull the rope down at the bottom. You can see this in the video. It is a slow process but it works. 😉

How to make candy cane ornaments

I made four different styles of candy canes, the one I will show you here is the classic alternating bands of red and white candy cane. This was the most “difficult” of the four because it involves continually alternating between two colors of thread. Although when I say difficult, it really is not at all, it just has more moving parts. Starting with the red thread, place the end of the thread running parallel to the rope, about an inch long. Start wrapping the red thread around the end of the thread securing it down.

When you are wrapping, turn the rope instead of wrapping the thread around the rope. This will eliminate your red and white threads from getting tangled up with each other or wrapping around each other. Stop when you get to 1/2″ of red wrapped thread. Cut the remaining tail of the initial end of the thread. Do not cut the working end of the thread, just set that down for now.

Pick up the cream thread and repeat the same process directly under the red band of thread. Make sure your cream thread runs over top of the red thread so that it is under the band of cream thread now. Wrap the cream thread until you get to 1/2″ long. If there is a long tail of the cream thread, you can clip it off.

Holding the cream thread parallel to the rope, grab the red thread and starting turning the rope so the the red thread wraps around the cream thread.

Hold the working thread taut as you turn the rope. Continue to add alternating bands of red and cream thread down the length of the rope.

How to finish off your candy cane ornament

When you get to the bottom of the candy cane, you can clip the end of the cream thread. Use a large embroidery needle and thread it onto the red end.

Push the embroidery needle down through the band of red thread and pull out the thread end. Pull it tight to secure it under the band of red thread.

Cut the end of the red thread. Now you will have a long candy cane stick. 🙂

Make a candy cane shaped ornament

You can brush out the end of the braided rope using the embroidery needle. Trim it to the desired length if needed.

Bend the end of the wrapped rope into a candy cane shape.

You could leave it like this and hang it on the tree as is or just leave in a bowl for decoration. However, I decided to add a loop of thread to hang the candy ornaments from. Thread your embroidery needle with red thread and go under 2-3 strands of wrapped thread on the top of the candy cane. Cut the thread at the desired length and tie a knot at the top.

You now have a cute candy cane ornament that you can use year after year. It will never go bad or disappear to someone with a sweet tooth! 😉

Hang your homemade candy cane ornaments

This would be a fun craft to make with the kids or grandkids too! You may have to help them with the wire part but after that, they could totally wrap the candy canes with thread. They may not turn out as tightly wrapped, but I am sure they would have a blast making them. They would be so proud to display them on the tree as well. Heck, I am proud to display these on my tree! LOL