Christmas Crafts for Kids: Christmas Tree Art

I already shared our idea for a Christmas Advent calendar this year which is centered around candy canes and what they represent. I found this neat poem to send along with our daily candy cane to the recipient: Turned upside down the cane makes a “J”
for Jesus who was
born on Christmas Day.
Turn it upright like
the Good Shepherd’s staff
who pleads to the
Father on your behalf.
At the top you’ll see
the saving crook,
used on the lost sheep
He never forsook.
The stripes whisper softly
“By his stripes we are healed,”
and the red represents
His blood that was spilled.
The white gives us hope
to become pure as He,
by forsaking our sins,
white as snow they will be.
The peppermint oil
that flavors this treat,
is known for its strong
healing properties.
Now each time you see the
striped candy cane,
remember, dear child,
He knows your name. When I saw this idea to create a tree with candy canes, I thought it would go hand in hand with our theme. Plus it's adorable! Here's what we used: Materials:styrofoam tree conesmall candy caneshot gluescissors

First, we removed the candy canes from their wrappers. I ended up using an entire box of these babies, but we'd already snacked on a few of them...How many you use depends on the size of the cone you choose. Our cone was about 8" tall and we used about 45 candy canes.

If I did this one over again, I'd cover the cone with something to hide the green...I was worried we'd run out of candy canes so I spaced them apart a little too much. You can pack them in tighter to hide the green as well.
 My two year old helped us find the candy canes that weren't broken and my four year old removed the wrapper with scissors and placed them carefully over the hot glue with my help.


While we were on a roll, we covered a larger cone with starlight mints. To help avoid any further temptation, I kept them in the wrapper (helped fill up space too because one bag of mints didn't quite fill the tree). I love these!