DIY A Cute Candy Cane Walkway For The Holidays With This Dollar Tree Hack
The holiday season is the time of year when everything feels magical. Christmas lights illuminate the neighborhoods and life-sized Santa Claus decorations put us in the festive mood. However, these outdoor decor items can cost an arm and a leg for those with a limited budget. Instead of purchasing new holiday decorations, you can make them yourself to save some money. One easy DIY you could complete is a candy cane walkway that leads up to your front door. This project involves wrapping ribbon or tape around white pool noodles, attaching an ornament or light to the top, and keeping them standing tall with PVC pipe.
Most of the items for this project can be found at Dollar Tree, making this a very inexpensive hack. You'll need some white pool noodles, red Christmas ornaments or Christmas bulb solar stakes, and a roll of thick red ribbon. You could also use a thick roll of red tape instead. The only things you won't find at Dollar Tree are 2-foot pieces of PVC pipe, which can be purchased at Home Depot for less than $3 each, and solar lights (if desired), which are available at Walmart for around $1 each. Additionally, you'll need some measuring tape, hot glue, and a hammer.
How to create your candy cane walkway
Once you're ready to decorate your home for Christmas, decide how many candy canes you want to place along your walkway. You could either align them all on one side or on both sides. Then, use the measuring tape to cut your pool noodles into equal pieces that are each around 2 feet tall. Take one pool noodle and wrap the ribbon or tape diagonally around it to make it look like a candy cane. If you use ribbon, hot glue it down, and repeat this step with the other noodles. To cover the hole on top, attach an ornament or solar light with glue. Once outside, hammer your PVC pipes into the lawn along your walkway and slide the pool noodles over the top.
There are quite a few ways to customize this pool noodle DIY to make it unique to you. For instance, you could glue a swooping piece of ribbon between each of the candy canes to attach them together. You could also keep the pool noodles long and purchase longer PVC pipes to make taller candy canes. Further, if you replace the ornament with a light, this will make your decorations glow, which will allow you and your visitors to use your walkway at night with ease. Plus, you can make the candy canes different colors by alternating with green pool noodles or ribbons.