hard candy Christmas...but not really

There's something about a jar full of found objects. I love jars of buttons, they're the best. I also love jars of bottle caps. When I was a kid (insert dinosaur joke), bottle caps were the currency of choice for our imaginary trips to the imaginary grocery store.

The collection above has been sitting on my shelf for about a year and the collection itself is about 2 years in the making. I wanted to make something Christmasy with them for my Junque Tree. Pickles was vehemently against this since she feels it means "ruining" the caps somehow.

Take heart, my dear Pickles! A a fun, non-altering solution is here. I've decided to make a candy wrapped garland with them. The idea is simple. I'm using cellophane to wrap the bottle caps like hard candy. All I need is:

*bottle caps
*scissors
*roll of clear cellophane - cut into 4 inch wide strips along the length of the roll.
*pipe cleaners (mine are gold!) - cut into 1 to 1.5 inch pieces

 

It's kinda tricky to capture, but here's the strip of cellophane. I placed two bottle caps together with the open sides facing each other and wrap them just like you would a hard candy disc. You know...

 

Dang cellophane!! The camera won't focus on it!  Ok, so twist the cellophane and tie it closed with your pipecleaner piece.  Same for the other side and there you have you first "candy".

 

Now, just add another and another tieing after each one. When you're coming to the end of a cellophane strip (about 4 or 5 inches left at the end) just start a new one and add it to your existing strand. Simply place the end of the new strand inside the end of the old strand. Then just continue on your merry way.

What you wind up with is a garland of bottle caps and they do look like candy!

 

They are too perfect for the Junque Tree!