This is a holiday craft I came up with recently to add some vintage whimsy to my Christmas . You can use these fuzzy vintage inspired candy canes to decorate your tree or to embellish your holiday gifts. This is also an easy project to do with kids. Enjoy!

• Gather your pipe cleaners in red and white. (I made 2 batches. One using skinny pipe cleaners and one using bigger fuzzier ones.)

• Next, soak your pipe-cleaners in a hot tea bath for a vintage look. (I used several family size tea bags in a big stew pot of boiling water. To keep my pipe-cleaners from rising to the top I placed a regular dinner plate in the pot to hold them down.)

• Leave for 1-2 hours.

• Next, drain all the tea off your pipe cleaners, then gently squeeze out some of the excess liquid off of them – but not too much.

• Place pipe cleaners in clothes dryer and dry for 10-15 minutes on high heat. Make sure to include a fabric softener sheet. This will seal in the tea stain and fluff your pipe cleaners back up.

• Next, twist pipe cleaners together and bend into a candy-cane shape. (If you want to make smaller candy-canes like these shown cut each pipe cleaner in half before twisting.)

• Using a small paint brush, brush your candy-cane lightly with glue then dust with glitter (I used silver.)

• Shake off excess glitter and re-fluff your candy-cane by running it between your fingers, allowing some of the glitter to fall off – you don’t want there to be huge clumps of glitter, just a light dusting.

• Let dry.