Whether you are decorating inside for Christmas, or decorating outside, these light up candy canes will don your holiday décor with a festive Christmas look! If you put these outside, it will welcome your guests as they arrive at your front door. If you keep them inside, the ambient light of the candy cane will be a gentle reminder of all the fun to come this Christmas season! They are SUPER easy to make, very inexpensive, but the pay off his huge!
You Will Need:
- 2” PVC pipe cut to 30” length (for body) and 4” length (for tip of candy cane)
- 2” ABS Bend P-Trap return bend (looks like a “u” shape pipe)
- 3” x 2”ABS Reducer (round base)
- PVC Pipe cutter (you can also use hack saw or have home improvement store cut it for you)
- L-brackets or corner braces, 2.5” galvanized set with screws
- Red Christmas bow
- Gorilla glue
- Sand paper (60 – 120)
- Drill with ¼” drill bit
- Christmas string lights
- Red tape (can use duct tape, electrical tape, etc.)
- White spray paint
- Wood plaque
How-To:
- First clean your PVC. The PVC I got was diiiirrrr-teeee! You will want to completely wash this, and use sand paper to rough up the service to get it ready for paint. Use damp rag (or any cleaner will also work).
- Attach the P-Trap to the top of your straight, 30” PVC pipe. Clean and sand this as well.
- Attach the reducer at the base of your PVC pipe.
- Attach the 4” PVC piece to the other side of the p-trap to create the tip of the candy cane.
- Take the entire candy cane out to spray paint white. Set aside to dry. You may need more than one coat of spray paint, so judge your coverage and once you are happy with the coverage of paint and your pipe is dry, move on to the next step.
- Take your red tape and start wrapping the PVC pipe and the p-trap from the bottom. Make sure that you keep the strips a similar width apart from one another. ONLY do the straight part of the PVC and stop the tape at the top. This will allow you to remove the top to drop the lights down the pipe.
- On the p-trap and tip of candy cane, continue the tape pattern, making sure that the stripes align with one another from the trap to the base.
- Take your drill with a ¼” drill bit and start drilling holes every few inches around the pipe in the white section (avoid the red tape). This is where the lights will shine through, so make sure you account for how much space is in between your light strand. NOTE: The lights will not poke through the holes- this just allows light to escape from within the candy cane for ambient lighting.
- Take off the p-trap top and drop the base of your Christmas lights down the pipe, making sure the plug is clear of the pipe. Leave this cord as long as possible before the lights come out of the bottom of the base of your candy cane. Leave excess at the top to run through the p-trap.
- Pull the lights through the p-trap and re-distribute the lights throughout the structure so that your lights are evenly placed.
- After making sure that your cord is out of the bottom, use the corner brackets to hold the base in place on your wood plaque. Use gorilla glue between the plastic/wood and corner bracket to help hold it in place.Screw into the pipe and the wood plaque with the screws provided in the corner bracket package.
- Add ribbon or a bow (or anything you would like) to snaz up your candy cane and enjoy!
Tips:
- If you want your candy canes bigger or smaller, cut adjust the size of the base of the candy cane. This will give you a variety of heights.
- If you would like your candy canes thicker or thinner in diameter, just know that you will have to purchase all connections for that new thickness. Example: If you bought a 1” PVC pipe, then all of your connectors would have to be 1”.
- Use what you can find in your local hardware store. For instance, I wanted to use all white pieces, but in a 2” pipe, my hardware store only had black connectors…that’s why I needed to spray paint the pipe white. (PVC is white – ABS is black)
- You can use regular red ribbon, though I was able to find pre-made velvet Christmas bows at the hardware store! One-stop shop!
- Your hardware store can cut the PVC for you so take advantage of that! Much easier than cutting yourself.
- If you would like to hide your cord at the base of your candy cane, consider drilling a hole in the wood plaque for the cord to come out the bottom of the entire structure.
Do you have a Christmas DIY? Share with us your questions and comments below! Remember we want to see your DIY’s so follow us on Instagram and Twitter @paigehemmis & hashtag #DIYplay
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XOXO,
Paige