Yes, I Craft

This year I've been doing mint wreaths for family and friends. I did these about 7 years ago and loved doing them. Then got burned out immediately after completely the number i had chosen to do that year for presents and I've decided that enough time has passed that I have the patience to do these again. Amazingly I've not burned out yet and that's good because I have about 3 more to go.

The only downfall about having these as Christmas presents is that I feel you need to do them several weeks prior to Christmas so those I give to will have time to enjoy them. You can hang these in cool, dark closets and they will last for the next year and can be re-used (is that a word???). Of course I did not make them to last, they ARE to be eaten and shared. Or you can toss them. Once they are out of my hands it's really up to the person.

Personally, I think they are very pretty! I hope people don't think they are tacky. One wreath takes about 4 hours non-stop but I never can sit for that long of time. I am a get up and do this, then remember to do that, then get side-tracked and do something else and then remember "Oh yeah, I was doing that" kind of person. Confused? Yeah, well that's me.

All you need is:

• a wire coat hanger
• 2 and a half bags of WRAPPED TIED mints (peppermint, spearmint, cinnamon discs)
• curling ribbon (red, green, white and/or gold)
• a pair of scissors

Take the wire hanger and bend it into a circle. You'll keep the neck of the hanger as the actual "hanger" to hang it up where ever. To cut down on candy and ribbon and time, you can cut the hanger and make any size circle you want. I did ONE hanger the full size without down sizing it and it took forever but it's very pretty.

I now have Joey cut them for me and make just a bit smaller wreaths. You'll then want to start and cut ribbon in strips. The length can very depending on how you want your ribbon to look. You can curl it with the scissors or leave them uncurled, it's just a person's preference. Tie the ribbon to one end of the wrapped candy then tie the ribbon to the hanger. I tie the ribbon ONCE around one end of the candy, THEN I that ribbon twice to the actual wire. You continue to do this until the entire wire wreath is jammed full of candy. I then go back and curl all the ribbon ends.

I do it where I will cut all the ribbon at once, then I sit and while watching TV, I will tie each piece of candy and after all the candy has ribbons tied to them I then tie them to the wire wreath. It's faster that way.

The prettiest wreath I did was for Taylor's teacher's family, The Weeter's. Michael is our Bishop as well as Kristy being Tay's 5th grade teacher. I used all red cinnamon discs and only green curling ribbon, it was beautiful. I took a very pretty bow and topped it off, that hides the hook of the hanger that you will use to hang it with. Unfortunately, I have no picture of that one.

My variations have been all peppermint with just gold curling ribbon which will be going to my neighbors, Steve and Bonnie Davis, and then I have made several with both the peppermint (red & white) and the spearmint (green & white) candies with red, white and green curling ribbon. I've done all spearmints with just red curling ribbon and that is pretty as well. You get the idea. The possibilities are endless on the looks.

Taylor has helped me tie ribbons to the candy but that was one wreath. This it's a very child friendly craft!!!