Peppermint Christmas Garland

My idea for this light up garland came to me one day as i was walking around looking for my next outdoor Christmas display. Every year me and my kids choose a theme 2008 was "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer" 2009 was "Peanuts Christmas"... and this year "Candy Christmas". I always try and make a portion of the display with everything from sculpting to painting and use stuff from around the house that i already have on hand. Rudolf above was made of spare garden stakes small terracotta pots an old snow blanket u place under a Xmas display or tree... and recycled newspaper made into paper- mache ..paint and a single electric bulb left over from a broken Christmas ceramic house so his nose glowed red. The kids enjoy coming up with an idea every year.
The Garland: 1. Clear or Colored Clear Plastic Bottles (soda, water, grated cheese used here)
                     2. Rinsed out and dried  use a sharp scissor to poke a hole in the top and bottom of the bottle and cut a hole or the entire bottom or top off so its big enough for the lights to be strung through.
                    3. Spray the outside of the bottles with glass frosting spray paint and let dry usually less than 5 min. (to get stripes u can wrap scotch tape around before u spray leaving some parts clear un-frosted plastic paint will not stick to the un-frosted stripes)
                    4. Use regular acrylic craft paints to make colored lines dots or designs and let dry

                   6. Once completely dry you can begin to string them onto a regular 50 or 100 mini holiday light set.     
             
                   7. Now you want to cut rectangles of clear cellophane to wrap your candies. leave it roughly 3-4inches longer than the candy your wrapping so you can tie it off with some nylon ribbon .

                         Once you have wrapped all your candies and tied them off you can plug it in and watch it glow!

TIPS:

This would also make a great Halloween Candy Garland... you can change up the colors to Purple.. Orange and Green .
Use colored Cellophane to wrap if u don't want to paint the bottles
Any kind of ribbon will work to tie off the end
Go even more green with LED light strands
Leave 3 lights between each plastic bottle
Hit up the after Holiday sales and grab the leftover lights you can usually get them for 50-75% off! these lights cost me $0.25