Bottle Top Candy Cane

Use bottle tops or lids to make a bottle top candy cane, wreath or Christmas tree. Great Christmas ornaments that are frugal, but for for kids to make, plus it has an educational element too.

It is time for Project Recycle & Create! (Have you seen our sock snowmen from last month?) This month we are recycling bottle tops(or do you call it lids or caps?) and we made a candy cane one can use as a tree ornament too!

We have been collecting bottle tops for a while now, but we only used the red and white for the candy cane(there are 2 more ideas later in this post too). 

I made holes into the tops with this metal kebab stick. Most plastics were quite soft, so not too difficult. TIP: If you use hard plastics, warm the stick before attempting to make holes.

I gave my 3.5-year-old a white pipecleaner with the instruction to find a red top(using visual discrimination skills and listening to instructions) and thread it on. The threading is great for fine motor skills too!

The pattern of red and white was followed. The threading was done on the straight pipecleaner and it was bent to the shape of a candy cane. The top end of the pipecleaner was bent so it could hang on the tree.

We also made a “tree” with the green tops, and a wreath, made with the green, red and gold tops:

A simple way to recycle and create with bottle tops- together with pipecleaners it can become Christmas shapes/Ornaments for the tree! Perhaps also check out this Bottle Cap Mobile and Bottle Cap Curtain reusing bottle caps/lids/tops.

Also see what my blogging buddies made with their bottle tops:

Bottle Caps Caterpillar by Our Whimsicle Days
Easy Bottle Top Mandalas by the Gingerbread House