CANDY CANE TUTORIAL PART 2

Good morning everyone!!!  Happy Veterans Day to all those who served and are continuing to serve this great country that we are all privileged to live in because of our Veterans! (I know Veterans Day was yesterday but it is still being observed today too).  And, I don't believe that we can thank them all enough for what they do. So again, thanks to all of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  I hope that you all had a great week end.  We did here.  I feel as though I have accomplished alot.  For starters this part of the candy cane tutorial.  We are almost done.  Yeah!!  So, for today you will all need:
                               newspaper-cut into strips that are small enough for your candy canes
                               1 1/2 c water
                               1 c flour
                               1/4 c Elmer's glue
                               something to cover your work area
                               tote lid or something to place canes on so they wont stick
   *Make sure to take off your jewelry, this gets a little sticky and messy but, it makes you feel like a kid again. LOL!

Okay, to start you just mix your water, flour and glue in a bowl that is big enough to dip your strips of newspaper in.  Like this:

And I cut my newspaper in half and then cut it into little strips.  This is what mine looked like:

Nothing perfect about any of this.  One thing that I will stress to ya, after doing up a few of these.  I remembered just how sloppy it is to make these.  Make sure that you aren't wearing anything good.  I ruined one of my shirts because I thought that I would be careful enough, hahhhh!!  Careful has nothing to do with it, it is sloppy and messy. 

Anyway, the first thing you do is take a paper strip and dunk it into the glue mix.  As you pull it out, take your fingers and slide the excess glue off.  I basically slid the paper up through my thumb and finger.  That seemed to work well for me.  Then you start to wrap it around your candy cane.  I usually start at the bottom and try to wrap around the end first.  Then I try to twist a little and start to wrap on a diagonal up toward the top.  Your newspaper might rip and that's okay, just start from where it ripped and continue on.  I will tell you that the bend in the candy cane is kind of a ....pain!  Just work through it.  It is definitely worth it.  It doesn't have to be perfect either because once these little beauties dry, we will be sanding them down and taking care of the imperfections that we can't live with..... keep in mind though that some of those imperfections are what gives each candy cane its character.  I have a lot of canes with flat spots on them and bumps and each one is so different from the next.  You just gotta love em!!  So, this is what it looked like after I had put one layer of newspaper on:

Kind of sloppy, not perfect at all.  That's okay.  Now, you want to put at least two layers of newspaper around the whole candy cane because when you go to sand it down you don't want to sand through to the aluminum foil.  I would suggest putting three layers on but, it is up to you.  Do up all of your candy canes and place them on a tote lid so that they can sit undisturbed and easily moved for a few days to dry out. You want these to totally dry out before you move on to the next step because they can mold if you do not give them enough time.  So, here's a few more pics of mine:

I love the bumpiness on this one!  Awesome!!!

On this photo I was trying to show you the tips, and how they look when they are wrapped.

This is the next day when they had started drying real nice.

Same in this picture.  Dried out and looking good!

I tried to show you a little closer what they look like after a day of just drying.  They are coming along nicely. 

I need to get running now.  I hope this explains part 2 clear enough for you all.  If you have any questions please feel free to post them and I will respond as soon as I receive it.  I hope that you continue with a great day and I will be back on tomorrow with some recipes!!!!!

Warm and primitive blessings to you all!

prim_bug