Paint Chip Candy Cane Craft for Preschoolers

These Paint Chip Candy Canes  are fun and easy for toddlers and preschoolers to make as a Christmas craft in December. They’re great for helping kids learn how to use scissors, and a fun way to use some paint chip samples from the paint store. 

This paint chip candy cane craft was completely unplanned, and came about when one of our preschoolers wanted to practice cutting with scissors yesterday.

I’ve mentioned before that a stash of paint chips is a great addition to any craft room. They can help young children develop their scissor skills.  They provide an opportunity to talk about colours,  and they’re handy for crafting with! Check out our gorgeous paint chip mosaics to see what I mean.

What with it being the Christmas season, I sifted through the samples looking for Christmas colours for him to use.

I gave him lots of red and green paint chips to cut up and as he was cutting and the red strips were falling to the floor, a thought occurred to me. These red strips would be great for a candy cane craft!

When I realized this might be a blog-worthy craft, I told the hooligans I was going to grab my camera  I returned to find that someone else was apparently going to be doing some blogging as well. 🙂

Our candy canes turned out so cute, we’ve been making them all week!

Supplies:

• paint chip sample cards (just ask at your local hardware/paint & paper store)
• white cardboard (or you can paint a cereal box white)
• glue stick
• scissors

Instructions:

First, I cut out a large candy cane shape from a piece of thin, white cardboard.

Next, the hooligans cut their paint chips into strips, cutting along the lines on the paint chip.

Then the glued the strips that they’d cut to their cardboard candy cane.

To finish, they trimmed any bits that were hanging over the edges.

The child who didn’t like to do crafts:

Off topic for a moment, I want to share with you that one of my most enthusiastic little crafters right now is this little guy.  At the beginning of the season he did not have the patience for crafting.  He just wanted finish as quickly  as possible, and get back to playing.

In 3 short months, it’s a completely different story:  He regularly asks to craft, and he’s gone from not knowing how to hold a pair of scissors to being one of the best “cutters” in our daycare.

Remember, he asked to do some cutting yesterday, and that’s how the whole candy cane craft came about.  He also proudly exclaims, when he’s finished his work “I’m a real little CRAFTER!”.  He’s always so proud of his creations, and I’m just thrilled to think that he’s found his creative side in his short time with us.

Here are our finished paint chip candy canes.  Depending on the size of yours, you can turn it into a tree ornament or a decoraton for your front door.

We glued magnets (recycled fridge magnets from various businesses) to the back of our candy canes, and the Hooligans took them home to put on the fridge.

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Jackie Currie

Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.