Gum Drop Christmas Ornaments DIY Craft

Learn how to make this easy Gum Drop Christmas Ornament craft that is a perfect Christmas keepsake to hang on the tree!

If you ask me, and I know you technically didn’t, Christmas time is the time for gumdrops. I know most people envision candy canes or gingerbread men when thinking of THE Christmas sweet, but I always have and always will go for gumdrops. And why wouldn’t I? The colors are awesome, and with all of the sugar on the outside, they’re almost glittery, and I love me some glitter!

Gum Drop Christmas Ornaments

So this season, I decided that I wanted to work my favorite holiday sweets into my decor. Heck, I’ve even got a gumdrop wreath I made hanging up in my house. Now I know that these may very well not keep well until next season, but I’m thinking wrapped up pretty well, they just might. And since I loved how my first tester ornament went, well, there was absolutely no turning back.

And one little, itsy bitsy confession? These aren’t even gumdrops. Nope. They weren’t selling them yet when I was DIY-ing up my Christmas scene, so I had to use spice drops, which look the same but are, well, spicy. I hate the taste of spice drops, but seeing as how I won’t be eating them, it doesn’t really matter. It is very nice, though the ornaments smell nice and spicy!

Items Needed for Gum Drop Ornaments

• Small Styrofoam balls (got mine at Dollar Tree and used only the largest size in the package)
• Gum drops OR Spice Drops (1- 10 ounce package will cover approximately 1.5 balls)
• Thin ribbon
• Straight pins
• Hot glue

How to Make Gum Drop Ornaments

Cut a piece of ribbon about 4 inches long. Make a loop and secure it to the Styrofoam with your pin. Go over the pin and ribbon with a dab of hot glue. You don’t need much, in fact, my pin is glued down in the pic, but you can’t really tell. No globs!

Now there’s no exact science to this part… simply start applying glue to the bottom of a gumdrop and hold it to the Styrofoam for a second or two, and move on to the next one.

Start forming a circle around your ribbon and just keep working around each circle, creating another just beneath. Continue until the whole foam ball is covered!

You’ll sometimes have a gap or two, but since the foam beneath is kind of sparkly like the candies, it’s not terribly obvious unless you’re looking for it.

In some cases, you can kind of squish up the candy to be a bit thinner to fit into gaps that may be shaped kind of wonky for one reason or another.

While in the beginning, the Styrofoam balls didn’t look big enough to be much of an impact on a standard Christmas tree, when covered with candy, they’re much larger. Oh, and it’s much heavier, too. Each ball uses up about 6 ounces of candy, making each ornament a whopping 1/3 pound! But never fear, most trees can handle these little guys with no problems.

Think you’ll knock out some sweet little ornaments this season? I’d love to see them if you do!