Candy Chain -- a mini tutorial to use Halloween candy to count down to Christmas

When I was on Pinterest a week or so ago I saw this great idea to use Halloween candy to count down to Christmas.  Genius.

So last night when Bryan took over the computer for school work I got busy making a fun little candy chain for Olivia.

Unfortunately, my first attempt was a total fail.
I tried using plastic wrap and string ties.
Bah.

I think this method would work if you just used one continuous piece of plastic wrap, but it seemed like a total waste to me to use the entire width of the plastic wrap, so I was using pieces of plastic wrap cut in half lengthwise.

Bad Idea.  That's all I have to say.
When I finished the Bad Idea I proudly brought it downstairs to show Bryan.
I debated whether it was cool or tacky and lamented over all of the problems I had with the plastic wrap.
Then I went back upstairs to take pictures of the Bad Idea.
And it promptly fell apart in multiple places.

Grrrr.

All the time I had been dealing with the problems of plastic wrap (it really was such a pain) I determined that next year I would just use fabric.

So when the Bad Idea manifested itself as such, I took it all apart and went with the Better Idea.
Like a fool, I sewed a super long tube of fabric together... but accidentally made it half as wide as I meant to.
It was a sad night in the way of candy chain attempts.  Up to this point.

Enter, the Candy Chain success:

Well, third time's a charm!

Finally, on my third attempt, I succeeded at making a candy chain that wasn't a total headache to construct or use (or look at) for the next month and a half.

Instructions:

• Cut a strip of fabric 7 inches wide and somewhere around 18 feet long.  (You may need to cut shorter strips and sew them together.  I ended up sewing 3 strips that measured around 5 feet long together to make a 15 foot strip.)

• Next, lay the strip down on the ground, right side down.

• Find the middle (lengthwise) and put one piece of candy there.

• Wrap the fabric around the piece of candy and tie strings on each end.

• Continue to place candy on your strip until you have a total of 54 pieces of candy (because there are 54 days between now and Christmas).

Then, when you're ready to use it, just untie a candy from one end to enjoy a little treat each day until Christmas Eve.

I tied ours around our basement stairwell.
It adds a nice, festive touch without being over-the-top Christmas during the month of November.
And I definitely prefer this simple fabric version to it's plastic wrap predecessor.

So now we have a a good way to to pace Olivia on the Halloween candy, a fun, simple decoration,  and a fun countdown to Christmas!

What do you do to pace your kids on the Halloween candy?