How to Make a Lollipop Decoration

It's so hot today in our part of the country, Mississippi, that the best I could do was just go to the shop and play around with some projects))) Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.... This Lollipop project is one that I had wanted to try for some time, so today I picked up a red ball at Wal Mart for $1.50 and thought....I'll make a Lollipop with it. The ball is about 9-10" in width, clear cello wrap 40" in width and a piece of PVC 1 1/4" in width. I didn't measure the length of the PVC, it was just what I found lying around in the supply room. Sometimes the best projects are put together with scraps of things. It's a good way to test the plan, see what works and what doesn't....then put a little more thought into the real thing. So, I started with what I had on hand. The PVC needed to be white, and instead of looking for some white paint, I had a roll of white duct tape that I used to cover the dingy PVC piece. I wrapped a piece of white duct tape around the end, then started another piece in a swirl fashion around the pipe. Forgive me if this is too elementary....but I took a lot of pictures....so indulge me))) There are lots of things you could use beside PVC ....the inner cardboard roll from wrapping paper, deco mesh rolls...etc. They could be painted, glittered, wrapped with colorful tape or ribbon or paper. Place the ball in the center of the cellophane. My cellophane was 40" in length, so I cut about a 40" width so I would have a square, or close to it, I didn't measure. Smooth the cellophane down snugly over the ball and grip it around the neck of the stick. Secure with something. I used white floral wire, again, it was what I had and available. You could use a zip tie, pipe cleaner, anything to hold it. It does help secure the ball if you secure the cellophane 2-3 inches from the ball and again up close to the ball. These decorations are never going to hold up for your kids to sword fight with (yes, they will do it), but the lollipop is lightweight and should hold up well enough to secure as a temporary decoration for the holidays or event. You could also secure the cellophane to the stick more permanently if you applied some hot glue to the stick and then secure with the wire. For my decorations, I had rather not do something so permanent. I like to use something, take it apart and re-purpose it for something else. You can decorate the Lollipop any way you want depending on your color theme. Long streamers of curling ribbon would look nice. To secure to your Christmas tree....just tie securely with some fishing line around the neck of stick. You might have to place another tie down toward the bottom of the stick depending on the way you want to position it. The balls might could be substitute with balloons which would make it easy to do a smaller version. Wooden dowels come in all sorts of widths, so for smaller Lollipops they would work well. This is a simple craft and I can't believe I never thought about doing it until I saw a photo of a similar one on Pinterest. It took me a while to track down where that image came from. Here's the Blog post with that information and they did make theirs out of balloons, I just re-read the post))