*NEW* $1 Christmas Decor Hacks Using Pool Noodles ┃ Surprising Ways to Use Dollar Tree Pool Noodles for Christmas 2024

What's up, Barkey family? Welcome back to my channel. So today for you guys, I have some Dollar Tree Christmas DIYs using the Dollar Tree pool noodles. I did a video like this last year. You guys loved it, so I decided to do another one with new DIYs and one upgraded version of something I did last year. I hope you guys enjoy the video. If you're not subscribed yet to my YouTube channel, make sure you subscribe. I'm so close to hitting a million subscribers, so make sure that you subscribe so I can do that. I upload lots of affordable crafting DIYs, specifically Dollar Tree DIYs and hauls showing you what's new at Dollar Tree. Again, I hope you guys enjoy the video, and with that being said, let's begin. So of course for all of these DIYs, we are going to be using a pool noodle. You can get them at Dollar Tree right now in Christmas colors, which are red, green, and white. So what we're going to do is we're going to take our masking tape and we're going to just wrap it around the pool noodle to get a striped look to it. It's better to slowly unravel the masking tape and use your fingers to rub out any bubbles than it is to just unravel too much of the masking tape. Now we're going to take one more pool noodle and we are going to attach it to this one. So, continue rolling, and then when the tape is kind of popping out, you're going to start attaching the other pool noodle. Then where they meet, you're going to take your tape and you're just going to go right around it. You really just want to make sure this isn't going to unravel on you. Okay, I'm at the end of my noodle and I just cut off the tape. And I was able to wrap all this up with Dollar Tree duct tape and I still have more left over. So you're going to work in little sections and you're going to make sure that you're using a dual tip hot glue gun or at least a low heat hot glue gun. Do not use anything hot, too hot, because it's going to melt the foam. So what you'll do is you'll add some glue and then you're going to slowly start to roll everything inward. You're just going to want to hold a little bit so that the glue starts to kind of dry. I got these large zip ties from Dollar Tree that are going to be super handy for this. I'm going to attach two of them together. This is when your zip tie is going to come in handy. You're going to take your zip tie and you will tighten it around the pool noodle and wait for the glue to dry. Anyhow, we're going to make these more sturdy than last year, kind of more wind resistant if you're sticking this outside. So what you're going to do is you're going to take like a knife and you're going to stab through the pool noodle and you're just going to start a hole. The reason you want to use a knife is because we'll be using a stake, a wooden stake, and this is going to make this more sturdy. It's going to help support the pool noodle. So I have that kind of worked out, I just slide it right in. Now that I've waited about 20 minutes, I am going to go ahead and take the zip ties off. You can leave your stake at just this color, but I want to paint mine white. And I'm using just a white paint and it's indoor outdoor use. I'm going to use some cellophane wrap, which is just going to be like the wrapper on top of the lollipop. Take a bunch of cellophane at the bottom and you're going to tighten that. To tighten this, I'm just using some twine, literally you can use anything. Now I'm going to glue on one of these bows from Dollar Tree to the front of the lollipop. And I got this ribbon from Dollar Tree that I think would be a cute little add-on. And there you have it, a jumbo lollipop. This is two times the size as the one that I made last year and it's more sturdy. So it's going to hold up better outside if that's your plan. Remember if you want to do this inside, you just get a wooden dowel versus a stake. I love the way that this turned out. For our next DIY, you want to buy some gift wrap paper at Dollar Tree. I'm using this one that has a peppermint look to it. Now you're going to cut down your pool noodle if that's what you want, but more than likely you're going to want to cut it down so this doesn't look funny. I got five what I consider large pieces out of my pool noodle. Now what you're going to do is you're going to take your gift wrap paper and you're going to cut it down so it wraps around the pool noodle. Now I didn't entirely cover my pool noodle. I wanted part of it to be showing in the back because I'm going to be sticking this on my wall in command strips and I want to be able to reuse this. I can't put command strips on the gift wrap paper, take it off of my wall and reuse it next year without it ruining the wrapping paper. So I have a little bit of pool noodle showing. Now I take some tape and I tape off the wrapping paper on both ends, but I leave that middle part with nothing so I can, like I said, use some command strips there. So we're making wrapped up pieces of candy. You're going to take the ends of your wrapping paper and you're going to scrunch them up and tie those down using twine, rope, whatever you like. And then I'm going to take some cellophane and do the exact same thing. I'm going to cut it down, but not too much so I have the back still showing with the foam and then I tie it down. After I made this initial one, I realized that I could just cut the gift wrap, cut the cellophane and tie those down at the same time without being repetitive and doing it twice. You can make even bigger pieces by bunching up pieces of foam. So I got two pieces of foam that are similar to each other. Place them side by side and do the exact same thing. I cut up some wrapping paper, some cellophane, add my twine. It's so easy to do. You can make smaller pieces, put them inside of your Christmas tree. It's really inexpensive and you can make quite a few out of one pool noodle. I saw The Daily DIYer do this and I'll link her down below for you guys. Her name is Shannon. I saw her make these and put those in her tree. She actually has a pool noodle video with different DIYs if you want to check that out below. And this is what I mean by left foam showing in the back. So I place my command strip on the back and then I put that on my wall. If I put the command strip on the gift wrap and I try to take it out at the end of the season, it's going to rip the wrapping paper. So I didn't want to do that. I'll share with you guys how I made the gingerbread garland in a different DIY. So make sure you're subscribed for that. But I just added candy on my walls. I added it on the cabinets. It came out so cute. I couldn't do a better job of getting the whole kitchen in my video because my kitchen is so tiny. But what you can see, you can see it's cute. I am so in love with our next DIY. Of course, you're going to take your pool noodles and wrap them up with your duct tape. I'm going with white again. But as I said, Dollar Tree carries a bunch of different colors. And I'm going to do this to two pool noodles. Then I'll take a third pool noodle and I'll cut that down to be steps of a ladder. And I do the same thing with my duct tape. Wrap that around the smaller pieces. Now I'll be gluing these smaller pieces of pool noodle to the bigger pieces to create essentially a ladder. And I just use hot glue to do this initially. But then I decided to take some wire and feed that through the steps to make sure it was nice and secure. I'm just using dandelion multi-purpose wire. It's really great for stuff like this. It doesn't always work perfectly with the pool noodle because you can be like, oh, why don't you use that to do the lollipops? It's, there's resistance to it. So you have to do things that are just more simple round things or straight into the point. Now I'm going to take these elves that I got from Dollar Tree and glue them to my pool noodle. I customized them using my Cricut. And I just glue them in different positions. I also got this little Santa Claus that I decided to add to the very top ladder. I want to say this is just for decor. If you have young children, you want to place this somewhere where they're not going to get to it or tell them, you know, you can't climb this thing. I have Cooper who is obviously a year old, but this is not going to be anywhere near him. And because he's still so young, I don't think he's going to try climbing this, but he will try eating this. So this isn't going to be anywhere for Cooper to get to. This is not a toy. I adore the way that this came out. I absolutely love it. I love the elves on top of that with the customized names on there. It just makes it so personal to me. I love it. Okay, for our next DIY, you're going to take your pool noodle and you're going to cut it down the middle. Doesn't have to be perfect. I'm kind of just bending it, kind of getting an idea of where the middle is. And then kind of cut where I think the middle is. And I'm just using a scissor to do this. You don't really have to worry too much about it. And if you have a pool noodle that's just kind of bent out of shape, don't worry about that. We're going to be able to fix that right up. As we've done with pretty much most of these DIYs, you're going to take your duct tape and you're going to wrap it around your pool noodle. I'm going with white, of course, because I like the peppermint look. But you can go with whatever color you want. Dollar Tree carries so many different colors. You can even go with like a neon or glittery kind of duct tape. Next up, you're going to want to get yourself some jumbo ornaments. Now, Dollar Tree carries these. I couldn't find them at my local Dollar Tree, so I went to Walmart. I got this nine pack for $9.98. So I paid $0.98 more than I would have for nine of them at Dollar Tree. And I will say they're a little bit smaller than the ones that Dollar Tree carries. Now, what you're going to do is glue your ornament to the end of one pool noodle. On top of some of the pool noodles, I'm actually going to glue on these snow globes. And I'm going to place inside of them some fairy lights that I got from Dollar Tree. And these are the larger snow globes. And I'm keeping this cap there at the bottom. And that's what I'm using to glue onto the pool noodle. Because if I glue this down, how the heck am I going to turn that on and off? So I'm leaving that lid there. After filming this, I actually decided to get some ribbon from Dollar Tree that is covered in glitter and wrap that right through the center of the white masking tape. I just wanted to do something a little bit different since everything I was doing was just using the white masking tape. So I only had to put glue on one side. I didn't have to worry about the other side. Because as long as you're pulling that tight, it's going to stay in place and it's going to go exactly where you need it to go. So I'm going to be sticking these outside. You can use a toilet plunger from Dollar Tree, the handle part of it, and stick that in your ground to hold up your pool noodles. It's actually cheaper though if you go somewhere else and find pieces of wood and just break them up. I actually got wooden dowels, broke them up, and I placed the rest through the wooden dowels. It was cheaper to do it that way. Then I took some red ribbon and I glued it to the pool noodles. I wish I did a better job of this, but I was trying to rush because I have to take care of Cooper while filming. It's really, really tough. Anyways, this is how it came out. I actually wanted to make more as well, so I could do the entire part of one of my sidewalks. But time-wise, it just didn't work out for me. Another thing you can do, which I showed last year, you do the pool noodle and this time around, you're going to put the handle of a Dollar Tree broom through the pool noodle and then add one of the solar power lights from Dollar Tree. They carry different ones. I'm using the ones that look like Christmas lights. You just put it through the top and then it gets its energy from the sun and it glows at nighttime. It's really, really pretty. We're going to be doing a gigantic wreath. I did a wreath using a Dollar Tree pool noodle last year. This is going to be different because it is huge. So you're going to use the dandelion multipurpose wire and this is going to be great to hold your pool noodles together. So I'm going to be using two pool noodles and I feed them through some wire and then I use my wire cutter to cut the excess wire. I then tape where the two pool noodles meet. I went with a red tape that I got from Dollar Tree this time around just so it blended nicely with everything. Now the wire is easy to form into a circle. So I went ahead, formed it into a circle and I closed off the other end using some tape. Now I'm going to make another wreath form that's going to go in the middle because I want there to be a big surface for ornaments to be glued down onto. And I basically did the same thing. I took two pieces of pool noodle. I cut them down to fit the inner part of that wreath form and then I add my wire and tape it off. Once I had those two pieces made, I add more tape just to attach both of these pieces together. Then it's time to decorate. I'm using ornaments that I got from Dollar Tree. Now I ended up using 12 of these packs and I just glued them all over the place. I accidentally bought ones with a satin finish and glitter and then a glitter finish and a shiny finish. I meant to just buy all of the satin and glitter ones but instead I bought, like I said, a shiny one. So I don't know. I had to make it work. I then went and I added some of these peppermint ornaments and I used six packs of these ones. And then after I got those glued down, I took anything I had left over and I just filled them in the inner part of the wreath. And I didn't really worry about the outer part because you couldn't really see it unless you go way on the side of the wreath. Other than that, you can't see it. So I didn't worry about that. I used $21 of Dollar Tree products to create this. So 12 packs of those ornaments, six of the peppermint, two pool noodles and then masking tape. The wire isn't necessary for this DIY but it does help a lot. So if you don't have the wire and you need to get glue sticks, it'll cost you more. But remember, you're gonna have a bunch of wire left over for other projects and you'll have a bunch of glue left over for other projects. The pool noodle wreath I made last year was my favorite wreath I ever made on my channel and now this beats that. It is huge. It is beautiful. I love the way this came out. This is like hands down my favorite wreath I've ever made, like I said. And I've made so many wreaths on this channel. For our next DIY, you're gonna wanna cut down your pool noodle. You can also leave it one gigantic piece if you honestly wanted to but I went with three pieces that I cut from one pool noodle and I had some left over. Now we are going to use Mod Podge for this and Tula paper. What you're gonna do is you're gonna place Mod Podge on top of the pool noodle and then add sheets of Tula paper. So we're gonna try to create a wood look and this is gonna provide some texture that we need. So you'll add your Tula paper, add more Mod Podge on top of the Tula paper and if you like, which this is what I did, add more Tula paper on top of that until you get a nice texture that you want. So we're gonna try making birch wood and birch wood has a flaky appearance to it so this helps a lot with that. You're gonna wait for your glue to completely dry before you paint this. Now what I did was take some white paint and I added that as my base color. You can go with any color honestly that you want to. Once I had that down and that dried, I took different tones of brown and a gray paint to paint the rest of this. So I've initially mixed some brown and gray paint together and I lightly glide a sponge brush over this and what ends up happening because I lightly glide the paintbrush it attaches to the nice creases that are in the Tula paper so it doesn't just make it an opaque brown color. It just goes in the areas that I want it to. To darken up some of the areas and make it look a little bit more like birch wood I mix together a brown and gray paint with a little little bit of purple. Just a very little amount of purple and then I just apply that like I said to different areas. I mainly went with areas that kind of had deep creases in them to give it a bit more depth. Then I go in with a dark brown color that I use to just create the lines that are very similar to birch wood. This came out really cool. I like it more than the Target one though I do like the Target one's colors but this one looks more realistic. I love love the way that this turned out and it's so cool that it was made using pool noodles and Tula paper. For our next DIY you're going to take your pool noodle and cut it into different lengths. It's up to you how big or how small you want them to be. I ended up cutting six pieces total. Now I'm going to be using some LED tea lights for this. Dollar Tree does carry them but I wasn't able to find them so I went somewhere else and I got this pack for three dollars. Now on the top of my pool noodle I am going to cut out a hole that is going to fit the tea lights and I just use an exacto knife to do this. You can use a regular knife if you want to just as long as it's going to cut nicely and then you just take your tea light and make sure that it fits the inside and you're ready for the next step. From Michaels I picked up these glitter foam sheets and I like these because then I don't have to put glitter all over this and it becomes a really big mess. All I have to do is roll the sheet over the pool noodle and then cut it down. I only had three sheets on hand so on the back of every candle I didn't entirely covered it in that foam just because like I said I didn't have enough on hand so I got the front of each one and the sides done just not the backs of them but it's okay because the backs of them are going to be glued to each other. After that I go ahead and I add my glue to the craft foam and then I place my pool noodle on top of it. I held the foam in place waiting for it to dry and then once I think it was dry enough I let go of it. I did this to every single candle. I then glued down that circle we cut out earlier and placed that around the tea light at the top. Now it's time to glue all of my candles together. You don't have to glue them all together if you don't want to but I wanted to make a bigger piece and by making it bigger it prevents tipping over the pool noodle easily just because they're so lightweight. I messed around with the heights of everything and then I glued them down and I made sure that the parts where I didn't have any foam I placed toward the back or touching the other pieces. What you're going to do is you're going to start creating a wax appearance to the top of your candles. So I take my glue gun and I just create drips so it looks like wax is dripping and this is great also because it helps seal any of the areas that look funny where some of the pool noodle might still be showing or where the foam kind of looks funky. You can use the glue stick to hide those areas disguise them and just make it look like wax is dropping and melting down. It looks really really cool. You can even get glitter glue sticks if you want to and use that instead. You can paint over the glue stick if you want a different color. There's a lot of different things that you can do to this. So this only cost me four dollars to make. Three dollars for the lights and one dollar for the pool noodles. If you get the lights at Dollar Tree it'll cost you the same because it's a dollar for two. So it'll pretty much cost you four dollars to do unless you don't have glue sticks like I said and it costs a little bit more money. Obviously if you don't have a glue gun it'll cost more money. It depends what you have but remember lots of things you can reuse for other projects. Our final DIY I'm saving it for the end on purpose. So from Dollar Tree I had six green pool noodles. I really wanted more but that's all I had on hand. So to get more bang for my buck I cut my pool noodles in half using a knife. I'm going to be making a little Christmas tree. Now I wanted to do it where it would stand on its own but I didn't have enough pool noodles like I said. So instead I'm going to make a flatter version. Next up I'm going to be using two pieces of foam board that I got from Dollar Tree and I'm going to tape them together using my masking tape. I just wrap it around and then cut it down. Make sure that they're pretty secure so that they don't go falling apart on you. Now I place my green pool noodles on top of the foam board and start to move them around to try to create a Christmas tree shape. Where I messed up is I didn't make the top too thin. Instead it's a little bit wide at the top and then the star that I had didn't necessarily fit it perfectly. So make sure your top is thinner than mine is. That it goes more in a triangle shape versus like the top of the triangle got cut off. Once I have an idea of how I want the pool noodles to look I start gluing them down onto the foam board and like I said I went with a certain way and looking back I should have changed that around. I should have layered the top on top of each other. I just cut the pool noodles so that the top had more of a point to it. I just glue pool noodles directly to the foam board and then pool noodles on top of each other so I get more of a 3D effect instead of it being so flat. I ended up getting pool noodles that were like darker in color and some that were lighter. So I tried to bunch the darker pieces under and the lighter colors like over. Now I take some ornaments from Dollar Tree and I will be gluing them down to my tree but before I start gluing them down I obviously remove the tops of them because I don't really like them. They kind of get in the way when you're gluing them down. So that's why I usually just remove them. And then I start to just glue them down wherever I see fit. And after I had those down I was like ah this needs a little bit more. So I ended up using these small little gold ornaments from Dollar Tree as well. Just add a little bit more color to this tree. Once the ornaments are glued down I start to cut off any excess foam board. I use scissors to do this but it's easier to do it with like a box cutter or an exacto knife. I just didn't do that because I was on my hardwood floor. You don't want to do that on any of your flooring. You want to do it over like a mat or a cardboard box. For my tree topper I'm going to be using the stars that I got from Dollar Tree. I picked up two of them and I painted them yellow. Now I glue both tops of the stars together using some hot glue and I just kind of hold them in place till the glue dries. Then I place that over the top of my tree and then I add some glue to glue that down to the top of the tree. I went ahead and used some wood filler to fill in the little hole that's in one of the stars and then I painted over it. This is when I was like uh I should have made a more pointy top. So to try to fix that I took any excess foam that I had cut off of the green foam and glued it to the top to try to make it look a little bit more tapered and then I added some ornaments up there to kind of like hide it a bit and make it look more tapered. I tried my best you guys up there. I could have went back with an exacto knife and tried to cut it down but I was afraid that I would mess it up and I'm actually giving this tree away. But this is a fun little project. If you want to do something in your kid's room as long as they're not going to eat this and then if you want to do it inside of a classroom and have the kids decorate it it has potential to look cuter as long as the top is more tapered or you have a bigger star. Well that's it for these Christmas 2022 pool noodle DIYs using Dollar Tree pool noodles. I hope you guys enjoyed the video. Again if you did make sure you give it a thumbs up. Thank you so much for watching. I will see you guys next time. Take care. Bye.