A candy board is a festive way to incorporate pops of color into your holiday decor and also fill your home with lots of holiday nostalgia. Here are my top three tips for creating a fun and mouthwatering Christmas candy board.

#1 Choose Candy for Color, Texture, and Flavor

For color, use a combo of both traditional holiday sugary favorites — like candy canes, toffee, and marshmallows — with unexpected additions like green gummy bears and red licorice. When it comes to texture mix hard, soft, chewy, crunchy, and gooey. Flavors should be a great combo of bold, sweet, tart, tangy, salty, fruity, and minty.

#2 Sprinkle and Scatter Candy Pieces

Candy boards can seem intimidating with their ornateness but the secret to a great looking candy board is counterintuitive. Instead of positioning every piece, I sprinkle, scatter, and drop handfuls of candy in a haphazard manner. Allow for some pieces to layer on top of and blend into the cluster of others. What makes it look so perfect is actually its imperfection of how the candy lays on the board.

#3 Use Both Wrapped and Loose Candy

The best looking candy boards are ones that have a mixture of wrapped and loose candy. For wrapped, choose either clear cellophane or hard candy or mini chocolate bars with unique and untraditional wrapping that adds festive pops of color. For loose be sure to have at least two handfuls of each type of candy to ensure the board has enough variation and texture.

Oh and one final important tip, use a sturdy neutral base that compliments the candy. My go-to board is a wood and marble serving board from Crate&Barrel.