Easy Christmas Garland

I love having Christmas garland up and around the house, and I love having garland that’s thick and textured and doesn’t look too plasticy.

Usually the non-plastic garland is either real and won’t last or it’s artificial and too pricey.

Here’s my easy solution.

I buy the cheap, plastic garland. It’s usually less than five bucks at a craft store. I get it home and wrap some lights around it, and then plug them in to make sure the lights a.) work, and b.) are even. Both are really hard to fix when the garland is hanging up. Trust me.

Then I pick up some “bushes,” or other realistic looking greens to add in. These are usually more expensive but that’s okay but you don’t need too much. I took advantage of a sale at Michael’s and picked up about thirty dollars in bushes (those are in the second picture) for all the garlands, plus a few wreaths in my house. I used wire cutters to snip the bushes apart into individual little pieces that I can cram into the garland.

Now here’s where I had a choice to make; I debated about sticking in all the stuff now, before the garland was hanging or after it was up and hanging from the curtain rod. I choose to do both. I gathered up all the pinecones that my hubby had earlier gathered up for me and I wired them to the garland using florist wire. I just cut a long piece, wrapped it around the pinecone and then wrapped the extra wire around the garland. It’s highly scientific. Even my super smart kids helped with this one. Then I stuck on some parts of my cut off bushes, I just figured out where to stick them and used the bendable part of the garland to wrap around the edge. Once I was done with that I hung it up.

Then I climbed up on the couch and stuck in the rest of the bushes until it looked right. I ended up using a lot on this one because you see it right when walking through our front door.

Then I moved upstairs and did the same with one for our bedroom.

I had enough left over to do this wreath and a few others too.

For only thirty dollars I think I got my money’s worth. Once the season is over I usually just take them all apart and start fresh again next time. The only reason I do that is because we don’t have a lot room for storage and I usually just cram the bare wreaths and garlands into a big storage bin.

I’ll be sharing with Kimba’s DIY day and with Kim’s Get Your Craft On day. Check them out for other fun, crafty inspiration.

I'm also sharing with Melissa's Holiday Linky Friday-lot's of cool ideas there-go check it out.