.png)
Christmas! What a wonderful time of year! This season is so precious and I want to milk every single day in December to the fullest. What about you? Are you excited for this season too or are you just not bothered with all the fuss?
Today I want to share my tutorial for how to make the gorgeous garland you see in the photos below. I made the garland as well as the wreaths and decorated the Christmas tree. This year I'm just going for the traditional red but also wanted to add a dash of pink. If you look closer at the Christmas tree, you will notice that I have added some of my handmade paper roses.
To start with, here is what you will need:
your choice of baubles
artificial flowers
assorted cones, pods and dried fruits of your choice
spray snow (optional)
other Christmas decoration accessories of your choice.
glue gun
glue gun sticks
Christmas lights of your choice
The first thing you want to do is stretch out and open up your garland by spreading the leaves out. My garland is quite thick and full. Next, place your garland on the mantle place to try it out for size. Mine was too long which was great because I have two mantle places so I cut it in half with my wire cutter.
The first thing you want to place on your garland is your Christmas lights. Now I did not wrap them around the garland rather I draped them through the garland because when my garland is placed on the mantle place, you will not see the underside and you don't want to waste your lights by hiding them under the garland. Secondly, chances are that your lights will go through your garland more than once.
Next, thread your floral wire around your pine cones to create a stem for the cones. You can then begin to attach these to the stems of your garland. Spread these evenly along the garland in equally spaced intervals. I chose to do mine in a zig-zag fashion just to create more interest. Then attach your whole dried oranges. As you can see the oranges have been slit all around so I passed floral wires through each orange to create a stem for them which I then tied around the stems of my garland. If you look carefully, you will see that I arranged my pine cones and oranges in a bunch of 3. I have discovered that things arranged in bunches of 3 tend to be aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
Your baubles come next followed by a sprinkle of berries and again these should be arranged evenly along the length of your garland. Again my baubles were just the regular ones from the shops so I put wires through the hole where the strings would go to create stems that I then tied around my garland leaves.
You want to step back from time to time to check that there is a balanced spread of your decorations. Once my baubles were all on, I proceeded to add my flowers. The stems of the flowers were too thick so I had to pull them out and use thinner wires by pushing them through the base of the flower after applying glue with my glue gun.
That's it! You're done. Now step back and admire your beautiful work of art. Use this opportunity to adjust your cones, baubles, and any other accessory you added and also fluff out your flowers.
Mine is sitting firmly on my mantle place. I have not secured it with nails or tape or anything as it was happy to sit there without moving about at all. Again my garland is quite thick even before I added all the other accessories so it would have been difficult to try to adhere it onto the surface with any hooks or tape. However, if you have a thinner garland, and want to create a draped effect, you may want to use command strip hooks
I hope you have a go at making your very own garland, drawing inspiration from this one. I'm super proud of what I made and so glad that this was my very own creation. Handmade garlands are quite pricey and I totally appreciate why. As beautiful as they look, they do take time, patience, and a good eye for form, size attention to detail, and plenty of patience.
If you do make your own garland, please tag me on my socials @beulahpapercreations. Would totally love to see your creations.
Till next time, stay blessed.
Bloomingly yours
Beulah xx
Comments