Christmas draped all over the place

Floral design was one of those things that intimidated me for a long time. I’m a self taught crafter, and somehow I thought that there was some mysterious trick to floral design that I just wouldn’t be able to crack. A few years ago when I was working at a Michaels running the classroom department, I became good friends with the lady who ran the floral counter and she just demystified the whole process.

Basically? It’s grabbing a bunch of stuff you like and throwing it together. It can get a whole lot more complicated if you want it to, but at it’s core it’s a bunch of stuff that looks nice together held together in a container or with some combination of hot glue and wire.

Ever since then I’ve grown more and more interested in garlands and wreaths.

Last year I whipped up this garland for my banister

and it was hands down the best one I’ve ever done. Here’s a couple more quick tips for garlands. 1) Don’t be stingy with the fancy stuff, and 2)Learn how to tie a big fat bow.

Here’s a little help with that second tip, although I might have to see if I can do a video tutorial or something. It’s way way easy when you watch it done.

A few years ago I tried to decorate a garland, and while it’s fine, it’s not wonderful. And the mistake I made was going stingy. I kept thinking too small, trying to add beads or other small touches that are just invisible once it’s put together.

see any beads in there? I didn’t think so. Also? It’s really hard to take a picture of a garland.

This garland only got salvageable when I tossed in a ton of leftover ornaments and draped a big fat ribbon all down the side of it.

The first garland I made was even less successful, but I think I had some good ideas in there. Like I mentioned, I was a self-taught crafter, and that means you learn every lesson the hardway.

I was watching a lot of Carol Duvall at the time, and one of her frequent guests did a lot of velvet embossing, so I got the idea to do a garland of embossed velvet leaves. The embossing didn’t quite take on the velvet, but I got enough of the impression there to cut out the shape, and then I hot glued a piece of florists wire on the back of it. As soon as I cut the velvet it started to shed and look ratty, so I ran a thin bead of glittery fabric paint around the edge.

Then I decided that the leaves were too floppy to keep any shape, so like the total noob I was, I decided not to back the leaves with something, and I probably didn’t even know what interfacing was back then, so I (oh gosh, do I even dare type the words?) …. I …Ijustgoopedawholelotofhotglueallovertheback. :shudder:

Then when I was finally satisfied with how the leaves were holding up, I took all the lengths of floral wire and braided them together to create the body of the garland.

Just look at that hot glue shimmer in the light.

I think I had some great ideas with this project, but I missed it a little bit in the execution. Now I’d do a couple things differently, but I think the garland itself was a good idea, especially the braiding of the wires to put it all together. Every year I think about redoing this, but there’s always something else that needs to get done. So for now I still use it, but I just use it way up high where no one can get too close a look at things.