DIY: Christmas Mantle Garland

Christmas decorations are expensive.

Let me rephrase. Christmas decorations are expensive when in season. If you really want to get great deals, shop a week or 2 after the holiday! Check out Christmas 2017 to see last year’s haul.

If you’re like me and didn’t plan ahead for certain things, the DIY route is also a good way to go. First look through Pinterest and get some inspiration! This is the pin that inspired this DIY.

I took a trip to Dollar Tree and found everything I wanted to use. Except at first, I wanted to go with a lighted version and then realized not only were those lights not long enough, but there was no plug easily accessible from the mantle. So I opted out from the lights altogether.

You really don’t need much for these things, here’s what I used and how I put them together. It took me about an hour or so from start to finish.

Steps:

1. Measure fireplace mantle with measuring tape. Ours was about 61 inches wide. 
2. Lay garland over the mantle and decide how much you want it to hang from either side. Bend the edges from where those sides will hang on the mantle. I spiraled the ends to get a better picture of how much I wanted to have some hanging on the sides. 
3. Mark a flat surface to the measurement from the mantle. I simply laid the measuring tape on our dining table and left it there throughout the process. 
4. Lay the garland on the marked surface and line the bent edges from step 2 to the edges of your measurement from step 1. I left it this way throughout the process. 
5. Twist or bend the middle garland part that lays between the marked edges to your liking. I bent mine to be evenly wavy. 
6. Unroll the entire roll of ribbon and intertwine on the garland. I wanted the ribbon loose so I only intertwined on the edges and once in the middle. 
7. Take out ornaments and the ties that came with and tie your knot about half of the way. I did not want my ornaments to hang too low, but you can adjust to your liking. 
8. Position ornaments on the table along garland where you want to place them. I spaced them evenly on every other bent wave. 
9. Take the berry bouquets and cut the stems about 1-2 inches from the base of each of the berry bunches. I only cut them 1 inch from the base and some were hard to wrap around the garland, so perhaps 1.5-2 inches would work best. 
10. Position berries on the table along garland where you want to place them. I placed one in between ornaments and ended up with an extra one which I decided to double up on the one placed in the middle. 
11. Adjust anything if needed while everything is still loose.
12. Take the garland ties and place your looped ornaments halfway. 
13. Bend the garland tie so the ends meet (without creasing) and twist into a loop about half of the way down to form half an 8. Repeat for all ornaments. 
14. Take your finished tie from step 13 and place the garland in between the open ends and twist the edges together. Repeat for all ties. They should look like an 8s from the side. 
15. Once done with the ornaments, twist the stemmed berries onto the planned positions. 
16. Viola! All done! 

At first, I wondered how I was going to get the garland to stay on the mantle, then light bulb! THUMBTACKS! The loops created in step 14 help as the anchorage for holding to the thumbtacks.

It might seem like too many steps, but really they are simple and it is more about the planning and preparing that takes up most of the time.You don’t want to be tying and untying because that’ll actually take longer and not to mention wasting unnecessary time.

Hope you like this DIY and if you try it, share it! Hashtag it #littleDIYgarland.