NOTHING to do with Cakes BUT - CHRISTMAS GARLAND TUTORIAL FOR UNDER $20!!!!!

It's that time of year again! Hard to believe it's already upon us but it is so everyone might as well get into the Christmas Spirit! What better way to get into it then to decorate the outside of your house for CHEAP!! I must also add that I just painted the outside of my house so this is the first year that it doesn't look like garbage so I was actually excited to decorate LOL.

Materials:

Pine

Cedar

Spruce

(I collected mine with my kids and made an adventure out of it :0)

Outdoor Christmas Sparkly Mesh in desired color (it probably has a proper name but I threw out the packing. I purchased mine from Costco 2 rolls for $6.99...1 roll is $9.99 in the store)

6" wide burlap (got mine from Michaels was $8.99 but I used a 50% off coupon)

Wire

Ribbon

Scissors

any other decorations you'd like (the Dollar store is the best and cheapest place!)

 

The Picture below is how I started my garlands for under the windows in the front.

 
 

First find your biggest branches, I usually use pine as it's my least favorite of all the branches.

Then start layering the different types of branches  until you have a semi full looking garland.

 

 

Once you're happy with how it looks start wrapping and weaving the wire around the whole garland. Secure the wire and hold up the garland to make sure it wont fall apart. Once you have it wired together you can fill in the bare areas by weaving in different branches. Then you can wrap your mesh and attach any other decorations. I made little bows out of the burlap and attached them with ribbon. I also got some red berried from the $1 store. I had some shellac that I sprayed the berries with to make them weather proof.

I hammered some finishing nails into the trim and voilà!

I needed to make some garlands that hung down to go on the posts for my deck so I used the same process.

I laid out the branches and secured them with wire.

Once I was sure they were good I started to fill them out weaving extra branches into them.

I then took some of the mesh and cut it in half length wise. It curls nicely on its own but it it's too curly straighten the mesh out and give it a good tug. I cut some burlap a bit shorter and secured both to the top of the garland.

 

I then made the bow. I cut a piece of mesh grabbed the ends and pinched them in the middle. I then used some extra burlap to make the middle of the bow. I secured it on using some wire and attached them to the deck post.

 

 

Easy peasy lemon squeezy! The best part is the whole front and back of the house was done for under $20. I ran out of the burlap but I still have 3/4 of a roll of mesh left ( I used almost of the first roll on the front). AND you can dismantle everything at the end of the season and reuse it next year.

This weekend we put up the Christmas lights. It was a compromise this year as the kids LOVE rainbows and waned rainbow lights EVERYWHERE. I on the other hand want all white lights....so it's all white in the front and rainbow in the back. Nothing like compromising with a 4 and 7 year old lol.