Easter Garland DIY
How often does this happen to you? Wandering through the craft store taking a peak at their new seasonal decor
and come across an item that intrigues you. Hey that’s pretty cute, I can see that hanging up at my place. Grabbing at the tag just a second thought as you load the decor piece into your cart. Woah!!!!! You can’t put it back fast enough. Then you take a pic and send it to every crafty person you know going “you know how much they want for this? $___!!!!!!!Is it apparent that, that happened to me recently? Just a touch right?! Let’s just say I wasn’t about to wait it out and hope it went on a wicked sale either. No way, I will go find the supplies and do it myself. That brings us to this post, Easter Garland!
Great thing about this garland is that it can be done for any season, just switch up the colours to your liking. This will make a garland that is roughly 5 and half to 6 feet in length, all depending how tightly you want the felt pieces to be bunched up.
- Things you’ll need:
– thin string or regular thread
– needle *pointed yarn needle works if using string
– rotary cutter
– cutting mat
– ruler
– scissors
I cut the felt sheets into 3 strips at 3 inches wide and then cut them at 1 inch thick. If you wanted to make it chunkier looking you could make it wider and thicker, but keep in mind you might need to get a few more sheets of felt.
If you do not have a rotary cutter and mat, you can do this with a scissors it will just take some time and a little bit of patience.
From this very large stack you can see I overestimated the amount that was needed. I ended up making 3 garlands and still had left overs. Guess I got some family that are getting an Easter present.
Great part of this project, once everything is cut you can do this in an evening while watching tv.
So with that, I loaded up the supplies and headed for a night of hockey. If you watch my instagram stories, you will not be shocked at that fact. It’s either hockey, wrestling, house building shows or a few random comedy sitcoms scattered in there.
To start I ended up making a loop end with the string (or thread) and tiring it off so that it would be easier to hook onto things for hanging the garland. I just guessing at the length, but all said and done at the finish it wound up roughly being 6 feet in length.
Once you have one end tied off and your length of string (or thread) cut, thread the open end of the string (or thread) through the needle. I then decided on the pattern of colours I was going to be using. By putting them in order so they became easier to grab and you don’t end up having to keep checking what colour comes next. Now you take the needle and weave it in and out once of your felt piece.
Because I used a large gauge needle with the string I found that it didn’t glide through the felt easily as it would if you were using a needle and thread. What worked for me was wiggling the needle around in the felt when I weaved it in and then wiggled it again when I weaved it back out. It just stretched the felt enough that the string glided through easier. Now just keep going with your next selected colours and then continue weaving on the felt in that same pattern over and over. You do have to stop from time to time to push/pull the felt down towards the bottom of string.
I tried not to weave on so many pieces that it bunched up a ton as I found it started to feel very heavy. Keeping it looser and a bit more spaced out made it lighter, easier to work with and of course faster to finish. Woohoo!
Once you use all your felt, or reach your desired length simply tie off your string (or thread) as you did before. I once again looped mine making it easier for hanging. A voila you have completed a very cute garland for Easter!
Time to get those dancing shoes on because this little make looks amazing, fun, festive and bright! Now to hanging it up, lay it across a mantel or how ever else you want to show it off. Might even be able to hide an easer egg or two behind it.
Until next time Create, Smile and Radiate!
