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How to Make Artificial Garland Look Real

Cheap garland can look like the real thing with these tips and tricks

Did you know you can make artificial garland look real?  Did you know you can do this for cheap or even free?  Cheap artificial Christmas garland can look well… cheap or lackluster at best.  While I really love to make real evergreen garland by hand (and happen to have one of the top tutorials on making evergreen garland and wreaths), sometimes, I just don’t have time or the will to churn out yards and yards of the  real stuff.  I am ahem… lazy occasionally. Luckily, some cheap rope garland and a little know how is all it takes to make artificial garland that looks real.  Plus, the faux garland does tend to hold up better to the outdoor elements.

Tutorial on How To Make Artificial Garland Look Real

Tutorial on how to make artificial garland look real

You will need minimal supplies.  (Affiliate links may follow):

Step 1 Hang your Faux Evergreen Garland

Oddly enough, if you want the artificial garland to look real start by having it look like absolute crap.  Hang that crimped piece of faux greenery awfulness as is.  Yep, that is right, don’t fluff, bend, or do anything just put that puppy up.  As you can see here I added some bows at the corner.  You can also see here it looks very much like a dejected Christmas Garland.  Once you have it in place then fluff.  Why wait you ask?  Because anywhere the garland is against a surface or hangs somewhere you will not see the back you are going to want to fluff all the fake greenery forward.  This is also a great time to add lights to your artificial garland if you plan on having it lit.

Cheap garland just looks sad and dejected but you can change that
Start with the sad and dejected cheap garland. I found this for $1.99 for nine feet the day after Thanksgiving.

Step 2 Grab Some Greenery

Here is where you sneak into your neighbors yard ask your neighbor nicely if you can take a few branches off of their evergreens.  White pine, leyland cypress, heck any type of evergreen will do.  Also ivy, magnolia leaves, dried hydrangea, grasses, pine cones, and bittersweet berries make great additions to the garland.  You will not need much of these items.  I used what I could shove in two grocery bags to do the entire porch and add to the artificial tree, tear drop garlands, and wreath.  When you have collected all your items cut the branches into 4-6 inch lengths.  Try to get as many branch tips as possible.  Blunt cut ends will work but need a little more finesse to work in nicely.

If you bought any floral picks or a few branches now is the time to cut them into similar sized items.  All the red and white berries you see where cut from 3 dollar store faux floral Christmas stems.

If you are working with various types of greenery sort everything in piles by type.

Step 3 Making that Faux Garland Fabulous

Now that you are likely covered in pine needles and resin it is time to make the faux, fabulous. Here is when you will finally make artificial garland look real. Start with a single type of evergreen (example your pile of white pine) and start adding them into your greenery at a somewhat even spacing.  To add (complicated steps ahead):

  1. Place a piece of greenery against the artificial garland you can simply twist a free piece of the fake branch around the greenery.

Surprisingly, this will secure the items.  Seriously!  Mine held up in the rain, sun, and wind.  Now you may be wondering why just place one type of evergreen at a time?  Well, too many times I get over zealous and put way too much of one type at the beginning and then run out by the end of the garland.  It may seem to take awhile to make multiple passes to turn your artificial garland into the real thing but the end result looks balanced.  Plus it takes a lot less time than putting greenery up, stepping back, taking it down and moving it, stepping back again, etc… You get the picture!

Blunt ends of cut greenery can be hidden behind the garland or wrapped deep in the greenery.  While, all this seems like “work” I can assure you that it is far less effort than making a real evergreen garland from scratch.

Cheap garland can look like the real thing with these tips and tricks

Step 4 Optional Step

If you really want your artificial garland to pop throw in some more faux items.  No, I’m not joking.  Surprisingly, some faux on faux action pumps your artificial garland up in a way that makes it seem more real.  Adding in more pieces of faux garland, bits of faux berries, or other Christmas florals give it some umph!

Honestly, this is all it takes to make some fabulous garland.  A little borrowed greenery and the ability to twist some wire makes for a beautiful and cheap Christmas decoration.  So take your knowledge and make some artificial garland look real!

Make faux garland fabulous

 

 

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How to Make Evergreen Garland Video Tutorial

How to make Evergreen Garland for Christmas

If you have come here to learn how to DIY evergreen garland for Christmas you have come to the right place!  I have revamped the original tutorial with a video showing the tricks and techniques to make lovely, fresh evergreen garland for your home.  You can watch the video below and scroll down for a list of supplies and detail photos.  Or read the original How to Make Evergreen Garland or Swags post.

Supplies Needed

  1. 24 Gauge Floral Wire*
  2. Rustic Wire 18 Gauge* or Rope
  3. Pruning Shears*
  4. Gloves*: Wear the Gloves!!!!
  5. Evergreen pieces

Details: Starting the Garland

To start the evergreen garland make a loop with the thick wire.  This will be useful for hanging your garland later and give you a base to anchor the floral wire.

How to start making an evergreen garland

Really, put on your gloves after this part.  Otherwise be prepared for scratch, resin covered, hands.

Details: Wrapping the Evergreen

While, I may be awful at rapping, I am very good at wrapping.  This simple step is all you need to repeat to make a beautiful hand tied garland.

How to wrap a DIY evergreen garland.

Tips

  1. Evergreen items are cheap to free.  Walk around your back yard.  Ivy, pine, boxwood all make interesting additions.  Ask you neighbors and make sure to just cut small amounts so it does not even appear that you have been there.
  2. Do not be afraid to decorate your garland.  Additional branches, beads, and lights can make it look fabulous!
  3. Work outdoors if possible.  While the video was taken inside due to the wind, you are going to have a lot of pine needles around your house from the construction.
  4. Gloves. I am bad about wearing them. Which is why my hands are always cut and rough.

Remember if you need a full pictorial tutorial you can get a recap of the video.  Just visit my How to Make Evergreen Garland post.

How to make Evergreen Garland for Christmas

Feel like it is too much to make your own garland?  Well then read my tutorial on how to Make Artificial Garland Look Real for tips to cheat the DIY process and come out with beautiful Evergreen Christmas Garland.

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Easy Harvest or Fall Decorations

One of the easiest ways to create pretty Harvest or Fall themed decorations involves nothing more than 8 ears of Indian corn, wire, and a stick. With these simple items you can create a pretty fall swag like this one:

Step 1:

Gather your materials. No, I wasn’t joking, it really does just require corn, wire, and a stick. I guess if you want to be technical you will need wire cutters (in this case old garden shears) and something to hang the swag with (more wire).

Step 2:

Take one ear of corn and overlap the pulled back husks of the second ear. Wrap wire around the corn at the base and through half the husks of the first ear. I suggest using half the husks so you can fluff the other husks out to fill in between the ears.

Obviously, I didn’t worry to much about the wire showing. I knew this would be hung high over my door and not really visible from a distance. You could easily hide the wire by using brown floral wire or tie with monofilament instead of wire.

Step 3:

I wired 4 ears together facing one way and 4 ears the other direction. Then I wired them to a branch (i.e. the stick) I had laying about the yard. I suggest wiring the corn together first before attaching to the branch. This allows for the corn to hang down freely and look less rigid than when wired directly to the branch.

The corn isn’t all that heavy so you could simply hand the corn attached together however I found a firm base makes it much easier to hang the whole swag on the wall Plus it allows you to arrange the corn attractively while it is on the ground. As you can see from the above picture using a rustic branch, as opposed to a dowel, blends with the harvest theme and doesn’t stand out if it shows between the ears.

Step 4:

There really is no step four because it is that easy.

Usually the grocery stores offer indian corn this time of year but you might also try your local farmers market. While your out, snag a few pumpkins to give an extra harvest touch.

Since Halloween is right around the corner I couldn’t help but add a gargoyle into the mix.

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Canton Christmas Tour of Homes 2010 – Part II

I wanted to thank everyone that has started following our blog in the last few weeks! Also, thanks to those people that have followed us through the last year; even though we lost all of the gloriousness that was our blog. We have really appreciated all the comments and are planning on revamping and creating some cohesion to our posting… maybe… Well I promise some cohesion in 2011, but I can’t vouch for Patrick. Or McClain. You never know what the menfolk will get into.

“This heres gonna be tha lasta the Tour, younguns.” Just thought I would put that in my WNC mountain-talk for you. I’m ready to move on to newer things. What things exactly? Ask me tomorrow. Until then here are the last few images of the Canton Christmas Tour of Homes 2010. (Insert drumroll here)

Enjoy the details, and feel free to ask any questions your heart may desire or share a link to your own holiday decorating in the comments. I would love to check out your decor.

Living room and Christmas tree details
Dining room and Kitchen details
Bath & Bedrooms
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Canton Christmas Tour of Homes 2010 – Part I

We finally made it! We finished the tour today, Patrick just threw another log on the fire, and I’m getting ready to crack open some frothy goodness. I’m going to give you the run through the tour (we didn’t open the guest room, basement, or attic to tourees) which featured the main rooms of the house and tomorrow I’ll post detail shots of the tree, garland, etc. Unfortunately or fortunately it flurried all day to day. Sadly, it decreased the usual tour attendance, but the flurries really made it feel like Christmas. Let the tour begin:

In the immortal words of Bill Engvall “Here’s your sign.” or in our case here is our sign.

As you rapidly spring from your car and rush through the cold you might glance at the entry way. The little alpine trees had to be held down with bricks to keep from blowing away. Of course I only figured this out after I reset the damn entryway three times. I’m a slow learner at times.

Then we have split the living room into an entryway behind the love seat. On the console table I created a snowy vignette in a wardian case that Patrick gave me a few years ago.

Moving on to the living room.

Patrick and I had some helpers in the form of “The Granny”, Papaw (not pictured), and the neighbors’ kids. Their house was also on the tour so they went back and forth between houses. The often come by and are a real hoot. It is so nice to live in a town with fun, friendly neighbors. I’m not sure if they are posting pictures of their house but if they do it will likely be at their blog 21 Penn.

The fact that their house is so radically different than ours, makes the Tour of Homes worth participating in. I love their breezy whites, pennant garland, and covet their black bedroom. If only I had the ceiling height I would totally steal their ideas. However, what works for one house doesn’t for the next. It makes each stopn on the tour unique. Back to the helpers:

One of the features we love most is that the living room opens into the dining room through a double set of french doors (we found in the basement and rehung). I like the open floor plan, but it is a bit of a challenge to unify the public areas of the living room, dining room, and kitchen. We chose various shades of grey for the wall color and metallics for the decorations.

Personally, I would like to rip out all of the cabinetry, revamp the floor plan, and basically start fresh in the kitchen. However, we are on a modest budget, so after painting the walls (the life of the cabinetry has yet to be decided) we opted for a warmer Christmas feel after all the metallic and used springs of bittersweet and oranges to fill out the space. We did use similar greenery to tie it to the other adjoining rooms. For more sensory input we boiled a mix of cinnamon, cloves, and star anise to give the hint of fresh Christmas baking.

There is a nice sized hallway that separates the public areas from the private bath and bedrooms. We decorated the hallway just for us. One of our gothic/nerdy habits is collecting gargoyles (grotesques for the history purists). We picked the first one up in France in the form of this owl from Avignon. We haven’t looked back sense. We used them in the hallway topping our copious bookcases.

The best thing about having a child is getting to do child-like things again. I wanted color and fun in the boy’s room. Since we haven’t repainted it yet (next on the list) we have not hung pictures. It is hard to add color in a white room with white walls. The granny had a cute white Christmas tree we borrowed plus she managed to find colored Christmas lights on white wire (no small feat). Then we added a lot of figurative glass ornaments, plus the family ones. We also used McClain’s toys and some Christmas beanies for decoration.

The bathroom was so awesome that we actually put a sign up saying it was “Still under renovation. Unless you like it, then this is how we meant for it to be.” So, here’s you obligatory picture of the toilet vignette. Nothing says Christmas like a sparkly toilet topper.

The bedroom gets two photos. 1. Because I actually made the bed (We almost always pull the bed straight, but who actually uses this many pillows?):

Don’t you just love those beige-pink walls? Especially with the red bedding. Trust me one of the two is on the docket to change… 2. I used my collection of green glass to add a touch of Christmas to the bedroom dresser.

That’s all for now, but tomorrow you can see some of the closeups and a more in-depth descriptions of the Christmas tree and vignettes. Then, maybe, we can be done with Christmas until the 25th.

To see part II click here.