DIY Christmas Holly Garland

Because I did not have enough to do these days, I decided to make a garland using only materials that I had in my house. On Monday, I gave you a look at the finished product; here is the step by step of how I did it. So, without further ado, here is the DIY Holly Garland brought to you by Crème.

My original plan was to print a holly template onto a stiff green paper,but then I could not find the paper I was sure that I had. Also, when I googled “holly templates” I just found them too generic.

In the end, I drew holly leaves freehand on three green folders I had in my file cabinet. I really liked that they were darker on one side as real leaves are. I made the leaves different sizes.

As you can see, I was not very particular about how I drew them or cut them out.  I did this while watching a movie. It was nice to do something other then correct papers for a while.

Next, I cut out the red berries. I did not even try to draw those first. I just tripled up the paper and cut small circles. This would have been much easier with a hole punch.

I bought this thick twine several months ago for another project that I still have not started. It is nice to know that it is getting put to some use.

The next step was to draw lines on the leaves and fold them in half to give them more dimension.

I separated the leaves into small, medium and large and glued the largest leaves to the twine with a hot glue gun.

Then, I laid out the leaves and the berries to make sure that I had enough. I did not and had to make several more.

Finally, I was done!

The garland looks great draped over the mirror behind the Christmas tree. It gives the space a little something extra in my opinion.

However, if you are looking for other uses, here are a couple. Feel free to use the garland as a boa to your next holiday party. It might be hard to imagine since I am in sweats and slippers in the picture, but this could be a great look with a sheath dress and heels, no?

Or you could drape it over a sofa. I’m not sure why you would do this, but you could.

You could also put it across the table as a centerpiece. Crème voted for this use, but it was only so that she could play with the garland. I prefer to hang it far out of her reach.

How would you use the garland?

Happy Holidays and Happy Homemaking!