Left - regular garland/ Right - outdoor garland
Carmen
Kesha
These are a fun alternative to some of the more expensive decorations. I made these about seven years ago, so they have lasted a long time out in the weather. As you can probably tell, mine look a little beat up. Its time to re-do the garlands. I took some old baskets and spray painted them silver for the base. (I turned my baskets upside down and added a couple of bricks for some weight....we get lots of wind through here.) Then wired on the tomato cages and duct taped the top three prongs together to make a point, add your lights and cover in garland. Done!
Its best to use outdoor garland for this project. It is way thicker than regular decorating garland and weathers better, but you have to buy it early in the season or it will be gone in the stores. Needless to say, I didn't get there early enough . I used one strand of 100 white lights and three packages of regular garland on each tree ( 2 packages per tree if you use the larger outdoor garland.)You can make any combination of colors, this is just to give you an idea of how much you might need. Silver and white garlands show up the brightest with the lights. Very Sparkly!! This is the first time I have used a garland with colors in it and I can tell the difference. I think I'm more of the sparkle type.
I made one for my mom a while back too, but hers was more outside in the open weather than the ones I have protected on my porch. It weathered fast with all the snow and the garland lost its twinkle by the end of the holiday season. It looked pretty bedraggled. The good thing is you can replace the garland without to much trouble, maybe even find it on sale at the end of the holidays.
Since we were re-doing them any way, we decided to go ahead and fix the one my mom doesn't use any more. My daughter wanted to put it in her picture window since her big tree is in a corner. Looks cute...even though we only had two packages of extra silver garland from last year. We just spread it out a little more, so its not as full and the coverage is a little more sparse.We also added a bow to the top and wound some ribbon around the tree. Can you see how much brighter it is than the ones made with the colored garland? It practically glows!
All her cats love Christmas decorating!! With all the boxes, shiny balls, and things to play with, they had a lot of fun! Finally, after all that excitement they bedded down for a nap in the garland. .
No comments:
Post a Comment