Wednesday, October 23, 2013

PPP Day 23: Fun and Festive Garlands (TWO Tutorials!)

Have you entered the "Giftcard Giveaway" yet? Go now, and come back! The giveaway is now closed.

 I promised that I would show you two more ways to make banners/garlands for your "perfect party". These two are both super simple, but they also can be made in a multitude of different ways to add variety.

For the first one, the dot garland shown in the picture above, you will need:
-a variety of scrapbook paper. I was doing a Halloween theme so I chose purple, black and green. I like lots of patterns and shades!
-a circle paper punch, mine is 2 inches
-tape (I love my little Scotch dispenser, if fits over your hand so you don't lose your tape. The little clear and green rectangle is the refills for it.)
-ribbon

 Start by cutting out circles. This may be a no-brainer, but I find that it is easier to use my punch "upside down", so I can see what I am cutting. I keep paper scraps, so I try to use each piece to its fullest potential. It helps if I keep the punch close to the edge, and also to each punch.

       Leave whatever length of ribbon you want for tying off your garland, and then start taping circles. To keep them evenly space, I used my trusty ruler, I just placed dots on either side of it. If you want your garland to hang straighter, tape your circles closer to to the top. I wanted mine in the middle of the ribbon, so I just used a little bit of folded tape to stick it to the wall.

     Keep adding circles until you are happy with the length. I wanted mine to be random, so I just made sure I didn't put any two colors or patterns next to each other. I don't like having to keep track of a pattern, although it wouldn't be hard if that is what you wanted to do.

 And there you have it! This is so simple, but cute. And you could do it differently by:

-mixing smaller and larger circles
-using a different shaped punch
-adding hanging circles by using thread to attach them to the garland ones
-using only one color for a solid garland
-making multiple strands and hanging them together (which is what I did above)
-this would also be cute hung vertically, multiple strands together

My cute props were gifts from my sister, Robyn!

This is literally the easiest thing ever. Everyone needs to do a paper chain at some point in their lives. Here is your opportunity. You need three things: paper, a stapler (or tape) and some sort of cutting device (scissors, a paper cutter, etc.)

 My sweet friend, Kristan, bought me a paper cutter for Christmas and I love it! This is the one I have and if you buy it at Hobby Lobby it will be a sweet deal with a 40% off coupon! It worked great for this project. I decided to use old book pages (I literally have had these for years, since I made a book page wreath). I could cut multiple pages at a time. It was a snap! If you are using scissors, simply pencil in lines, using a ruler's width to get your measurements. I used the cutting ruler to make mine 1inch.
 Then you take your strips and start your chain. Make a circle with the first strip.
 And keep adding loops, alternating directions (you will have to do this to loop them through each other) stapling the ends together of each circle. Don't you love that I have a mini stapler and *purple* staples? I have never owned a full size stapler, and I have never needed one!
And continue until you reach your desired length! This is definitely the easiest one! But cute. I have to thank my sister, Lisa Dawn, for reminding me of this little project. You can whip these out in no time and they are a great space filler! To switch these up you can:

-make longer loops
-make wider loops
-use different colors of paper
-hang them vertically
-make circles of the chains and attach those to each other to have a giant chain of chains!
-drape them over items, like I did with the pumpkins
-put them on your Christmas tree

There you have it, garlands two ways. These are perfect decor items for the novice crafter or the DIY hater. You have the satisfaction of a handmade item in 15 (or even 10) minutes! How's that for perfect?



This is Day 23 of "31 Days of Perfect Party Planning". See the rest of the series here.

Linking to:
"Thrifty Thursdays" at Living Well, Spending Less

3 comments:

  1. If I don't win the Giftcard can I at least have the book page chain? Cause I luurve it!! Also not to be all bitter but how come LD got mentioned by name, and all I got for the cute props was a "my sister"!?;) But for reals I loved the tutorial on the circle garland and especially how you mentioned all the different versions/ways to mix it up!

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  2. Garlands, banners, chains.....love them all. I have GOT to get some more of those fancy punches. Pretty sure I have a 1" punch, but that's it. Would probably only take me 2.8 years to make a garland of any length with that thing :)

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  3. I love circle garlands. I really like the different colors and patterns you used, it truly does make the garland fun. Thank you for sharing how you made it and for linking up to Thrifty Thursday.

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