Sparkle Crafts: Deck the Halls!
If there’s one thing that turns on the festive spirit, it’s decking the halls. Whether you’re "Throwing a Party" like Martin and Sylvia, or just want to add a little holiday cheer to your unfinished walls (raises hand), garlands are our favorite way to play dress-up with our home.
Garlands can be made with almost any materials into almost any shape you can imagine, but here is my favorite recipe:
Felt material (we used a felted sweater and an old pair of stripey wool long underwear)
Kitchen string, cotton crochet thread, or laceweight yarn
Embroidery needle
Crochet hook (a small-ish size)
Scissors
If you’d like to be precise with your shapes, draw a template and pin it to your fabric to cut out your shapes.
For a 6½-foot garland, I cut out 11 3-inch x 1½-inch trees and 12 1-inch circles.
The next step is to thread each shape onto your string or yarn. Don’t worry about spacing; just get them all threaded with a little running stitch at the top so they will be oriented parallel to your wall when you hang it up. Be sure to thread them in the order you would like them to appear.
Now, you can squish them all down the length of your thread a bit so you can get started with a quick crochet.
Crocheting your string will give it strength so your decoration will last through many seasons, and will also give it a nice, finished look. Simply make a slip knot and begin to crochet a chain. Nothing fancy here, and little hands tend to take readily to the rhythm of making a chain. I like to make the first section of chain about a foot long, so there is plenty of extra at the ends for whatever method might be used to hang it up.
When you are ready to start adding your shapes, just slide the first one up to meet your chain.
…and then just keep crocheting! Bring the next shape up after a couple of inches, crochet a couple inches, then bring the next shape up and so on. I counted twenty chains in between each shape, so they would be evenly spaced.
Finish the end with another long chain, cut the end and pull it through the last loop, and you’re all done!
You can get fancier by cutting two pieces for each shape, blanket stitching and stuffing them, and then proceeding as for the simple cut shapes. Those are especially fun for hanging in places where your garland won’t be against the wall.
Here are some other ideas for quick party garland decorations:
How do you like to deck your halls?
