• Finished Projects

It’s getting close to the holiday, and I’d like to share this recycled Christmas garland I made last year. I wanted something to hang a few ornaments from, but I didn’t have money to spend, so I came up with this cheap and easy decoration.  It’s made mostly out of scraps of old sweaters and a cereal box!

I drew the poinsettia petals in sharpie on the back of the fabric, cut them out, and glued them onto a cardboard base cut to fit. The centers are made of 1-inch wide strips of black wool. I clipped one side of each strip about every half an inch to give them a little more texture. Then I coiled the strips loosely into a circle and glued them to the center.

For the greenery, I cut a green sweater into 4-inch strips and sewed these into tubes.  I sewed them end to end  so that I had three long tubes. I braided them and basted the ends together.

Then I cut nice S-curve from the cereal box to be the base. I glued the green braid on, leaving about 3 inches of bare cardboard at the ends. After stringing on the ornaments, I glued the poinsettias in place.

I can hook further ornaments to the braided strips or sew them on by hand – which I did with the stocking ornament to the far left. To attach the garland to the wall, I just stuck tacks through the cardboard and hid them between braid strips.

It can also be folded for storage – when the cardboard back gets too old and bent, I plan to just glue on another layer. Voila!

Do you have any good ideas or tutorials for making inexpensive or recycled decorations?