Gorgeous Garland on the Cheap

Let the Christmas decoration posting begin! I've been hard at work crafting and decorating my first grownup pad, and I plan to post as much about it as possible.

I absolutely love the Outdoor Ornament Pine Garland from Pottery Barn, but at $59 for 60”, that wasn’t happening. So, like I do when I see something I love but can’t afford, I decided to try to make it myself for a more affordable price.  

Super beautiful garland via Pottery Barn

Like the inspiration garland, I chose to use the type of garland with branches on it so that the ornaments could nestle among the branches. I actually decided to put my own spin on the garland by choosing to use pre-lit garland, so that my creation would illuminate our house at night.

A few tips on selecting artificial garland:

•  A forest green color tends to look more life-like than the bright green stuff. Not that trees can’t be bright green, but I find that that the bright green color makes the texture of the artificial material more apparent and thus less lifelike. 
• Garland with flimsy branches will be in expensive, but if you’re planning to attach anything to the garland or even put it outside, you’re better off finding garland with sturdy branches. You especially don’t want the branches themselves to come off of the garland. 
• If you plan to wrap your garland around something, you should probably select the rope-style garland without branches because pine garland can be too wide to wrap around the spokes of a railing.
• Pre-lit garland saves a lot of money and ensures that the lights are attached to the garland with slightly more depth.
• If you prefer not to purchase pre-lit garland, garland lights will illuminate your garland far better than a regular string of lights will. Garland lights have are a string of light clusters, rather than a string of one light after another.  

Craft stores and nurseries often sell very nice garland, but since I wanted mine for outside use and I was on a budget, I headed to Target and Walmart. I ended up selecting Walmart’s 9-foot pre-lit pine garland for because it frankly felt sturdier and looked more realistic than Target’s. And at $10 each, it was significantly more affordable than Michael’s 9-foot garland that was selling for $25.  



Walmart 9 ft Pre-Lit Garland -- $10

 While I prefer the solid color ornaments on the PB garland, I was hard-pressed to find sets of solid plastic ornaments at less than $5 for 18 ornaments, and I knew that I would need quite a few ornaments for each one. I found this set of 101 red, white and silver shatter-resistant (read: plastic) ornaments by Martha Stewart for Home Depot. The ornaments have kind of a candy cane theme going on, but at $21.95, it would work for what I was trying to create.

One of my favorite parts of the PB inspiration garland was the mixture of different sized ornaments. To give my garland a little more interest, I bought two boxes of larger red ornaments from Home Depot and four boxes of little red and silver ornaments from Walmart.



To make the garland, I first “fluffed” the garland, bending the branches away from the garland to make it look fuller. You may want to wear garden gloves for this process because working with nice garland can really cut up your hands. I then plugged the lights so that I was able to consider the placement of the lights while attaching the ornaments.

To attach the ornaments, I threaded a 4-inch piece of floral wire through the end of the ornament, secured the wire tightly around the branch, and wrapped extra wire ends around the rest of the branch. I used a pattern of one larger ornament and two medium-sized ornaments to start the process. After I completed the garland with the large and medium ornaments, I went through the entire piece and randomly attached the small ornaments. This process of working with this floral wire can also scratch up your hands.

Here’s the breakdown of materials I used for each piece of garland:

Garland

• Railings – 2 pieces of Walmart 9 ft pre-lit pine garland
• Door – 1 piece of Home Depot 25 ft pre-lit pine garland

Ornaments

• Large red ornaments: 1 box of 18 matte, glossy, and glittery Home Accents Holiday ornaments from Home Depot
• Medium ornaments: about 1/3 of a 101 piece set of Martha Stewart Living Ornaments from Home Depot
• Small ornaments: a little less than 1 box of 16 Holiday Time Mini Shatterproof Ornaments
• Floral Wire from Michael’s

I used two lengths of garland on each railing on our front walk. Since 18 feet was way too long (I really needed about 13 feet), I swagged the garland and let the end of it hang along the railing.  I used one long piece of floral wire to attach the garland to the railing in each place, and secured it tightly by crossing the wires over each other and twisting them. After the garland was secure, I folded a longer piece of floral wire in half and wrapped it around the garland and the railing to hold the weight of the garland.

In addition to the garland on the railings, I made another length of garland to put around our door. For this project, I used 25-foot pre-lit garland from Home Depot. It was in a box when I bought it, and I found it to be disappointingly flimsy when I started working with it. But I actually think the flimsier garland was better for over the door because it was lighter and slightly more narrow, making it easier to attach securely.

To attach the garland over the door, I placed a large nail on each corner and one in the center of the door frame. Then I took a long piece of floral wire, folded it in half, and wrapped it a few times around the nail before securing it to the garland. After wrapping it around the garland a few times, I wrapped the excess around the nail. I also took a long piece of wire and looped it loosely around the bottom of the garland through a spoke in the railing to prevent it from blowing around too much on in windy weather.

I am so thrilled with the result! I especially love that the house looks festive during the day and night.

The total cost of this project was:

• Garland:
• 4 pieces of 9-foot garland: $40
• 1 piece of 25-foot garland: $20
• 1 set of 101 medium ornaments: $22
• 3 sets of 18 medium ornaments: $15
• 3 sets of 16 small ornaments: $9
• Floral wire: $2

Total: $108 for 61 feet of garland

Brace yourself: The same amount of the Pottery Barn inspiration garland would’ve cost nearly $720 without tax and shipping. Even when it was on sale (according to my catalog) it would’ve cost $665. So even though $108 sounds like a lot, when you consider it’s over $600 cheaper than the inspiration garland, I’m deeming this one a success.

Is it Time to Play My Christmas Music Yet?

My first teenage job may or may not have been in a year-round Christmas store that my neighbor/family friend may or may not own. And my sister and brother may or may not have worked there too, and my mom may or may not work there full time as the assistant store manager…

 No, that's not my house. It's the fam at Richmond's Tacky Lights Tour.

No, we're not that fat. We're just wearing mondo coats at Gaylord's ICE.

Basically, we’re a family of professional Christmasers (sans my pops, but he’s a master of tasteful outdoor décor and puts up a mean Christmas tree). Naturally, this means I have very valuable knowledge.

What is a German Christmas Smoker? How do you build a Nutcracker collection? What are Christopher Radko’s newest ornaments? Who is this new guy named David Strand? What is the difference between the D56 Snow Village and Christmas in the City? What exactly is the “Christmas pickle”? How does a Christmas store stay in business year round?

This might knock your socks off, but...I know the answers to ALL these questions. This doesn't even begin to touch on my extensive Christmas knowledge.

I started working at the Christmas Attic in historic Old Town, Alexandria, VA as Christmas help when I was 14 (I even had to get a work permit). To give it a little plug: housed in a historic warehouse on the corner of Prince and Union Streets, the Christmas Attic has high-end collectibles like hand-blown Polish glass ornaments, authentic Nutcrackers, Pyramids, and Smokers imported from Germany, and it also has tons of cute ornaments, stockings, advent calendars, and other Christmas décor. You can literally hear small children whisper “wowww” as they walk through the store – probably my favorite part about working there.

 

No doubt some of you are probably saying “UGH. Whyyyyy is everyone talking about Christmas??? It’s not even Thanksgiving!!”

OK. First, stop being such a Scrooge.

Second, it’s totally reasonable to be thinking about Christmas right now.

This year, Christmas is exactly one month after Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving is nearly one week away. Call me crazy, but if I’m going to put any kind of work into decorating, I want to have my decorations up with plenty of time to enjoy them. Not to mention, I'll have shopping/Christmas sightseeing/Holiday Party-going that will be on my to-do list in addition to decorating. I’m going to be really busy over the next few weekends, so I’m starting my planning/pre-decorating now. Don’t worry, I’m not going to put up the tree right tonight, but I have started accumulating decorations.

I’m super excited this year because it’s the first time I’m living in a place that I will actually be residing in during the Holiday Season. Naturally, this is an excellent excuse to accumulate more actual decorations since I won’t be home to enjoy my mom’s extensive décor and the beautiful lights my dad puts up every year.

To prep, I’ve pulled some inspiration from a few of my favorite sources:

Pottery Barn entry way – Love the different sized ornaments on the garland and wreaths.

Pottery Barn bedroom – Like the reds and creams, the vintage feel of the decorations, and the little “noel” sign made up of different letters.

Christmas at the Thompson’s! by Landon Jacob Productions – This collection of items builds on the room's already awesome vintage look. I love the way the collection of paper items, use of the different sized ornaments, and lights nestled among the items on the shelf make the decorations look organic, personal, and collected over time (maybe they are?).

I’m not actually going to reveal any of my plans quite yet (alright fine, I haven’t actually started any of my projects), but I encourage you to start looking for inspiration and start collecting things to decorate with. Buy things like garland, wreaths, and lights early because they wil be a lot harder to find once everyone panics and realizes they need to get their decorations up asap.

Great shopping sources that I've discovered thus far:

• Walmart has pretty nice lighted 9 ft garland for $10/piece. Target has some for the same price that looks nice as well, but the green looks a little lighter than Walmart’s and I was going for a darker color.
• Home Depot has 25 ft lighted garland for $19.99.
• Home Depot is also selling collections of 75 – 101 Martha Stewart shatterproof Christmas ornaments for under $30, and sets of 18 shatterproof Christmas ornaments in various colors for $5.99.
• Home Goods has a very reasonably priced collection of Christmas knick-knacks to suit all decorating styles.
• Michael's will be having Christmas stuff on sale from now through Christmas, so it’s worth checking the Sunday ads if you want to pick up a few things here and there.

To get you more in the mood, I’ll leave you with two of my favorite non-traditional Christmas songs: one rather upbeat, and the other sad but beautiful (and, I might add, from one of my favorite albums of all time).

Stay tuned (hehe!) for more Christmas music recommendations and decor ideas/inspiration!