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 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.  



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.

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.

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

• 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.

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

• 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

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.

• 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.