How to Make Evergreen Garland

Hi and welcome to craft time .

And today we are going to learn how to make evergreen garland .

There's only a few tools that you need .

And one of them is an old set of clippers and I do suggest an old set and some floral wire .

I really like 24 gauge .

Um You'll also see 26 gauge and we'll get into why I like the 24 gauge a little bit better later .

And then I really like this thick 18 gauge wire that's coated in kind of a paper or plastic .

You can see here it comes in these bundles .

It also comes in brown if you are ever making a garland for a harvest or something along those lines .

Uh You can also use rope and basically anything that's kind of central that will hold your garland , but this has been my favorite .

All right , let's talk about the greenery that you're actually going to use in your garland .

Um The first thing I suggest is getting a good base , um some kind of fur if you have a fresh cut Christmas tree and just all the bottom limbs off , that's perfect .

Uh Just kind of some of the short pine .

Uh you can make a whole garland just out of this , but I like to mix in other things .

Uh This table here .

I've got some Leland cyrus , uh some ivy .

I got out of the backyard and I really like white pine , but I will warn you that the resin is awful .

So if you are worried about getting resin in your house , skip the white .

Uh but I do like the soft feathery look that it adds to the garland .

What I've done here to prep these is I have taken big branches and just cut them probably in 6 to 8 inch sections .

You can make a really thick garland by making longer ones , but it'll be more loopy and shaggy or you can make a very smaller garland by cutting these shorter into three and four inch sections and I just have them in piles here ready to go .

So the first thing that you're going to want to do is decide what type of Garlin you're making .

If you're going to make one continuous strand of Garlin , uh you don't really have to measure your wire to begin with because you're just gonna start one in and go as long as you want to go .

But if you're gonna make say something like a fireplace swag that goes up and down , you'll actually measure out all the wire you want and you'll start in the middle and go from one side to the other side , but it's the exact same technique .

You just need to know what you're making from the beginning .

All right .

The first way that I like to start my garland is make a loop that I can use as a hook later on .

Um , it's gonna be covered in greenery .

So it doesn't matter if it's really pretty .

I just take some wire and kind of twist it around so it doesn't come undone and then you have a little loop and then I take my smaller floral wire like this and I kind of hook it here just the same thing .

It's gonna be covered .

Doesn't matter .

I just want to make sure that it doesn't let go .

This is when you're gonna need your gloves because if you don't put them on , all of the different greenery are going to eat your hands up .

I can promise you that .

So I like to be very creative with mine .

I take some greener pieces like this and then I just mix some cypress in and you make a little bundle just along those lines and let me put the end this right here .

So you're covering your loop and then you just wrap it around like that maybe two or three times .

And then you repeat the process by getting some more greenery one of those lines and maybe add a little piece of ivy sticking out of the side , you're going to cover where you went last time right here so that you don't see where that wire was , screwed it down and then you're going to wrap again so that you have a nice bundle like that , you're gonna repeat this process by grabbing more greenery .

This is where you get to be really creative .

If you have holly or berries or things like that , you can add them in there , you're gonna put it on .

Let's continue this process wrapping down .

Now earlier , I told you why I thought you should use the 24 gauge wire instead of the 26 you're gonna want to be able to pull on this .

And so that you get a nice tight piece around your wire .

And I used 26 gauge before and I kept tearing it apart and having to retie it and you really want to keep this as a continuous strand as you go down because it keeps your Garlin much firmer and together .

So finishing off a long stream of root garland is a little tricky .

If this was a swag going over the uh top , then you would need to just put a bow in the middle or some kind of thing .

But since we're doing a rope , you're gonna want to cut all those sticks off that you had there and you're gonna wanna make your bundle very similar to that and kind of overlap them going the opposite direction .

I then take my wire and wrap that around .

That's , and in my case , I wanna make sure that wire sticks .

So I just cut off a little bit extra and really just wrap , wrap , wrap , wrap .

So now you're gonna kind of take your wire and you're gonna thin this back over and you got a little extra wire right here .

So you can make another loop if you want for hanging .

And I tend to take my gloves off because I can't make the wire work as well .

And I make another little loop for hanging it .

So you're still gonna have a few little sticks sticking out right here .

I just kind of trim those off and then I will work in some little pieces of greenery into this bundle .

Once I get it hung usually and kind of make them go in here so that when you hang it , you can work it around here .

Now that we finish off the end cap of the Garlin , I just have a few tips and tricks .

Once you hang your Garlin , you can put all kinds of berries or floral picks or anything like that to further decorate it .

But I want to warn you one thing about hanging it live .

Garlin is really heavy .

So make sure that whatever you're using is able to carry the weight and not fall .

You don't want your garland after you spend all this time on it and your floor .

And if you've got it for a month or so .

I used to take a mister and just miss mine to kind of keep it fresh uh throughout the Christmas season .

And it'll also make you have that really nice evergreen smell for additional tips and techniques and a list of supplies you can visit craft time dot com .

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