Craft Room: Scrappy Bird Garland

I made another garland to go with the CREATE one I made earlier.

It's super easy. Find some scraps of paper and cut shapes out them.

I cut these birds with a Silhouette machine.

Sew the shapes together.

Hang and admire.

I love what it added to the window! It was the perfect addition to my room, especially since I love birds so much!

Craft Room: "Create" Garland

As part of my craft room redo, I made this garland to hang over my window. I love how it turned out!

I used the same process as I did with the Valentine's book page garland. You can click here for the instructions on how I made it. There are actually quite a few ways to make these pinwheels. Just do a Google search to find instructions if you don't have any wire on hand and don't want to do it the same way I did.

I used random scraps of scrapbook paper for the background. I will be making another garland or two to hang here as well so it will all come together better soon.

Hanging each letter individually was a lot easier for me than trying to string all the letters together to hang it horizontally.

Slowly, but surely, the room is coming along! It's all put together and usable now. I just need to finish all the decorations before I can show you the whole room!

Garland Video

I am up to my elbows (literally- there is a big spot on my left elbow) in green paint as I attack my craft room walls so I don't have much to share with you right now. So I am posting this video that shows some great tips and ideas for making cute garlands. I will be using this as inspiration to make a garland or two for this craft room make over.

Vintage Travel Garland

I made this garland to decorate a going away party I had for my bro and sis-in-law that moved to the Washington DC area. I cut out the airplanes and the globes from black cardstock on my mom's Silhouette machine. I found the vintage travel posters online. The items are all just taped to the twine.

All of my travel posters are for DC because that's what my theme was. You could use any area, or a variety of locations to make the garland more reusable. Click here for a website I found that has free posters.

For the party I hung up maps in the room of the world and the DC area. I also put a globe on the table. I didn't know if this was cute or not, but husband told me it was okay. Then I got made fun of by the party guests so I guess "not" was the answer.

Oh well, the garland is super cute and I really love how it turned out. I love vintage travel posters. I thought about hanging it in the retro room, but it's too long to hang there so I will be using it in my classroom next school year.

P.S. Thanks for the help, Mom!

Valentine's Book Page Garland

I love the trend of crafting with book pages. I am not usually into Valentine's decor but thought it went well these book page pinwheels. (Scroll to the end to see the entire garland).

First, take 2 pages from an old book and cut them to the same size.

Stack the pages on top of each other and accordion fold about 1 inch (or any size you want).

Pull the pages apart to use them separately.

Stack the 2 folded up papers on top of each other and secure with a small piece of wire around the middle.

Open the paper into a pinwheel and glue all 4 of the open sides together.
(After finishing this garland I found this tutorial for an adorable project that also uses these wheels. Follow the instructions in the video to use double stick tape instead of wire.)

By the way I am very impressed with myself for this photo.

The wheel looks like this when finished.

Now embellish as desired. I cut out a black circle from cardstock and a heart from some metallic red paper. I used 7 wheels total.

I then glued all of the wheels vertically onto a thin black ribbon. (Three wheels on one ribbon and two each on the other two ribbons. If that is confusing just look at the pictures below.)

I cut out another cardstock circle to glue to the back over the ribbon to make the wheel a little sturdier.

As seen below, I looped the ribbons over a curtain rod. I didn't want to tie knots so I used alligator clips to secure it. The clips are hidden behind the wheels so you can't tell that they are there.

BACK:

FRONT:

The finished product! It is hanging in my dining room window. It's not huge or showy but bring some Valentine's Day love to the room (although it really is kind of early for V day stuff...).

I think they would look cute hanging horizontally too. The wheels could be decorated to fit any holiday or theme.

If you make one I would love to see it! Email me aubreelarsen@gmail.com.