Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Eco Holiday Garland


I've been doing some research into ideas for a greener holiday season. One item that I came across was garland made from old magazines. In the pictures that I saw the paper was painted or stamped on. I wanted to make a quick garland for the tv show taping this Friday, so I did not paint mine first. I have a die cut machine. I used my Christmas light die cut and my 3 stars die cut to make these shapes from a penny saver newspaper.


I set my machine on the longest straight stitch. Then I slowly stitched across the top of one of the shapes. Holding the paper carefully, I gently pulled as the machine made a few stitches onto nothing, thus creating a gap in between the paper shapes. Then I would stitch over another shape and repeat.


I created a pattern of Christmas light, large star, Christmas light, small star, repeat. While laying them out like this, I discovered that they tangle easily. It would look nicer if they has been painted first. However they are fine like this as well.


I carefully wound the garland around a toilet paper tube so that it wouldn't tangle while I stored it. A few pages of recycled paper made a pretty long garland. This would also be nice made from used wrapping paper or old greeting cards. For fun you could add a few family pictures in the mix.

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