Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Christmas wreaths on the banister

I wanted to do something different with our stairway this year. Ever since the beginning of time, I have wound a lighted garland around the banister, and stuck a variety of different decorations in the garland. Its actually quite a bit of work to put that together every year, so I wanted to try to make things simpler for the years to come. I had seen a banister with little wreaths tied to it, and thought that might be different and easy. Bob and I made a trip to Taipan (yes... the strongest man in the world also shops), and couldn't find a small wreath to my liking. Actually, there were a couple that might have worked, but they were way too expensive for the 15 that I needed to go up my stairway. So, we had the great idea to make our own. We bought some pine garland at Taipan, and then figured out how to fashion our own wreaths.

I started by cutting each garland in half. Then, I took brown wire hangers, and straightened them. I tried wire, but the silver-ish color of wire just showed up too much when the wreath was done, so I turned to hangers. The brown color of the hangers blended right in with the garland.


After straightening the hangers, I took one of my half-garlands and wound it around the hanger. It was helpful to take a piece of very thin craft wire and tack down the garland here and there along the hanger wire so that it stayed where I wanted it to. I left a little hanger wire empty on each end.


I then made a simple loop out of each end and hooked them together at the top of the wreath.


To attach the wreaths to my stairway, I just used a small piece of Christmas ribbon and made a simple knot. E.A.S.Y.


And next year, I won't have to make the wreaths. It will take me about 2 minutes to tie the wreaths to the banister. If I want to get fancy and change up the ribbon, I can do that without adding any time or stress. I love it!


No comments:

Post a Comment