Ruffled Felt Garland

I love garlands.  Especially ones that are cheap and quick to whip up.  Because I also love making new garlands every year (along with new wreaths...and new decor items...and new holiday decorations...hmmm I sense a pattern).  This year my Halloween theme is candy corn and I just had to make a new garland for our stairs.  Coming up with a new garland for this railing can be a little challenging - Hubs insists that the railing be functional (pesky safety!), which means I can't wrap a garland around the railing.  So that means I have to attach it to either the back or underside of railing using either staples or thumbtacks.  After some brainstorming, a tri-strand ruffled felt garland in candy corn colors is what I dreamed up:

I used the same method as the St. Patty's day rainbow garland to ruffle up a looooong strip of orange, yellow and white felt.  Then just attached the garland using thumbtacks to the back of the hardwood railing.  And let me tell you, it is some very hard wood. 


Here's the very simple how to:


1 - To determine how much felt you'll need, measure the area that you plan to decorate and double the measurement.  For this garland, I used a length of yarn to create a sort of template for the finished garland (looping it on the railing) and then doubled the length of the piece of yarn to get my measurement.  I needed 1/2 yard of each color.


2 - Using pinking shears, cut the felt in 3 inch wide strips.

3 - Ruffle the felt by scrunching it as you run it through the sewing machine.  When you come to the end of a strip, just lay the next strip slightly overlapping and continue scrunching

4 - Once all the colors are ruffled, just gather them up and swag them together.  Yes, my orange and yellow are technically reversed.  I always seem to reverse the yellow and orange.  I am obviously candy corn dyslexic. 

Simple and easy - from beginning to end in a half hour :)


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