Easy Holiday DIY Deco Mesh Garland – The Olden Chapters

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Decorating your home can be a challenge! Especially on a budget. Decorations can be expensive and extremely time-consuming to put together. Just setting up the decorations can take days! But, one of my favorite money and time hacks is garland! Garland (can be) cheap and easy to put together. It can truly make your home look like it is completely decked out!

This DIY garland was my complete lifesaver to decorating our apartment balcony. I was having a terrible time decorating our balcony and had little inspiration. But, after coming up with this garland (with plenty of Pin-spiration) I was able to not only create a beautiful balcony but do it quickly and on a budget!

This is a deco-mesh garland, made of 100% weatherproof material (so indoor/outdoor use). I was able to make each strand for about $7 each! Garlands this large can run you about $40 on a good day! The entire craft (creating 4 long garlands) took me about 2 hours, and most of that time was figuring out how to do it! So, without further ado…

Supplies:

(Supplies are for one 10 foot garland, change numbers accordingly for different lengths)

  • 10 ft of tinsel garland, medium weight rope, or something similar to be your garland base
    • Work garland is best for this. If you choose workers garland, you won’t need pipe cleaners.
  • 22 pipe cleaners (one for every six inches of garland plus a few extra just in case)
  • 2 x 20 ft of deco-mesh (2 different colors!)
    • Tip: You can get these for cheap during Black Friday! I got mine at JoAnn’s for $1 / 30 ft!
  • 20 ft of wide ribbon (mine was three inches wide)
  • (Optional): 1 strand of lights (~12 feet), shatterproof ornaments, themed pieces, additional ribbon or deco-mesh

I was able to find most of these supplies at either the dollar store, Amazon, or my local craft store for $1 or less each!

Step One: Choosing your Theme and Buying Materials

Before you go out and buy your materials, come up with a theme you would like to incorporate into your garland. Do you want it dark green and red? Red and gold? Red and white? Grinchmas like mine? Then go out and buy your supplies according to that beautiful theme!

Step Two: Prep your Area

Fortunately, this is not a very messy project, but you will need an open space at least the length of your garland. Take two sturdy items (I used chairs) and fasten each side of your garland then take a tape measure and lay it out along the length of your garland.

Step Three: Fasten Pipe Cleaners

Now twist on a pipe cleaner every six inches of your garland starting about one to two inches away from each end. Use the tape measure to easily and evenly space these out.

Step Four: Attach First Deco-Mesh

Attach your first color of deco-mesh onto your first pipe cleaner by twisting the pipe cleaner twice over the mesh. This will be your least-seen color so choose accordingly. Make sure to leave a tail of mesh at the beginning about a foot long.

Next, you will measure out the mesh one foot away from your starting point (two pipe cleaners away), grab it, pull it back to the next pipe cleaner and fasten it. This way, you will have even sized “poofs” of deco mesh. Continue this pattern until you reach the end.

Step Five: Attach the second Deco-Mesh

On top of your first deco-mesh, attach your second, working it around, on top of, and through your first mesh in a pattern that looks good to you. For mine, I alternated between fastening the second mesh onto every other pipe cleaner for a different, more whimsical look.

Step Six: Attach Ribbon

Using a similar method to step five, attach the ribbon on top of both deco-mesh pieces in a manner that looks best to you. For mine, I made sure that for each area, the ribbon was the top piece.

Step Seven: (Optional) Attach additional decor pieces

Finally, add any additional decorations to the garland onto the pipe cleaners and with extra pipe cleaners left over. I used ornaments, white lights, and little elf feet!

Step Eight: Setup and Enjoy!

Check out this tutorial on how to make easy DIY deco mesh garland!Click To Tweet

Check out how I used this garland to decorate my balcony!