Making a Simple Felt Garland

I love simple crafts that are built of multiples that turn into something elegant and abundant looking at the same time.

I am in full crafty, cleaning, and cooking mode for our party this weekend. And while technically this is an Ugly Holiday Sweater party and our friends lent us some cheesy candy cane and drum lights and I made paper snowflakes, I still like to have festive decorations that are necessarily Christmasy.

So I picked out my favorite shades of turquoise and fuchsia in 100% recycled polyester felt to make garlands for our photo booth backdrop as well as basic party decor around the house.

I sat down in front of some streaming Netflix and cut out about 5 zillion little circles. I started by cutting long strips that were between 1 and 2 inches wide and then cut the strips into squares and then cut out the circles from each square by just eyeballing it. If I had tried to use a pattern, I would still be cutting!

Next I just whipped out some ribbon and the sewing machine and started going to town. I found that you have to hold the ribbon tightly when sewing so that the thread won't miss the ribbon and break.

So while it seems to take a while to sew them all together, it is really quick and inexpensive and endlessly adaptable to different colors, themes, holidays. The 72" wide bolts of felt were on sale for only $2.49 a yard and I bought 1 yard each of the pink and blue and have only used about half of it so far. I also bought 2 yards of a dark blue-gray that is going to be the back drop for the photo booth.

I love how they look and feel. I am about 1/3 of the way through sewing it all. I should have at least 50 yards of this when I am all done!