~DIY paper garland~

 I made this garland for my staircase yesterday. 

It was very easy, just time consuming.

I thought I'd do a step by step for you in case you want to make one.

 I printed out this leaf template on card stock and cut it out. 

{you can enlarge it to your desired size in a word document}

Then trace the outline onto old book pages, sheet music, etc.

Mix this up a bit. 

It looks good to use sheet music and book pages and all with different ages so the pages aren't exactly the same.

Cut out.

After you have traced and cut the leaves, you will also need to cut out a bunch of random sized circles. 

These will be your flowers.

 Gather your materials. 

At this point you should have a lot of circles in varying sizes and a gazillion leaves.

You will need a hot glue gun as well with lots of glue sticks.

 Start by gluing 3 leaves together. 

Mix up the pages a bit and glue them as shown, not stacked, but fanned out a little.

 To make the flowers gather your paper circles by pinching the center bottom and twisting and folding.

Depending on how full you want your flowers to be, you can use one circle, or more.

 Cut a tiny slit below your glue line in the leaves.

Be careful because the old paper tears easily.

 Insert your flower by the base through the slit.

You can add a bit of hot glue before you do this if you want.

 Then I turned the whole thing over and gobbed on the hot glue to ensure that the flower would stay adhered to the leaves. 

I probably went a little overboard, but I didn't want them to start falling off.

Let dry.

Repeat this process about 1,800 more times.

 Then, all I did was attach a old faux garland I had to my staircase railing with ribbon.

I hot glued on some large pine cones and added white twinkle lights.

Then I got out my extension cord and started gluing on the paper flowers and leaves.

They are very easy to manipulate.

You can fold them, twist them, make them go every which way.

I had enough so that I was able to hide all the twinkle light cords and ribbon I used to attach the garland.

 Keep going, your almost done!

The fuller the better.

 Just for fun I also made a few rosette flowers out of paper. 

I made about 8, then gave up.

They are very time consuming and I burnt my fingers way too many times making them.

 This is one of the "circle" flowers.

 I'm not sure this will make it through a year of storage, or even last through me taking it down this year after Christmas, but I think I'd do it again.

It's different and it adds a ton of texture to the plain boring staircase!

If I left anything out, or if you just have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments section! 

xoxo