How to make a pom pom party garland

I made three different types of banners/garlands for Etta's first birthday party, and this simple pom pom one was definitely the quickest!

I found these craft pom poms at the dollar store. The jewel tone colors matched the party colors perfectly, and I knew I had to turn them into a pretty pom pom garland.

I took some embroidery floss and used a needle to poke through each pom pom. I like to use these 3-inch "doll" needles because they are easy to hold. I bought them years ago for some project and now I use them all the time for all types of hand sewing.

The process goes really quickly. I thought there would be more to it. Tying knots or something, but nope. I moved the poms along the thread and while they slide easily, they also just sort of stay where you put them and don't shift on their own.

These garlands do tangle really easily, so if you don't plan to hang it immediately, I would suggest winding it around something until you're ready to use it. I used an empty cereal box and taped both ends of the thread to the box and it worked perfectly.

Next time: How to make a scalloped felt banner!

Scrap bag fabric flower garland (Guest post from Moonfield Lane)

Thanks to Michele for filling in for me today and sharing her project with us! Check out her blog Moonfield Lane for more great decorating and project ideas!

Hi there! I'm Michele and I blog over at Moonfield Lane. I've been a fan of Erin's creativity for a long time, and I'm thrilled to guest post at Lansdowne Life while Erin cuddles her new baby girl.

Today (in honor of spring and baby girls) I'm going to show you how to make a flower garland from scrap fabric.

If you sew or if you've ever made fabric crafts, you probably have an assortment of fabric scraps already. If you don't, you can buy fat quarters cheaply at the fabric store, often bundled into coordinating prints.

You'll need:

• fabric scraps
• scissors
• cardstock and a pencil to make a pattern
• needle and thread
• twine
• hot glue gun

Before you start, I'd think about where you want to hang your garland, how long you want it to be and how many flowers you'll need. I hung my twine across my mantel before cutting it, allowing for drape. I then marked the middle of the twine, so that I could begin my flowers on either side of the mark. I also tried to get a visual idea of how many flowers I wanted and how I wanted them spaced. I ended up with 12 flowers on 7 feet of twine to hang on my 4 foot mantle.

Loosely draw and cut out three petal shaped circles on the cardstock, each one smaller than the other. These three petals make up one flower. Mine turned out to be about 2 3/4 inches, 2 1/4 inches and 1 3/4 inches respectively, but you don't need to be precise.

Decide on your fabrics and start cutting! I was able to cut through four folds of fabric at a time, making the process go a little faster. You'll need a flower on the front of your garland as well as a flower to glue on the back, meaning I created 24 flowers in all. So I cut 24 petals of each size and 72 all together. You'll want the flowers on the front and back, if not entirely the same, to at least sort of match.

As you're cutting your petals, lay them on top of one another the way you're going to sew them so you can visualize the finished flower and how your patterns look together. You can see in the photo that I frayed my edges a little by running my fingernails around the edge of each petal, pulling some of the loose threads.

Now it's time to sew! Start stitching about 1/4 the way through the smallest petal and go all the way around ending with your needle on the wrong side of the fabric (not like in the picture where the needle comes up through the correct side.)

Pull the needle and thread as tight as you can through the back (without breaking the thread!) as you would a drawstring bag. This creates the center of the flower. Tie a knot in the thread and cut it off. You may need to adjust the center a little until it looks right. You can stick something pointed through the back to sort of "fluff it up" if you need to.

After you've made your flowers, glue them to the twine. I just put a small blob of hot glue on a flower, laid the twine on the glue and pressed another flower on top.

Glue the flowers along the entire length of twine and you're done!

Thanks for having me, Erin!

About Michele from Moonfield Lane: I live in Virginia with my husband and our two wild and woolly little boys. I blog about home decor, crafts and chocolate, and much of my day is spent picking up Legos and cleaning up dirty footprints.

p.s. from Erin: Wouldn't these flowers also be super cute on little girls' hair clips? Might have to make some for my girls! Thanks again, Michele!

Folded paper Christmas tree garland (from adding machine tape!)

This is our first year with a full-size Christmas tree (we used to decorate a mini tree), and I thought I'd have a difficult time filling it up. Turns out that was a pretty silly thought, as I probably have enough ornaments for at least two trees. But I was missing one thing: garland.

I ran across a roll of adding machine tape from years ago and knew I could turn it into something. A little bit of playing around with different folding techniques and I came up with this easy geometric garland.

I'm no origami teacher, so this is a little hard to explain in still photos. I'll admit, it looks complex. But play around with it, and you'll find it's pretty simple. You're just alternating between straight and 45-degree angle folds. Get into a groove, and you won't even be thinking about which direction you're supposed to fold.

Repeat, repeat and repeat some more. I did a whole tree's worth of folding while watching a movie. It's a mindless sort of activity.

You can unfold it to see how it's coming, but I preferred to keep everything folded up until the end. Easier to manage.

I like how geometric and modern it looks. And the way the light shines through and casts interesting shadows. But what's even better? No guilt about sending it to the recycling bin after the holidays.

If you don't have adding machine tape at home (and really, I don't know why you would), it's available at office supply stores for a couple of bucks. I only used about half a roll on my tree, so a single roll should be plenty even for giant trees.

If angles aren't your thing, try folding it another way. Or make fringe! Adding machine tape is such a good base material for so many different ideas.