For my son’s recent first birthday, I had zero time to put together the decor for our small gathering at home. I did manage to create this very simple garland as a display in the kitchen, which provided a colourful backdrop for eating cake and taking photos…
You can make your own garland and personalise it with your message and colours – just follow my DIY guide below…
You will need:
Selection of coloured and patterned papers- Cutting mat
- Craft knife
- Scissors
- Ruler
- Hole punch
- Sticky tape
- String
- A printer
- Shapes template which can be downloaded HERE
Download my shape templates and use these to cut out a selection of garland shapes, from your chosen papers. I drew around them onto my papers with a pencil and cut with either scissors or a craft knife.
As a guide, 12 shapes make around 1 meter of garland.
Once you have a selection of shapes on various papers, you will need to print out the letters that create your personal message. I chose a simple sans serif font for this and made the letters around 13cm high.
Choose a different coloured paper to the ones you have used and trace the letter shapes onto that paper. You can do this two ways: Either trace an outline of the letters in heavy pencil directly onto the print outs, right side up. Then turn the paper over and place onto the coloured paper you want to transfer onto. Go over the letters with a biro, transferring the pencil lines onto the coloured paper and cut out. OR you could cut out your letters, draw around them onto your coloured paper and cut out.
Here are my cut out letters. I have left the spaces inside the letters full, as this is easier when cutting and gives the them a more ‘paper-cut’ typography look.
Now you have cut out all the elements to make your garland, you need to punch holes into them to thread them up. I used a single puncher for this but a regular hole punch works as well.
When all your shapes and letters have holes in them, you are ready to start weaving the string through. Thread your string through the holes so that the string lies behind the shapes. Mix up your shapes and don’t worry about a sequence – go freestyle! I’ve made 4 strands but you can make as many as you want to suit your message. Once your shapes are strung up and you are happy with it, secure the shapes in place by taping behind them.
Fix your garland to the wall with strong Sellotape and pretty this up with a piece of wash tape on top. Stand back and admire your geometric creation…
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