I finally have a fireplace mantle to put up a garland, but I knew I didn’t want to spend $60+ on a nice one. I decided to buy a plain garland from Amazon, choosing this one based on how the leaves looked. It definitely isn’t super full, but the individual leaves have a lot of detail and will keep the garland from looking really fake (even though it is).

Next, I needed to decide how the finished garland would look. Since my mantle is not very deep, I went with simple additions and a classic look. Pinecones were picked up from around the yard, plastic ornaments were something I already had, the fake berries were leftover from my wreath project, and the burlap ribbon was from Amazon.

Next, I got my handy hot glue gun ready and some thin wire. I hot glued the wire to the bottom of the ornaments, but if you didn’t want the top part showing, you could just attach the wire through the clasp part meant to hang the ornament from. I then wrapped the wire around the base of the pinecones so it was hidden and sturdy enough to hold the pinecones in place.

I attached both the ornaments and pinecones at different intervals along the garland, sometimes grouping them together. The fake berries were added in sparingly, usually next to something else I added to the garland. After everything looked evenly spaced out, I went ahead and made the bows! I used the same bow tutorial as I did for my other holiday décor items, creating some large ones and other smaller bows.

And, that’s it! The garland fits perfectly on my mantle, and didn’t cost a small fortune.

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