Natural Christmas garland

I used to love tinsel as a child and we would decorate the whole house with it: up the banisters, along the mantelpiece, over pictures hanging on the walls, anywhere and everywhere. It’s definitely festive, but not necessarily particularly beautiful.

I saw this fabulous Eucalyptus garland tutorial back in November and I was determined to give it a go, having never made a garland before, as it seems like the perfect alternative to tinsel.

This really is as easy as it looks and it can be a last minute decoration that you make to run down the centre of the Christmas table or I think it would look beautiful on a mantelpiece (I wish I had one!).

You will need:

– Hardy foliage (I bought mine from Columbia Road flower market because I don’t have a garden and very helpfully some lovely people on Instagram were able to tell me that it is called Eucalyptus pauciflora, otherwise known as Snow Gum and it is amazingly hardy!)

– Florisrty wire

– Twine

– Scissors

Step by step:

1. Cut your big branch into smaller pieces around 20cm long.

2. Unravel 20cm of your twine but don’t cut it, just lay it out on a flat surface. Place one of your pieces of foliage on top of the twine. Cut a 20cm piece of wire and secure the twine to the foliage by winding the wire around and around.

3. Unravel more twine and place another piece of foliage on to it, slightly overlapping the last piece and secure it with the wire and so on until you have the length of garland that you want.

If I had a beautiful doorway or fireplace this ‘green tinsel’ would be perfect but I think it will look equally as lovely on the Christmas table.

I’m taking next week off to prepare for January so I will pop in on Christmas day and New Year’s eve to say hello but won’t be back again properly until January 4th with my first Styling the Seasons of 2016. Until then, I hope you all have the most wondrous holiday!

Katy x