Halloween Flower Garland
Sophisticated decorations for your home
Halloween is nearly here so it’s time to think about decorations – DIY flower garland! Let me begin with a little disclaimer here. I am not a particular fan of Halloween. Not that I would’l love a chance to celebrate, dress up and decorate. However, the idea of painting blood on my face, putting bats around my front door and jars with spiders in my bathroom is just not something I can enjoy. In fact, seeing everybody indulge in this kind of costumes and decorations, I wondered what I could make as a gentle alternative to cut-off finger looking sausages (just typing this makes me cringe! lol).
Easy to make and easy on the budget
Throughout the year there are many festivals to celebrate, most of them are a day or two long so it’s great to find great DIY decoration ideas that won’t ruin the monthly budget! Halloween is one of them and with the back-to-school time, there are plenty more expenses to consider. Still, if you enjoy crafty home decor ideas and the Halloween, you will certainly love the project I am about t0 share! While it’s not really scary or creepy, it’s certainly fun and easy to make, and very affordable! Let’s get on with the project so you can have it ready in time!
Have you enjoyed this DIY project? Pin it for later on one of your DIY & Craft Ideas or Seasonal Home Decor Pinterest boards!
How to make a Halloween inspired fabric flower garland
What you’ll need:
- approx. 2m of polyester 5.5cm ribbon in soft and bright orange shade
- approx. 0.5m of polyester 4cm ribbon in bright green
- black polyester string
- orange sewing thread
- needle for hand sewing
- a candle
- paper and pen to draw the petal leaves
Instructions:
Preparing the petal leaves
The flowers are made by gradually sewing together and building up a number of petal leaves. These are in three or four sizes. Initially, I drew four, however then the biggest size didn’t fit the width of my polyester ribbon. I skipped the biggest size and only used the three smaller ones, but this was perfectly sufficient.
To prepare the template – make three sizes of a bean shaped drawing as shown on the image above. If you’re using a ribbon, make the biggest size according to the ribbon width. Then work down from there. For a polyester fabric by yard, the size won’t be limited. It will be completely up to you to decide how large you wish your flowers to be. When you have the paper templates drawn, cut them out and place them onto the polyester ribbon/fabric. Draw a line around to know where to cut.
For five flowers, I cut out 50 petal leaves for each size, combining the two colours. This made a total of 250 petal leaves for all five flowers in both orange shades. I also cut three leaves of the smalles size for each flower, using the green ribbon. That is a total of (5×3) 15 leaves.
Searing and curling the edges
The next step was to carefully sear the edges of each petal leaf over a lit candle. By doing this you will achieve three things – prevent the cut polyester fabric from fraying at the edges, curl the edges forming a natural looking petal leaf, and adding a Halloween inspired detailing as the edges turn slightly black in places. Do make sure you protect the surroundings when working with fire and melted wax, and that you also protect your fingers, especially when searing the smallest petal leaf size. Gently bring the edges close to the fire, allow to curl up to your preference. Bear in mind that the melted polyester needs a moment to dry.
Sewing the petal leaves to form a flower
After completing the curling of all petal and green leaves, it’s time to sewi them together. Begin with the smallest size, gently sewing the curved edge. You will want to add some shirring now and then, especially at the beginning when you’re working with only a few leaves. About half way through the middle size you should be able to simply place them on flat and sew the bottom edge onto the previous leaf. Continue this until you’ve used up all sizes for one leaf. Lastly, add the three green leaves that will nicely complement the flower.
Making the garland
To make a garland, measure the black polyester string as long as you wish it to be. Measure even distances according to how many flowers you’ve made. Sew the flowers and the string together and you’re done!
Decoration ideas
The flower garland is a wonderful project to make! Depending on the flowers you’ve made and the length of your garland, you will have a number of options for placement!
Shorter garland will look lovely hung on a fireplace or smaller kitchen window. You may also hang it on an indoor plant, place on the table or wrap around a pendant light! If you’re feeling up to it, you can make a much longer garland. This will look amazing hung on your porch or above the back yard seating. Even if you decide to use the garland outdoors, it will happily endure the sun or rain!
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