Garland Take 2...

The Nester is having a Garland Party, and I have been so excited to check out what everyone else did! I had big plans for my mantle, but decided to take the economic route (be cheap) and use what we already had. What can I say, money is tight and the hubby is in real estate so I gotta cut corners where I can. A fabulous garland would probably not qualify as a necessity, but who says you gotta have tons of cash to be great? Not me! I made due with what we had and I am pretty happy with it.

To start, I took the garland I had from our last house, and re-wound it with some lights and followed Nester's techniques from this post. Then I bribed my hubby to help me hang it. It worked, and looked pretty good, but it only had white lights on it. While white lights are my preference, the garland is on the fireplace in the family room, and the "Kid Tree" is in that room. They picked a tree with colored lights, so after living with it for a few days, I decided the garland also needed some colored lights. The boys were all for this. Lon on the other hand was not, since that meant taking it down and then hanging it again. Take 2 on hanging it was pretty painful at first because it was a lot heavier than the first go round, but we got it up eventually. Now I am sending up ample prayers that it stays!

As you can see, our TV hangs over our mantle, so it is not ideal for decorating purposes. Also, that big black box in the middle is one of my dear hubby's surround sound speakers, so it is also non-negotiable.

Here is a close up of some of the stuff I poked in this little beauty.

This is definitely not the best picture of the little trees on the mantle, but you get the idea of what I did. I just tied some little ribbons to the branches.

This is the boys' tree I mentioned before and why I had to add colored lights to my garland.

There you have it, garland on a budget! Now I gotta run. I have over 150 other garlands to browse!