Making a Pretty Paper Garland – an easy springtime craft

This week we are going to make a  pretty paper flower garland…  “And I believe the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others”…Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian playwright, poet and essayist. I recently read this quote and I am pretty sure he wasn’t talking about observing the many talents of others displayed on social media as I have been lately. Perhaps he thought more of beautiful books, art works, creative writings. Everyday, I am fully inspired by beautiful crafts of others. And more often than not now my children are grown, I have a little time to try some of these crafts for myself. There is always a line however between a blatant steal and taking inspiration alone to create my spin. In keeping with this wonderful quote, I try to look at the work of others and learn. Each paper garland I offer today, is not my original idea. Only the final results are truly my spin…

The past week of snowy days gave me time to turn my attention to crafts at my dining table, a particular favourite pass time of mine. Spring is a busy month in our home full of family birthdays, my own and Mothers Day only ever a few days apart. Many springtimes ago, I recall Mr M venturing away on a (boys) skiing holiday encompassing both my memorable dates, without me and little children. You see, I have my moments. He had left detailed instructions with the then five-year old Little Miss, that she should upon waking, creep down the stairs, unlock the back door and run down the garden and pick a large bunch of daffodils. She was told to do so quietly and come back and present them to Mummy for her special days. All alone, and all without a grown up present. Imagine my surprise when way before sunrise on the first of my special days, I heard a little girls frustration at a key which wouldn’t turn in its lock and tears of sadness that her Daddy’s plan couldn’t work.

As well as heart warming daffodils, part of our home decor in Spring usually includes a paper flower garland somewhere along the way. This year I took my inspiration from many beautiful Instagram and Pinterest posts being careful to be simply inspired. This rustic star paper garland was made at Christmas, from a very old book Mr M found in a skip, which you saw me using for a craft project here once before. Though not traditionally a spring shape, it’s formed the basis for Doris‘ springtime look…

I enjoyed creating the star garland, although it took a while waiting for the glue to dry and as we all know by now, I am not so great at waiting. So I decided to try out my limited sewing skills for the next paper flower garland. I turned my attention to Pinterest for a tutorial, this one was particularly coherent and showed how to create a thin line of stitching between each pretty on the garland. Out came the sewing machine for firstly flowers, using old cardstock in the craft cupboard. I experimented several ways. What I did learn is you either need double-sided card or the time and patience to place two pieces of card back to back before you sew. If not, you’ll have white card showing as your paper garland moves around.

Next it was the turn of the traditional heart shape. I do love a heart. These miniature hearts created my favourite garland, however they took an age to punch out, stitch and fan out the shapes. Beautiful and wonderful impact, if you have a little more patience than I…

These larger hearts however, totally worked for me. I made them from coffee filter papers originally bought to make a beautiful paper wreath…turns out the wreath didn’t look so beautiful after all and I had a fair few filters left over. To make this garland, I created a heart template again from old card stock and then folded each filter over double thereby creating a greater number of hearts cut out in one go. Three hearts stitched together gives you the six-sided heart. Simply fan them out, and hey presto…

On this occasion I determined less is not more and Doris is currently wearing all the paper flower garlands with twinkle lights and my best scarf. And I think she looks rather fetching in her spring collection don’t you?

I am full of hope that I stuck by Wole Soyinka’s creative learning idea and each finished paper garland was inspired by others and not simply copied.

And as nice as it was, the snow has melted now and snowy craft days have come to an end. The sun is squeezing its way through clouds and the birds have become the first welcome sound of my morning, so springtime must truly be on its way. In other news, we are about to embark on a pretty hefty room makeover on a very tight budget which I will be sharing with you in the coming weeks. And we hope to be making a start very soon on new garden plans which I am very much looking forward to after such a long hibernation. Whatever your week brings, I do hope it’s a happy one for you all and as ever, thank you for joining me today x