Don’t you just love garlands?!? They make any space pop; however, if you use real greenery, the life of your garland is short lived and if you buy faux then be prepared to spend more money than what it would have cost you to buy real greenery and make it yourself. ORRRR… you could make paper greenery for a fraction of the cost AND it will last forever! Black thumb people unite!
This was my first time using floral crepe paper, and I am totally impressed with how real my greenery looks. My husband even thought it was real. I purchased the floral crepe paper by Lia Griffith through Amazon. You can buy just the green paper HERE, but I opted for the assorted color pack HERE because I plan to make flowers as well. This paper is amazing and different from regular crepe paper. It’s not as flimsy and the colors are perfect for flower and greenery making.
With this being my first time using this paper, I wanted to try something easier than 3 dimensional flowers, so I made English Ivy vines and a eucalyptus garland. The paper is durable and great to work with. I am in love.
If you are not sure how big to make the leaves, you can download my free printable leaf template HERE.
Now let’s talk materials.
Eucalyptus Garland Materials:
Green floral crepe paper
Scissors
Scotch tape
Ivy Materials:
Green floral crepe paper
Scissors
Cloth stem wire
Scotch tape
Once you have all your supplies gathered follow the below instructions. Please note, these instructions pertain to both types of greenery.
Step 1: Cut out the leaves using the scissors and my free printable leaf template HERE.
For the eucalyptus garland, I cutout approximately 75-100 leaves, making the garland about 7 feet in total, but the amount you need will vary on the length of garland you want and how much you overlap the leaves. For the ivy, I used between 15-20 leaves per wire stem.
Tip: to speed the process up, I folded the crepe paper over several times to cut out a lot of leaves at one time. You can also buy an ivy leaf cutout, but I didn’t want to spend the money.
Step 2 (ivy): Once you have all the leaves cut out you will tape the larger ivy leaves to the top of the wire stem and use the smaller leaves at the bottom. I overlapped the leaves in some places and spaced them out in others. There was no method to this, I simple eyed it for what I thought looked best.
Note: I highly recommend you use scotch tape and not floral tape or glue. I tried using floral tape (as you can see in the above picture) and the leaves kept falling off. I ended up using scotch tape to secure them and they have held up since. Its been over a month! 👏
Step 2 (eucalyptus): After you have all your leaves, start the garland by overlapping two leaves and taping them together where they overlap. Continue this until you have reached the desired garland length.
Note: If you want to ensure that the garland stays intact, I would recommend sewing the leaves together if you do not want to use scotch tape. I used a glue stick at first and the garland came apart.
Step 3: Gently crinkle the ends of the leaves to give them volume and that authentic look.
Step 5: Hang your garland and/or ivy vines!
Both projects took about an hour and a half to complete, but I’m ok with that, because I know these greens will never lose their color or die.
I really love the color of this paper. The greenery look so real! Plus I can add seasonal flowers to the eucalyptus garland to use it year round.
Well friends, that’s it for this post. I hope you found it inspiring. If you plan to make this or use my template I would love to know what you think! You can also come say hi or message me on Instagram @acarriedaffairdesigns
Until next time. Xo
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