It’s week two of the Halloween Blog Party with AK Shopgirl and Tessie Style Blog. This week’s theme is “Woodland Creatures.”  We’ll be featuring crafts, costumes, decorations, cocktails and music mixes that represent the fairies, flora and fauna of the forest.

Earlier this week I posted a video tutorial on how to make a fresh flower crown. I’m kicking it up a notch today with a fresh garland to decorate your woodland creatures party or to spruce up your mantle. No video for this tutorial, but I encourage you to watch the time-lapse flower crown tutorial as the technique is similar.

DIY Fresh Garland

Here’s what you’ll need:

• About four feet of twine
• floral wire (available at crafts stores)
• Fresh greens such as salal, plumosa ferns and eucalyptus
• Scissors
• Wire cutters

Directions:

Cut the wire into 8-inch pieces. You’ll need quite a few of them, but I usually cut about 5 at a time.  Cut the greens into 8-inch lengths, leaving two inches of bare stem at the ends.

Cluster the greens together into small bunches and wrap a piece of wire tightly around the base of the greens, keeping the twine in the back.

Make another cluster of greens and place it just below the wired cluster, covering the stem and wire. Wire this cluster to the twine in the same way.

Continue making clusters of greens and wiring them on top of the previous clusters, slowly working your way down the length of twine.

You can make your garland as long as you’d like. When you reach the end of the garland, try wiring a cluster the opposite way so it covers up the last bit of stems.

You can of course include fresh flowers in your garland and even pine cones. With pine cones, just take a 12-inch length of wire and tuck it around the base of the cone. The wire is then used like a stem and can be incorporated into a cluster of greens.

Be sure to check out last week’s “Where the Wild Things Are” posts from AK Shopgirl and Tessie Style Blog. They are positively darling!