This holiday season, J and I decided to keep things simple and not get a big Christmas tree. It was a hard decision, because I love a good tree to light up the living room, but we will be out of town for a week in December and our apartment is so small there really isn’t a great place for one to go anyways. So we are using my old Charlie Brown tree that I bought in college when our crammed 600-square foot four-bedroom apartment needed a little holiday cheer:
It will do for us this year. But after setting it up, it was a little depressing how just a corner had twinkle lights and the rest of our home was dark. So I decided to improvise and create a space-saving way to light up on our home with some DIY holiday garland.
It was the easiest project. To make it you’ll need fabric or ribbons, scissors, and a string of LED lights. If you’re wondering, are LED strip lights possible to cut? Yes – it is possible to cut LED strip lights (12 foot strand is perfect). Then, cut your ribbon or fabric to about 5 to 8 inches, depending on how long you prefer.
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If you’re working with vinyl, you can find the best silhouette cameo bundle here. Tie the ribbon around the string of lights, about five or six ribbons between each bulb. (Note: it helps immensely if you are watching a Christmas moving on TV while you are cutting and tying. I was watching Home Alone.:) Then hang and enjoy!
I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. I wanted a little more modern look, so I chose green, red, pink, silver, blue and gold ribbon. It was such an easy way to bring more holiday cheer to our small home, and perhaps one day when we have a fireplace it can grace the mantle. The whole project cost me $8 — $3 for the string of lights and $5 for the six spools of ribbon.
Are you getting a Christmas tree this year?
Do you decorate your home with garland?
What affordable ideas do you have for decorating your home this season?
love it! I cannot wait to start decorating for Christmas. I’ve been telling myself all week it starts on Saturday :) and I’ve been thinking about garland ideas, thanks!
I LOVE this! I’m definitely going to do this.
Cute! We actually have a fake tree… *gasp* I know, I would love to do a real tree, but they are so expensive and we got tree for FREE! So we will use it for now, and it makes it pretty simple to get it out of the attic and set it up. We decorated last Saturday/Sunday :-)
I absolutely love this. so simple. Love your site. Visiting from “A Peaceful Crib” Community! :-) http://www.thoughtsofachristiangirl.com
Thank you so much for sharing this DIY! I have a good long green cabled light string that I’ve been sick of for years but can’t bring myself to throw away and replace. It just seems such a waste, but I hate the dark green (I don’t usually get a tree) against my white walls. I do just love pinning the lights around the wall and I leave them up until the evenings get shorter! I just love fairy lights :) I will be putting this into practice :)
We’re not celebrating christmas together this year, so we wont be having a christmas tree. But we are going to decorate the apartment with some decorations to get into the christmas-mood. Loving the homemade christmas garland! Lovely idea!
Ginna – I’m doing some Christmas crafts this week and I just wanted to let you know that I googled “DIY ribbon light garland” yesterday and your website was the first one to pop up! I clicked on your page and not soon after going through your blog, I realized that you’re a friend of Allison’s! I went to ASU and attended a couple of bible study sessions with Allison and recognized you from some of her instagram pics. I thought that was so random that I had to share! My ribbon garland looks awesome, btw. :-)
Haha that’s so crazy! What a small world! Allison and I have been friends for forever. :) Glad your ribbon garland turned out — that’s also crazy it’s the first one to pop up. :)