DIY Circle Garland

I was telling my friend that I'd been looking all over etsy for circle garlands for Olive's nursery and was having a hard time finding what I wanted.  She encouraged me to try to make what I wanted out of paper instead of fabric.  Genius!  I'm not sure why I didn't think of that but I'm sure glad she gave me the encouragement to jump in and make what I wanted. 

To DIY Your own circle garland:

You'll need colored paper - I used colored printer paper.

Elmer's glue sticks

Oversized circle hole punch

twine to match

 Punch out a gazillion circles...

well maybe not a gazillion but keep punching until you feel like you are done.  I punched a bunch, assembled and then kept punching until my strand was long enough.  My hole punch was 1 3/8" and it was perfect for the look I was going for.  I've seen some garlands with circles of varying sizes.  Just do what works best for you and your project.

 Put glue all over one circle, place the twine in the middle and then put another circle on top.  Don't cut the twine until you are 100% done so you can keep growing your garland and aren't limited by a piece of string that is too short.  Leave long "tails" of twine on each end of your garland so that you have plenty to work with when you go to hang the garland.  I left about 16 inches on each end circle free so I could hang easily hang it from the ceiling.

 Be sure to have plenty of paper because each circle takes two circles - a front and a back to stick on the twine.  I chose to leave no space in between my circles but you definitely could let the twine shine through.

 I used about 12 sheets of paper and punches as many circles as possible from each.  My punch worked fine if I did two or three sheets at a time.  Be sure to have more than enough paper and punch wisely because it really does take a lot of circles to make it happen.  I let it dry overnight and then hung it in the nursery.  It took less than an hour to do a strand that was about 10 feet long so I'm already thinking about other things I could do a circle garland for... our Christmas tree, birthday parties, holiday decorations, etc.  There are so many options!

Check back in a few days to see how I used the circle garland in Olive's nursery!  I'm head over heels for how it turned out!!

 

WARNING:

Your furry friends will go NUTS for this project.  I basically had to defend my garland with my life to keep it in tact from my cats.  Adorable, devilish little guys.