{Adventures In} DIY Fabric Garland {tutorial}

Otherwise known as, That Shi*t Fray. (See what I did there?)  Anywho, everyone familiar with these gorgeous fabric banners? 

source Ok good. They are super simple to make - it just takes some time. And a whole lot of patience. As you all know, I am planning my best friend's purple ombre' bridal shower (which is in 3 weeks...eeek!). One of the design elements that I desperately wanted was a fabric garland, like the one above. The perfect place for this beauty will be in front of the fireplace. Only problem is, my friend's fireplace is MASSIVE. Like 6 1/2 feet of marble, MASSIVE. So, in order for the garland to not be completely eaten up by this fireplace, it needs to be massive as well.  Items Needed: Fabric. I bought 3 different colors of fabric, 2 yards each. I thought I was over-buying at the time. Ha. Twine. It depends on how you want to display the garland. I chose a thicker twine knowing that my garland would be heavy. You can use a thinner twine or a 1 inch thick piece of left over fabric.  Self-healing mat. Rotary cutter. These are nice to haves. You can certainly just cut 2 inch strips with scissors.  Step 1: Cut strips. The mantel alone is 22 inches tall, so I wanted my strips to be close to that. I cut my strips to be 18 inches long, but remember the fabric comes folded over in half, so your strips will be 36 inches, total. Be prepared for the strips to fray (more on that later).

Step 2: Assemble.  Place strip of fabric behind twine with the folded over part of the fabric at the top.

Take the bottom of the 2 strips and pull them above the twine (this will create a loop), through the top of the strip and back down again. 

Pull tight.

  Voila!! Lather, rinse, repeat. Like a billion times.  So after a couple hours spent, I figured I was done. Or so I thought. Remember how I mentioned that the fabric will fray? (You can actually start to see it fray in the picture above.) Imagine that X's 100. (In hindsight, I should have taken a picture of it, but I was too concerned with getting rid of the fray, I forgot. #blogfail) So I took the scissors and cut each piece of fray. On Every. Single. Piece. Of. Fabric. It took twice as long to cut the fray off as it was to actually make the thing. Had I bought better quality fabric, this may not have happened, I'm not sure. Just be prepared. So, do you want to see the final product? 

and a close up. 

Still some fray, but not NEARLY as bad 

I love how it turned out. Baby K will definitely have one on her 1st birthday, just not 7 feet long. :)