¡Fiesta garland!

Why not make garlands for your next party?

These make a great back drop for your food / bar / cake table, or your photo booth. If you're having an outdoor party the options are limitless, adding plenty of colour and atmosphere.

Go a little more glam and this is a great addition for your DIY wedding - just pick out your wedding theme colours and away you go...

A lot of people are making these in tissue, but I wanted durability and bold colour, so I've started making one in a mix of chiffon, satin and gold lamè...

I probably don't need to point out how super simple this is... what better party project, right? Simple and affordable - but plenty of impact.

What you need for a 5m garland:

a colour theme - in my case a combo of off white, teals, gold, peach and scarlet.
about a metre / yard of chiffon in each of your colours
another metre of lamé for metallic gold or silver
matching threads (I used DMC embroidery thread)
Gold (or colour of your choice) cord - 5 to 10 metres, depending on how long you want your
pinking sheers

So why chiffon? Well, it's a little elegant isn't it?

But more to the point, it's perfect for this project because:

it's light and blows prettily in the breeze, but also, easier to string up without super duty hooks and nails...
it's double sided, so no ugly underside showing as you roll up your tassels
it's readily available in stacks of amazing colours
and it's always available at a really good price!

I also threw in a little cream satin, because I happened to have some kicking around in the right colour.

Frankly, the lamé added serious bling - well worth the higher price tag.

Getting Started

First determine how long you want your garland to be. I went for 5 metres of "actual" garland and spaced my tassels about 10-15cm apart.

I also decided that i would make some tassels about 25cm long, some 30cm and some 35cm, with each tassel "string" about 2cm wide.

I then worked out which coloured tassels I wanted where, so I knew how many tassels I would need in each colour.

To make each tassel, cut your fabric into panels 50-70cm long (ie double your final tassel length) by around 30cm wide, using your pinking sheers.

Using pinking sheers = pretty + no loose threads + no fraying tassels.

To make your tassel "strings" you're going to cut in from the top and bottom edges, leaving the middle section uncut - as shown in the diagram below:

Then, you roll up your tassel, from left to right to create one long tube... fold it in half and position it over your cord. Tie it securely in place, about 3cm down from the folded point using your DMC thread or cord of choice: