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Here’s some tips for how to make realistic faux garland for Christmas time. Year over year using realistic faux garland will save you money if you can’t cut real greenery from your backyard. And you can use it anywhere in your home.
During the Christmas season I always love using real garland in my home and outside. I love that real garland smells wonderful, is more sustainable and I don’t have to store it. However, year after year, that can get so costly. The local store where I buy it charges $70 for 25 feet. So even for just two pieces, that’s a big investment year over year.
We don’t have any evergreen type trees on our property for me to make my own, or I would. All we have are our sugar maples and a few small boxwoods that are much too small for me to trim from.
To help cut costs each Christmas season, I’ve decided to embrace realistic faux garland for some places for our home. In doing that, I wanted to share a few ways that I’m making faux garland look real. Will this help you save money this year? Likely not because let’s face it, good quality realistic faux greenery isn’t cheap. However, year 2, 3, 4 and so on you won’t have to spend that money again.
Start with a base piece
When trying to achieve a realistic faux greenery look, I always find it easiest to start with one base piece of garland to give myself a foundation. This year I used two pieces of this garland {HERE} from Afloral, which is generally my favorite place to shop for faux and dried greenery. on the fireplace and one less expensive piece from Amazon {HERE}.
I can say that the Amazon one isn’t the best quality in terms of build. Piece of it kept falling off. But I’ve remedied that by supergluing them back on. I do enjoy the way the Amazon stems drape and that fact that they’re two-toned, which is more how real evergreen will look at a distance. In this case, it is my very bottom piece of garland and you can see it sticking out by the bells.
That said, as with anything, the higher the cost, generally the better the quality. I have found that more expensive faux greenery looks better and wears better. But, you have to buy it really early in the season.
Do they all have to be expensive pieces? No. Half of my stems are from craft stores. BUT, a few higher end pieces will make it look better.
Use a variety of different types of realistic faux greenery
Think of yourself as a florist building a wedding arrangement and think about how many different types of foliage are in an arrangement to make it look beautiful. You want to use the same approach when building realistic faux garland for Christmas, or any season really. In this case, I used everything from faux olive tree branches to crab apple, eucalyptus and more. I included the lighter leaves (I’m not fully sure what that’s suppose to be. Maybe Dusty Miller?), to break up the darker shades of greenery.
Cut apart any overly large pieces of greenery
When building a flower arrangement or any kind of table arrangement, you usually will build stem by stem. So when several stems you like are bound together in a mini arrangement, take them apart to make them easier to work with them. I’ll even cut single stems apart to give myself smaller pieces. This makes them easier to layer them and slide into empty spaces within the main base piece.
Use matte spray paint to de-shine
A lot of times faux greenery is very shiny. To achieve a more realistic faux garland look, spray paint those pieces with a clear, matte spray paint. Use a light coat and immediately set it somewhere to dry. Using too much can cause the paint to eat away at the color on the arrangement. Also, I find this works best on things with large leaves or berries. I used this trick on these faux crabapple berries here and you can really tell the difference in the shine.
Layer for impact
When building any arrangement, it’s all about how the stems you’ve chosen are showcased together that makes the biggest impact. In the case of building realistic faux garland for the holidays, you should layer pieces to make them feel more unique, add interest and make it feel like it was hand gathered.
Slide in some real stems
Wait…wasn’t this supposed to be about using faux greenery? Yes, yes it was. However, I can buy a bundle of real pine stems for $10 (at that same place) and then I get the real pine smell with the beautiful ambiance at a reduced cost. Additionally, I really love the way real stems will fall as they dry and on places like the fireplace. Once they dry (and they always do before the holiday) they tend to drape beautifully and should fit seamlessly with realistic faux garland.
Looking for more Christmas decor ideas?
If you’re looking for additional Christmas decor for the season, try these beautiful ideas.
Simple Christmas Living Room Decor {HERE}
DIY Rusty Vintage Ornaments {HERE}
Paper Bag Stars {HERE}
Sheet Music Christmas Signs {HERE}
How to make dried orange slices {HERE}
Thank you so much for visiting today friends! I hope that you enjoyed these tips for making realistic faux garland and that you come back to visit again.
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