Garland on your Fireplace Mantle

So after many late nights my Christmas is up.  Hubby likes to say it looks like a forest in our family room because of all the green but I love it!  After putting up my garland I thought hey here's my next post.  Tips on keeping your garland on the fireplace mantle.

1.  Getting your Garland to stay on the mantle:  The first step is to put some very small nails in the back of the mantle on both ends.  Take a wrapped floral wire (wrapped is much easier to work with and will not scratch the wood like plain wire can) and slightly bend it in half.  This will make it easier to feed an end over and under the garland.  Start at the front of the garland letting the ends poke through towards the nail.  Once you have it through pull it as tight as you want.  My garland is sitting about in the middle of my mantle.  If you have items you want to put in front of the garland pull it tight towards the back to make room.   Once the garland is in the desired place start wrapping the ends around the nail.  You'll notice my garland lays across the mantle instead of dipping in the middle.  I added a third nail in the middle back part of my mantle to make sure my garland didn't slip off.

2.  Getting your stockings to also stay on the mantle:  The question I hear quite a bit is, "How do you get your stocking holders to stay on the mantle when you have kids?"  Two answers depending on the stocking holder.  Floral wire or duct tape.  (Duct tape fixes everything!)  With my stocking holders I  used a floral wrapped wire and secured it to the garland.  That way if little hands get grabby the stocking holders stay in place since you have already wired the garland to your mantle!  If you have stocking holders that lay flat on top of your mantle, just place a piece of duct tape across the top.  Your garland will hide the tape.  I also like to stuff a few pieces of tissue paper into my stockings so they look full.

 3.  Decorate:  I decorate the garland after it and the stocking holders are securely placed.  This way I am sure to get the ribbon and ornaments where I will be able to see them.  If you are adding glass ornaments you will want to remove them before you store your garland so they don't break.  When adding ribbon I like to go back and forth across the front of the garland so it does not have just a straight line of ribbon.

My garland has a bow on either end.  When I decorate a garland that dips in the middle down off the mantle I like to add a bow in the center.  

I like to add in a little something unexpected in my wreaths and garlands hence the Mark Roberts fairy in the center of my garland.

An easy way to store your garlands at the end of the season is in the large storage bins with lids you can buy at Walmart, Target or the Container Store.  These are large enough to hold 2 and sometimes 3 garlands without needing to really squish them and the lid will keep the dust off.  The best way to store your bow each year is to remove it from your garland, place scrunched up tissue paper in each loop then place either in it's own bin or on top of the garland in it's bin.