What do you do with leftover...

[Rajah]

...garland???

Not the evergreen or metallic stuff, that I could easily figure out something to do with. But the gold bead garlands where the beads are just slightly larger than a pea. I got four tubes of it (Hobby lobby had it in these plastic tubes, but didn't say how much was in each tube!) the other day to wind around our evergreen garland because I wanted to make sure I had enough and it didn't say how much was in each tube. Well, now I have used up *all* the evergreen garland, don't really have anywhere else I want to put evergreen garland this year (not that I could afford more anyway right now), have as much as we want on the tree, and still have about 50 feet of the stuff left over. It doesn't really look good just draped about on its own, but I spent money on the stuff so want to use it...

So...

..any suggestions?

Anyone ever tried making one of those bead-garland miniature Christmas Trees?

 

[Rajah]

No ideas?

 

[Tony-NJ]

We have extra and we have this little Holiday Basket the we put the beeds in along with some very miniature red and green Christmas balls ( left over from decorating our wreath for the front door.

OOO Thats another Idea. We also use some on a wreath that we decorate.

 

[JerseyJanice]

A friend of mine just told me she hangs that type of garland over her windows (she's got some pretty wide windows) and suspends the Christmas cards she receives over it.

3M makes these really cool removable hangers for walls. They use an adhesive that doesn't leave marks when you take them down.

I might buy a few hangers like these (Staples sells them), bead garland, and hang the cards I get. Sounds like a fun idea.

 

[Rajah]

That's an idea, JJ!

I like the wreath idea, but we can't afford a wreath this year. At least not the type I want to get, I don't think -- those are rather expensive, aren't they? Don't the really nice ones run in the $50+ range? I know if I start getting one "expensive" Christmas decoration, I'm going to want more and more and more

 

[piratesmate]

I got more red, wooden bead garland one year than I needed. I had a mason jar that I put the leftovers in. Then I put a square of holiday colored fabric under the zinc, screwed the lid on & put a nice 1/8" ribbon around the lid.

I've never done a mini tree, but I like the window treatment idea too. Maybe you could swag some on your tree?

Let us know what you decide. I'm always looking for ideas.

Deb

 

[Rajah]

SWAGS! Thank you! I've been trying to think of that term for several hours now and it was driving me crazy!

We've already got scallops/swags on the tree, as much of the bead garland as I want to use on the tree.

I think I'm liking the idea of tripling them up to make the three-level swags and hanging those in the window that frames the tree. And if I have enough left over after that (which I might ), I think I'll see how it would look in the window in the room above the tree. I kinda want some lights to put up there, too, but I can't find any more to match the set of crystal ball type lights that we've got. We've only got one strand of those, and that'll be just right for our window that frames the tree. We'll see how everything looks.

If we have enough left over, I like the jar idea! I like that better than the bead garland mini-tree. I don't have enough to fill a full basket, but there's enough for a jar!

Thanks for the great ideas, all! Keep them coming!