ten garlands in ten day: amaranth blossoms

I found a jar of amaranth tea at an asian market in Los Angeles (well...more like blossoms, not tea but it was in the tea section). The jar was pretty as were the dried blossoms inside and I scooped it up lickety split! When I was planning this garland-fest, I thought the blossoms would look extra pretty all strung up on strng and so I grabbed a needle and thin silver thread (found at my fabric store) and whiiped up this bit of pretty. 

 You could probably use any sturdy dried blossom for this. Even the the amarath blossoms were pretty sturdy, I still managed to decimate a handful while jabbng a pointy needle into them.

I also brewed a cup of tea. Even without any sense of smell it was delightful with a smidgey-smidge of honey! It's also good for you! 

You can find amaranth tea or blossoms or even blossoming tea online. Enjoy! 

ten garlands in ten days: bead easy

This garland is super simple yet packs a colorful punch! The best part is it can be done while chilling out witha favorite flick or handed over to your kiddos to do. 

Mostly made of plastic pony beads, this garland uses yarn to string on along with a darning needle that has a large eye. If you use embroidery floss instead, you'll probably be able to use more beads froma bucket assortment. I picked up my bucket of beads many years ago from Michael's.

So, dump your beads into a bowl or tray, grab a length of yarn or embroidery floss, a needle with a large eye and get to it! You might need a needle threader to get the yarn onto the needle. I used a scrap piece of paper in lieu of a threader (kinda like this). If your a doing this with a child (older than four please) a shoelace might make a better bet and stick with large pony beads. 

ten garlands in ten days: paper hearts

This is simply an assortment of hearts punched from scrapbook paper. I used three differents sized punches and a handful of papers. If your paper is not double sided, join up two hearts back to back before carefully feeding them into your sewing machine. I use a simple straight/running stitch set on 2 for length. I have no idea what my tension is but I do know if I go too fast and leave too much of a gap between the shapes my thread gets all knotted through the needle and bobbin. This is super easy to make but the longer you want it to be, the slower going it may be. Enjoy! 

ten garlands in ten days: fingerprint hearts

This happy garland can be easily be made in a day. All you need is sturdy white paper, ink pads, scissors, yarn, glue, and a paper trim punch. 

Create fingerprint hearts by pressing your finger into an inkpad and then stamping your fingerprint onto white paper. Overlap and position the second print to create a heart shape. I used my thumb for this part. Use scissors to trim hearts into rectangles and scallop the bottom using a paper punch. Trim sides to your preference and get read to galrand it all up.

Fold over the top part of each flag just enough to hold your yarn. Arrange flags face down and add your glue. Nudge a long length of yarn onto each flag, making sure it is hugging the glue and wait for it to dry.

Once dry, trim yarn ends, add loops and hang in a happy space! Enjoy! 

ten garlands in ten days: more newspaper hearts

This easy garland is the byproduct of yeaterday's garland. All you need to do is to trim the heart punched newspaper into smallish squares or rectangles and then stitch them together using a sewing machine. 

I love all the neon and black on the newspaper. Love it! 

ten garlands in ten days: hearts all o' cluster

Being quite fond of the wonder that is the garland, I thought it was time for me to revisit ten garlands in ten days. I had meant to begin this a few days ago, ending on Valentine's Day but I simply dropped the ball. All but one of the garlands is already made and so I hope you enjoy them! 

This cluster garland was created by stitching painted newspaper hearts together, with various lengths of garland stemming from the top heart. I'll show ya how! 

Grap a sheet of newspaper and some happy neon paint. Drizzle, drip and blob your paint onto the newspaper. Fold in half and rub like ya did in kindergarten when you made blobby butterflies. If yer newspaper is too wet it will rip so gentle is the key. Open gently and allow to dry. 

Once dry, either hand cut or paper punch out your heart shapes. I used a large heart punch makign the hearts about an inch and half tall.

Bring to your sewing machine and stitch together with a short stitch, ten hearts. Gather up eight hearts and chain them together using the top heart of the first row. Next, gather six or seven and also stitch those in a row to the top heart. Your top heart will be covered in stitches with your various chains dangling below. 

Hang in a happy place and go paint more newspaper to make more! My next batch will have paint on both sides of the heart! **

**I'll take a picture of the top heart so you can see better soon!