I admit it. I have become full on obsessed with felt garlands and have one for almost every holiday. Thanksgiving was lacking however, so I took the opportunity to create an easy DIY garland for the day. It is going to go above my bar cart for when I host Thanksgiving dinner this year. The best thing about this easy DIY garland tutorial for Thanksgiving is that you can use the same technique to spell out any phrase in any color palette you want! And these aren’t just cut felt letters, they are puffy stuffed letters that look super cute all strung up!
Supplies needed to make your own easy DIY garland:
- Felt Sheets (In your choice of colors)
- FiberfillÂ
- Hot Glue Gun
- Pliers
- Scissors
- Baker’s Twine
- Upholstery Needle
- Pen
Begin by deciding on your phrase for your easy DIY garland and sketching out your letters on the felt using the pen. If you can’t free hand it, feel free to print out giant bubble letters on paper and then cut and trace them onto the felt. Or if you have a cricut maker, you can cut the letters out of the felt with the machine instead. However you cut them, you need each letter to be approximately 5″ or larger so that you can stuff the letters.
Once you have the letters drawn out, cut them out with your scissors. You will need to cut two of each letter to create the puffy letters.
Next, you will want to hot glue the two letters together around the edges to create a fillable letter. I found the best way for this to work was to glue together half the letter first, then stuff that section. Once that was stuffed, I glued together the other half, leaving a small opening to use to stuff the letter and stuffed that with the fiberfill. At the end, I put a dab of glue at the remaining opening, then used the pliers to grip the felt and pinch it closed.
As you can see above, I glued the first half of the H, and stuffed that side. Then I glued the other half and left an opening on the side so that I could stuff the second half of the H.
Once you have all your letters stuffed, thread the baker’s twine on the needle. Then sew the letters onto the garland. Tie a loop on each end of the baker’s twine and use that to string up your garland.
Now I will say that these letters took about 1.5 hours to make. So if you are looking for a quicker way to make something similar, just forgo the stuffing and glue the letters together completely. Then thread them on to the twine. But I personally love the puffy aspect of this easy DIY garland!
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Kara is the owner and designer of Kailo Chic. She loves all things bright, colorful, and patterned. Kara also loves interior design, DIY projects, designing new accessories, gardening, and cooking. A Kailo Chic Life features all of these passions.
These would be fun to sew, too! (I’m on a hand-stitching kick, lol!) Such an easy way to add some fall color to a room!