Butterfly Garland

My little girl turns two this weekend!!  Time goes by WAY too fast!  Since I’m a working mom, I spent the past weekend getting a head start on the decorations.  {{I figured since it could easily double as spring décor that it wasn’t bad to put it up early! =) }}  It was a super simple project that cost me absolutely nothing since I already had all of the materials…love that!

Start off by finding  a bunch of coordinating papers to fit your color scheme.

Since my garland would be seen from both sides, I decided to glue two sheets of cardstock together (patterns on the outside).  After this dries, you’re ready for your next step.  {{Towards the beginning of my project I began to think that it would have been much easier to buy double sided paper but I stuck firm to using what I had!}}

Using my Sure Cuts A Lot 2 program and my Cricut, I cut out butterflies and flowers using my glued double sided scrapbook paper.  I made sure that my images had  punches on them so that my Cricut would cut the holes and I wouldn’t have to punch them later…..definitely saved a lot of time!  Also, if you’re using a Cricut to cut heavy paper, you’ll need to change your pressure to max and your blade depth to 5 or 6.  {{Also, if you’re interested in creating this project and have Sure Cuts A Lot 2, email me and I would  be thrilled to email you my files.}}

After all of my flowers and butterflies were cut out, I strung them using twine.  The twine worked really well because my cut outs didn’t slide at all!  If you look closely you can see where I tied each section.  I alternated butterflies and flowers with 6 on each strand of twine.  Then, I began to tie the stands of 6 together.  I decided to leave my tied pieces long because I liked the look.

I made A LOT of garland…it is strung from my kitchen all the way into my living room.  I will definitely be saving this project…perhaps it will be my spring mantle decoration next year! =)