DIY Fall Leaf Garland

Leaves, leaves, leaves!! Don’t we just love the changing color of the leaves!? I just can’t get enough of the changing falling leaves!! I t makes me giddy!

So, with the love of fall leaves the kids and I took an afternoon at the park and collected all the pretty leaves we could find!! We couldn’t stop ourselves! I was just loving the oak leaves so much, I kept grabbing them all up, that’s when I got the idea to try and make my own garland!

Get Leaves.. Lots of Leaves

We gathered a lot of leaves, I mean a whole bunch! Rob was thrilled to find a whole minivan filled with leaves! 😉 I took them in the house and let them sit in water for a day. I did this for two reasons, to get any dirt, and bugs off of them. And two, the drier the leaves are, the more brittle and harder to mod podge.

Preserve The Leaves

I sorted through the leaves and started to mod podge, while they were still a bit damp. It is a lot easier to do this with the damp leaves then it is when they are dry. If yours are a bit dry, I would suggest running them under the water. Applying mod podge to the front and the back of each leaf, and then let dry over night.

After the leaves were dry, I ran to hobby lobby and found grapevine wire, and floral tape both in the floral area. I ended up using brown floral tape instead of the green pictured, because it matched the stems and the grapevine wire better.

Make the garland

Using the floral wire, I attached the leaves to the grapevine wire. Wrapping the stem of the leave to the wire and making sure it was tight. From there I taped them on one by one, playing around with each leaf to make sure it layed the correct way. If I felt like the stem was to brittle or maybe cracked a little from me wrapping, I added a drop of hot glue just to give it a little more support.

Hang Your Garland

Once I was done I decided to take a sharpie and , add some of our best memories in 2020. Since, I was making this garland for thanksgiving decor it was my way of looking back on the year and feeling thankful for all of the amazing things that happened in our home. The best part… if any of the leaves don’t make it through the years I can just replace with new leaves!😀

Now… I get to sit back and enjoy it, remembering memories through the year. The best part, a few hours spread out through the week, and under $10 I have a beautiful garland like no other!!