DIY Glitter Circle Garland

This is the first year we're setting up a Christmas tree with a very curious toddler in the house.  Last year was technically Knox's first Christmas but he was too tiny to do much more than sit in my lap and stare at the pretty lights.  This year is a whole other story.  He is super curious and endlessly fascinated with anything I tell him not to touch.  I debated setting up a table top tree out of his reach but decided instead that I'd rather get our normal 7' tree and just make some changes to the way I decorate it.

I seem to be the only person on the planet who hasn't yet made the transition to shatter-proof ornaments.  All of my ornaments are glass and many I inherited from my grandmother.  Heirloom ornaments + curious toddler = asking for trouble.   So this year (and probably the next few years!) I'm leaving the glass ornaments in storage and trying instead to decorate the tree with no/low cost, largely disposable craft ornaments.  Things I could make cheaply and easily and that I wouldn't care if they got pulled off the tree by curious little hands.

Over the next few days I'll be sharing some of these DIY crafted ornaments.  First up - a pretty, and super easy glittery dot garland that I made after seeing this one.

 

I made a glittered "Merry Christmas" garland here for our family pictures but I didn't want to get into the whole glue, glitter sprinkling, cleaning glitter endlessly thing again so instead I used some 12x12 glittered scrapbooking paper that I had.  You can find these in a bunch of colors in the scrapbooking section of Michael's and AC Moore.

I used my Fiskar's XL circle punch to punch out roughly 30 circles from each 12x12 sheet.  I had roughly 90 dots total which made me about a 15' garland.

Squeezing out all those dots is the hardest part.  Once you've got them, just sew them together! 

It goes really fast!  Just put each dot up against the last one and run a continuous stitch.

 

I was able to sew the entire garland this way in under 10 minutes. 

I really love the way it looks on the tree, all nestled into the branches. 

 

You could make this garland for $0 if you used paint chips in some cute colors instead of the glittered paper.  I think that would be adorable for a party and you could customize the color palette however you wanted!  Must remember that for future party decor.

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