How to make a rustic DIY fabric garland for any season

Hello friends! Today, I am going to share with you all how to make a rustic DIY fabric garland for any season. I did make this cute garland for my Valentine’s Day décor, but you could make this garland and decorate it for any season or holiday. You could add Easter eggs and different colored fabrics to this garland for a beautiful Easter decoration. Making DIY fabric garland is super simple and budget-friendly. Wouldn’t this adorable DIY fabric garland make for a beautiful springtime decoration to hang from a window or door?!

Materials needed:

Flour sacks – you can find these at Walmart in the tea towel section.
Jute rope
brown paper bags
polyfil
hot glue fun & glue sticks
ribbon
red paint
white paint
Antique wax
paint brush
chip brush
scissors

Step 1. Take some paper bags, I used ones I had from Aldi, and cut out the shape of your liking for this garland. For this DIY, I will be using hearts for Valentine’s Day, but feel free to cut out egg shapes for Easter, or stars for the 4^th of July, etc. I freehanded the hearts, but you could always use a pattern to trace onto the paper bags and then cut out. You will need 10 heart, or 10 of whatever you decide to use for this process, cutouts that are the same size. **This will actually make us 5 hearts as you will need a front and back for each heart. I simply cut the bag around the edges so that I had one big square to work with. Then, I folded an edge of the bag over on top of the other edge to make a rectangle shape, then cut that in half to make two squares. Next, I cutout my heart shape from this, which makes 2 heart cutouts since the bag is folded in half. Continue this process with the paper bags until you have 10 cutouts of your choice, which will actually make 5 total hearts/objects as each heart/object will have a front and a back.

Step 2. Place your front heart cutout and back heart cutout on top of each other to make sure they line up evenly. You should have 5 hearts now. **Make sure you have the non-print side of the paper bag showing as the front and back of your hearts. This way any print that was on the paper bag will be on the inside and not visible.

Step 3. Using hot glue, hot glue around the edges of your heart to secure the front and back paper bag cutout hearts together, but be sure to leave a small gap and stuff the hearts with some Poly-fil. After stuffing with some Poly-fil, be sure to use hot glue and glue and gaps left open. Repeat this process for all 5 of your hearts. Allow to dry.

Step 4. Dry brush each heart, front and back, with red chalk paint and allow to dry. To dry brush, I simply dip my dry paint brush into the red chalk paint, swipe some paint off onto a paper bag, and then brush the remainder of the red chalk paint onto the hearts.

Step 5. Use the same technique as in Step 4 and dry brush some white chalk paint onto each heart. Allow to dry.

Step 6. Next, take some textured spray paint, I used Rust-Oleum purchased from Walmart, and spray some onto each heart. *Always be sure to spray this outside or in a well-ventilated area. Allow to dry.

Step 7. Using a piece of thick twine, be sure the piece you cut is long enough for all of your hearts to hang across it equally spaced apart, tie a knot at each end of the twine so we can hang our garland later.

Step 8. Take a flour sack, I purchased mine from Walmart, and coffee dye it. To coffee dye, simply soak the flour sack in coffee for about 5-10 minutes and then allow to dry completely.

Step 9. Take the coffee dyed flour sacks (I believe I used 2 whole flour sacks for this project), and cut small indents, about an inch or so apart for thickness, at one end of each of the flour sacks. Then, take the end of the flour sacks where you have made small indents and rip it across. This will give you multiple strands/pieces of coffee dyed flour sacks to tie onto the garland later.

Step 10. Cut 5 pieces/strands of the thick twine (one longer piece, then a shorter piece, then a long piece, etc. so that your 5 pieces of thick twine to hang each heart on with are alternating in length). Next, take a long or short piece of twine, just be sure to alternate the height for each of the 5 hearts, and tie it around the top of the garland so each strand of twine hangs down. Hot glue the bottom/end of the strand of twine hanging down from the garland to the back of the heart. Next, use a small square cutout piece of paper bag to hot glue over the twine at the back of the heart to secure/hang the heart onto the strand of twine. Repeat this process for all 5 hearts so that the hearts alternate in height when they are all secured/hung across the garland. Allow to dry.

Step 11. Next, take one of your coffee dyed flour sack strips, fold it in half, and then loop it through the thick twine at the top of the garland and tie it on tightly across the top of the garland. Repeat this process for every strand/piece of coffee dyed flour sack working your way across the entire top of the garland.

Step 12. Take any ribbon of your liking and tie/make 5 simple small bows. Hot glue each small bow over top of the four sack strips going across the very top of your garland. I sort of lined my small bows up so that they would be placed above the top of each piece of twine we used to hang the hearts on with. Allow to dry and enjoy!