Recycled Magazine Garland

At the charity shop where I volunteer, we were recently discussing a Christmas-themed window display. The manager, Ann, wanted a red and white Scandinavian-inspired theme! I decided to make this red and white garland from old magazines to put in the display.

 
Being a charity shop, there's no money to spare for buying decorations for the window displays--we have to rely on donations. So this project was a great way to add to the display, for free!

This is so simple to make that it doesn't need a full tutorial:

1. Cut out shapes from magazines (use a stencil or do it freehand)
2. Make two small holes in the top of each shape using a pin + blu-tack
3. Thread shapes onto cord/cotton/embroidery floss (if using cotton and a needle you can skip step 2!) and tie a loop in each end for hanging.

I went through a huge stack of magazines that I'd been hoarding, and hunted down every red, white and red & white pages! My stencils were printed from Photoshop (I used the custom shape tool) and my hands got a good workout with all the drawing and cutting! I ended up threading the shapes onto clear elastic from my stash, because I don't use it for anything!

Here's a shot of the garland hanging in the window. Unfortunately there is always a lot of glare on the window so this is the best I could get!

I will soon be sharing another project that I made for the window display, plus some pictures of the completed display itself :)