Out with the Old--Garland Tutorial

My house always looks so drab after I take down Christmas decorations, so this year I made a little New Year's garland to add some spark.

It was so fun to do and cleared out some of the old to make way for the new. It's kind of an anything goes project, but here's how I did it.

I started with a very ugly painting exercise (maybe to see how many garish colors I could put in one piece?) I had done on watercolor paper. I kept thinking I'd repaint it, but it was better to get rid of it. On top of it, I free wrote thoughts about what I wanted for the new year.

I punched 2" circles out of that and punched smaller circles and shapes out of other old projects.
I wrote some guiding words for the year on another old painting and tore them into pieces. And cut a pile of silk and velvet fabric scraps.

I built little piles on the 2" circles and anchored them with scribbly free-motion stitching.

Then attached two circles together back-to-back and did more scribbly stitching to hold them together.
And finally I chain stitched them all together into garlands. I like the additional scribbly lines that the loose threads add, so I didn't trim anything.

They were very addicting to make and got rid of some ugly past at the same time.