How I Made My New Christmas Garland Floral Arrangement

I tend to have a lot of supplies in my crafts stash as I suspect most crafters do and whenever I'm given something or find something that could be re-purposed for a craft later on I tend to save it.  Such was the case with the heavy, clear glass square container that I sponge painted, the Christmas Santa and reindeer floral picks, and large pine-cones I had from my pine-cone adventures year ago. All three are shown in the collage picture above.

The clear glass square container was from a Christmas present one year from decades ago that held fresh Christmas flowers, cranberries and greenery.  After the flowers and greenery had dried I decided to save the heavy square glass container that they had come in.  You never know when a craft supply will be useful so I decided to save it and add it to my stash.

However, the glass container isn't the only item from my craft stash that I've had for decades that I used in this new floral arrangement.  I bought the Santa and reindeer wood floral picks three decades ago from a local plant store and have held on to them for a long time - just waiting for the right application.  I kept them in a container in the basement in my floral crafts work area and often wondered from time to time when I would have the right use for them.

Also, I've had a stash of pine-cones for years from my pine-cone basket adventures and thought they would come in handy here as well.

Well, this month the time finally arrived for all of these craft supplies to be used.  They were perfect for what I had in mind.

I decided that the clear glass square container would look wonderful with some of the Christmas themed artificial greenery sprigs with pine-cone and berry embellishments that I had in my stash.  I had four bushy artificial greenery stems that were 12" - 18" long. As the container was square this would dictate how the greenery arrangement should be shaped.  I decided on a elongated fan type shape coming from the center of the container that would be pleasing from all of the four square sides and would use one bushy artificial greenery sprig on each side.

For the square container above first I added old book page collage papers to it.  Then I painted it with black acrylic paint and added a sponge paint combination of metallic green paint, metallic festive green paint, metallic red paint, and white acrylic paint.

I also decided that a "Merry Christmas" paper-clay medallion on the front of the container would be nice.  I also had a "Merry Christmas" stamp with Victorian floral designs and the words on it that I thought would be pretty.

The stamp had a rhombus shape to it so I had to fashion a thin section of paper-clay in a rhombus shape so the stamp would fit perfectly.  After I had the pressed the paper-clay in the center of the front side of the square container and had the shape the way I wanted I stamped it.  The stamp fit perfectly so I was happy with that.

Once the paper-clay was dry I painted it with a metallic festive green paint.  After everything was dry I sealed the square container and paper-clay medallion with a glazing medium.

The next step was to build the foam base inside the container to hold the artificial greenery stems.  So I cut enough green rectangular foam to fit snugly inside the container. I wanted it to fit snugly and be 1" down from the top rim of the square container.   As I did not want it falling out I added hot glue to the bottom of the foam square block.  As I didn't want the green foam to be seen I added a small amount of artificial moss to the top of the green foam.

Once the foam was in place I started adding the artificial greenery starting in the front and keeping a symmetrical fan balance from the center until I had a shape that I was pleased with. I wanted this arrangement to be perfectly symmetrical from all sides so it was important for the design to be balanced no matter how you looked at it.

I decided I wanted the Santa floral pick to be seen from the front of the arrangement so I placed it there with the head facing forward.

I placed the reindeer floral pick in the center of the back facing in the opposite direction as the Santa.

To balance the arrangement I added a large pine-cone to the center of the left side.

To balance the arrangement I added a large pine-cone to the center of the right side.

Since this was a woodland floral arrangement I decided to add Alene's True Snow paint throughout the arrangement until it was pleasing to my eye.

For the final touch I wrapped a 2" gold colored wired mesh glitter ribbon around the top rim of the square container and then tied it in a bow in the front.  I fashioned the bow and trailers around the "Merry Christmas" paper-clay medallion so the Christmas message was entirely visible.

I love how my Christmas arrangement came out and hope you do too.

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Copyright © 2004 - 2023 - All Rights Reserved - Written By Linda Walsh of Linda Walsh Originals and Linda's Blog. Linda is a doll maker and doll pattern designer.