Garlands on the Staircase and Banister - Christmas Decorating and Decorations

0:15 3 okay so Christmas decorating you know what this is Garland that's going to go on my staircase however do you see this this is called last year these lights worked but this year they don't there's also what I call Satan I think the Christmas lights these little tiny Christmas lights they're Satan's way of making sure that the Christmas holidays suck so here's what I do I actually take them off and I throw them away I'm not going to look for the one the missing bulb you know how many hours you can spend during the month of November and December looking for that one bulb that's not working I don't go there I get new lights these things are so inexpensive they're seriously a couple bucks for another 100 lights I just take these off put the new ones on

1:01 and I'm good to go don't let Satan get you during the holidays so here are some practical tips on doing your Garland on your staircase when I take my Garland off every year I actually put I use like a little sticker and I write in here where this goes mine happens to say lower staircase gard and let me just show you this I had these installed in my home because I knew that every year I was going to want to do Christmas lights and Christmas garland on my staircase so I have outlets on this wall and one at the top of the staircase over there so that every year bang I just plug it right in here I don't have a bunch of cords all over the place it works out great next thing I use these twisty thae things that have they're made out of like Christmas tree stuff and that's what I tie these on with for my

1:48 staircase I do something a little different in that I don't just make it go straight down like on top I actually sort of Swag it so let me show you what I'm talking about this would come up here I have a soft Bend here in a place where it kind of hangs on this part and it swags to this side and then it comes over and it swags on this side and tie it now remember you're going to fluff this whole thing up when you're done sometimes I just use the actual little branches themselves to tie it on so you kind of get your basic shape first remember I told you one of my pet peeves is tags on cords so I'm opening up new lights I'm going to take those

2:34 tags off don't worry I just threw everything on the ground and clean up afterwards that's what creative people do I think so what I do is I find kind of the middle of my Garland and I start at the 50% Mark and I go each Direction instead of starting at one end cuz that's how you get like hardly any lights up there and a bunch at the end cuz you ran out or whatever start in the middle and work your way down number one always check to be sure all the lights work before you take the time to put them on your Garland and they do so this is where I'm going to put my my 50 Mark and I'm just going to go like this and twist that just so I know where it is then I'm going to take this and I'm going to Loosely place it on my Garland you see

3:20 because what I'm trying to do right now is make it even so if I Loosely place it I know that I you know take it out enough to be fair and even with it okay and then you do the other half the same way so the next step in your Garland is to take your lights and weave them in and out of the Garland as well as fluffing out the Garland so that it you straighten out every one of those branches just like we did on the Christmas tree you don't want your uh cords to show so you just kind of weave it in and around make sure you go under especially when stop to think that this is going to be viewed mostly from the underside you're going to be looking up at it want

4:05 to make sure your lights are heavier on the bottom than they are on the top yeah now remember you don't have to be 100% particular about it because you still have ribbons to put in here some ornaments some greens and some PSS so even if you made this perfect right now probably would be unnecessary cuz you're going to be changing it around as you go also on this this side when I bring this around because that is the side you're going to view this on mostly that I'm going to make sure that the lights even go underneath instead of just on the top over here so this thing is lit consistently for the viewer on that side and when I'm done I'll come down and check and make sure it all looks right a

4:52 couple other really good tips one is I bought this at the floral supply place it's basically a wired stuff you know it's like a twisty tie only it's covered in the little same Green Pines that you have for a Christmas tree you just cut it in pieces that are the size you want and you can use it to tie it on to your railing or whatever you need anything that You' use wire or twisty ties to so it works great oh by the way you may notice here that I changed my Garland after I got the other stuff up that I was using I decided it was too traditional for this year since we're doing the California Coastal look so I changed to something that's more Avant has a more um natural looking Leaf to it uh pine needles or whatever these things are called and green stuff and so

5:38 when I put my lights through what I do is I keep my lights plugged in do not put your lights in when they're not plugged in because if by chance one of these lights goes out which they do all the time if you if you're working with this while the lights are on you can fix the one you know where it is it burs you know kind of where it is but if you put all your lights on and they're off you put them all on your thing you plug them in and they don't work guess what Satan you got to go through the entire string of 100 to find that one bulb I have a bunch of different types of Harland here's one that has actual pine cones in it and it looks really really like a spruce I guess you know some of you people who live in Oregon and stuff will probably laugh at me because I don't really know what kind of greens these are but you probably do anyway they're artificial here but this kind of thing

6:23 can also be wound in and through this and it makes it look even more natural so I will be winding some more things in and making it look natural and beautiful and Lush and full but this is sort of our Bare Bones where we start okay so are you ready to start making it look pretty here so we have our greens we have some lights running through it now I'm going to start putting the pretty stuff in these are some extra little uh greens that have the sparkly stuff my Skylight is really shining in now isn't it hey we're in California it's 100° today on November 4th all right I would probably take this guy and I would take them right here to the C part where this flat thing is and make this sort of a a pretty Point tie this

7:10 in I just use the greens that are already here this would also look really good with some artificial Curly Willow or Twigs remember on my tree I used the Twigs that all went all the way around so I would put this in weed this into my trunk so to speak of around you know what it's really simple how you just sort of kind of pull it I think people get they try too hard to make it perfect and it doesn't need to be it just needs to be kind of natural

7:56 and free form looking so I might take this bring it down here and then you know it would look really cute here would be a bird for my very natural look okay so if you're going to wind up your your lights you don't want to wind them like this okay you want to do it like this this keeps them really nice and neat and orderly but one at this end and one here here and you just basically go from light to light to light so that you end up with lights at both ends and nothing

8:41 but cords in the middle you got all your orange and red lights on this end and I have the purple to sit okay