Categories: Decor, Holiday, Winter

I enjoy decorating my Christmas tree yearly, with handmade ornaments. This year, I created a colorful handpainted Christmas tree garland using a rainbow of OlyFun, fabric paint, and my sewing machine. I colorful decorations on my silver tree. You can adapt this project to fit your own color scheme, using any of the 18 OlyFun colors and 4 metallic OlyFun colors. I chose white, black, silver, and gold paint to create hand painted patterns on the OlyFun, which adds an artistic element to holiday decor. This is a great beginner project, that anyone with a sewing machine can do. Great to get the kids in on decorating. They can paint designs on all the OlyFun for you. You can help them cut the OlyFun into smaller pieces. Finish it off by sewing the strips together, which is great for older kids to try. However you decorate this holiday season, have fun with it and make wonderful creative memories together.

What you need to make this project

Materials: OlyFun Craft Pack in Bubble Gum; OlyFun Craft Pack in Cherry Pop; OlyFun Craft Pack in Orange Crush; OlyFun Craft Pack in Lemon Drop; OlyFun Craft Pack in Kiwi; OlyFun Craft Pack in Clover; OlyFun Craft Pack in Sky Blue; OlyFun Craft Pack in Blueberry; OlyFun Craft Pack in Jelly

Supplies: Tulip Soft Fabric Paint in Matte Black; Tulip Soft Fabric Paint in Matte White; Tulip Soft Fabric Paint in Metallic Platinum; Tulip Soft Fabric Paint in Metallic Gold; Wax paper; Paper plate; White thread; Small paint brushes; Scissors; Sewing machine

Instructions

Step One

Cut four rectangles, 12″ by 6″, from each OlyFun color. Divide the rectangles into 4 rainbow stacks.

Step Two

Lay a sheet of wax paper on your working surface. Pour some of one paint color into the paper plate. With the small paint brushes, create patterns on the OlyFun rectangles, fronts only. Set the pieces aside to dry completely before restacking them. Repeat this step for each stack and color.

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Step Three

Using the scissors, cut the rectangles into 1.5″ by 2″-3″ pieces. They don’t have to be perfect and even. Put the pieces in a big bowl and mix them up.
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Step Four

Load the sewing machine with white thread. Backstitch at the beginning of one piece. Sew straight down that piece. When you get to the end, butt another piece to the end of the previous piece. Continue sewing, making an ongoing chain. Continue doing this until all of the pieces are sewn together in a chain. When you get to the last piece, backstitch at the end.

When you run out of bobbin thread, cut the top thread. Refill your bobbin. Backstitch where you stopped stitching, and continue sewing the garland.
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Step Five

With the scissors, cut away any thread tails.
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Step Six

Loop the garland loosely around one arm, to make placing it on the tree easier.

Step Seven

Start at the top of the tree, wrapping the garland loosely around the tree, draping it on branches. When you get to the bottom, if you still have more garland, wrap it around the tree, heading up.
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