How to make the garlands

You need ribbon and fabric.  You can do this as cheaply (or not) as you want.  I'm pretty cheap so all my fabric and ribbon was either on sale 50% off or I bought a lot of remnants for 75% off so I didn't pay more than 75  cents for each of those.  I found a few Christmas patterns in the remnant box and I snapped those up, but I did also buy some "new" fabrics that were 50% off.   Like the cute Santa one above--he made me smile even at $3 a yard. 

Cut all your fabric and ribbon into strips.  Fabric strips can be as wide as you want, I kept mine to about an inch wide and ribbon and fabric should be about 8 inches long. If you go any shorter it is hard to tie the knots and you don't get a poufy look.  They can be a little longer than 8 inches but I wouldn't go past 10 inches, it just gets to long and looks floppy.

After you cut everything up (I used my pinking shears to minimize the strings and threads) toss it all together to mix them up, put them in a large basket or bowl and start tying. I used a 4 to 4 1/2 foot piece of yarn.  I tied a loop at each end to hang the garlands.  Then you just start tying/knoting your fabric and ribbon onto the yarn.  I made sure my strips were mixed up well and tried not to look at what I was grabbing because I didn't want a patterned or symmetric look---I wanted it to look messy and shabby. 

this is one of the longest ones I made and it probably took 4 yards of fabric and I don't know how much ribbon. 
Let me know if you have any other questions--or if I didn't explain something well. 
Note:  I got the idea here at the Nest

More pics of my other garlands and decorations later this week. 
E is still sick.  Negative for strep and flu but still running fever and feeling crummy.  :(

Blessings