Make Your Own Whoville Mantel

i had a vision for my mantel this year.   i didn't really know how i'd go about it, but i knew i wanted an ooey gooey drippy gaudy mantel.  i bought practically every ornament left at hobby lobby last year when they went 90% off.  i didn't care what colors they were or what they looked like.  i just stock piled for cheap.  awesomely enough, most of them are shatter proof.

so here's what i ended up with:



quite whoville-esque, no?

wanna learn how i did it?



i first wrapped lights around some of that miserable wired cheap garland (you know the kind i mean?). i had it lying around.  it's one set of lights and one garland probably 6 feet long.

i put a couple of command hooks backwards on either end to hold it on too.

after that i started tucking in strips of wired ribbon.  this candy striped ribbon is what was left 90% off last year too, and i love it.



some strips were about this long.



some were shorter.



the bonus of using the cheap wired garland is that you can wrap it around ribbon to keep it in place.



just keep adding long and short lengths and overlapping them tying the in with the garland.



here's what you get.   now that looks ok.  you could stop there, but we're gonna keep going.



here's my ginormous bucket of ornaments i collected.



i went through two rolls of this twist tie wire i bought at walmart.



loop it through the top of the ornament.



and twist it onto the garland.



once again, this is a perfectly acceptable garland, but i kept saying to myself, "let's make it ridiculous."  so ridiculous it shall be.

notice that i added our stocking holders too to help lock it in place.



this picture doesn't really do it justice, but there are a ridiculous amount of ornaments there now.  that's cool and all, but it gets even better.



last step.  i bought about 10 of these holiday picks at hobby lobby.  they're not with the usual christmas stuff.  they're over by the floral stuff.  les faux fleurs.



give the wired end a bend.



and tuck them along the back behind all of the garland and lights and millions of ornaments.



now it has some shoulders.



there she is.  drippy ooey gooey awesomeness.  like when you think you've put on too many ornaments....add about 20 more.



shazam!  whoville called....they want their garland back.





perfectly childish for a perfectly child-like christmas home.