There are a number of different ways you can add to your holiday decorating by sprucing up your drapes. You can simply wrap the drapery rod with garland, your can wrap it with lighted garland, you can place garland on top of it or you can go for a bit more impact.
Hanging Ornaments
Materials Needed:
- 1 ball ornament approximately six inches in diameter or an extra large size jingle bell for each 14-16 inches across the drapery expanse. (For a small window use smaller balls hanging closer together.)
- Three inch wide ribbon. Quantity will depend on the height and width of your drapes. (See Preparation)
- Hot glue gun and glue sticks
- Scissors
- Safety pins-one for each ornament
- Measuring tape
Preparation
When selecting the ornaments using the same color works well if they are not all the same surface treatment. Have a couple glossy, a couple mat finish and a couple glittery for the best contrast.
When you hang the ornaments you will want to stagger the length of the ribbon so they are not hanging at the same height. You can figure out how much ribbon you need by measuring the width of your drapes. For example your drapes are eight feet across when hanging and not straightened out. That is 96 inches. Ninety-six divided by sixteen is six. If your drapes are two panels that allows for three ornaments for each panel. If you want more impact use four or five. For our example we will use six. We measure down our drapes from the rod to the lowest point we want the ornament to hit. We then measure again for the highest point we want an ornament to hit. Find the median distance. If our lowest point is 36" and our shortest point is 24", our median is 30". Six times 30" is 180" or fifteen feet. For each ball allow two inches for folding over. This adds one more foot of ribbon for six balls. You don't have to do the math. It really can be eyeballed if you are comfortable.
- Cut the ribbon into two 38", two 32" and two 26" pieces.
- Hot glue an ornament or jingle ball to the end of each piece of ribbon.
Assembly
- Put a safety pin at the top of the draperies where you want the ribbon to hang. This allows you to step back and make sure they are evenly spaced.
- When hanging the ornaments you can choose any design pattern you choose. Our example will be hanging the longest ribbons on the outside marks and the shortest on the inside marks. This will draw the eye to whatever we place in the center on a table.
- At each pin, remove the safety pin, fold the ribbon over the drape two inches and safety pin it to the drape from the back.
Wreaths
Materials Needed:
- Two (13") wreaths for each large window and one wreath for each small window.
- Wire
- Wire cutters
- Two yards of ribbon for each wreath
- Scissors
Preparation
- Cut the ribbon into six foot pieces
- Cut the wire into eight inch pieces. One for each wreath.
- Create a loop with the wire on the upper back side of each wreath
Assembly
- Take one wreath and one ribbon. Run the ribbon through the wire loop to the halfway point of the ribbon.
- Tie the ribbon on the drapery rod so that the wreath hangs about 24" -30" from the top of the rod in the center of one drapery panel.
- Tie the remaining ribbon into a bow.
- Repeat for each wreath.
If you have sheers instead of drapes hang white tree lights behind the sheers so that at night you get a lighted expanse of sheer.
You don't have to do a lot to add the holiday touch. You can even just hook a festive floral to the top of the curtain.
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