The Secret to Hanging Garland on a Mantel

If you want to create a Christmas mantle that looks absolutely stunning, I am sharing all of my secrets on hanging Christmas garland, plus the one trick that's going to take it to the next level. I'm starting with a nice clean mantle and some simple accessories, my gold mirror and some candlesticks, and I'm going to add a couple more accessories later, but I want to keep things nice and simple. If you don't have a fireplace mantle, you can use this same technique for a large range hood, a shelf, or even a sideboard. I am using my Costco garland. I will link to it down in the description box below, but if you don't want to use this one, I will link to similar ones. What I like about this garland is that it has a combination of PVC and PE artificial pine needles. PE needles tend to look more like a real tree. They're kind of that molded plastic, and the PVC are sort of those softer bottle brush style, and the combination of those two makes for a really nice full garland look. I also like this one because it is pre-lit, and I love the idea of a sparkling garland, but I will also link to lights that you could add to your garland afterwards down in that description box below. Another trick when looking for mantle garland is to look for little natural looking add-ins on your garland, like pine cones like mine has, or little faux winter berries. Those add some texture and interest to your garland to make it look more high-end. Now the one secret that is going to make your mantle garland look absolutely amazing is this. Rather than draping it on top of your mantle, so in previous years I would simply put my garland along the top of my mantle like this. I'm going to leave some examples here for you to see. Now this creates a less full look. You only really see the side of the garland this way, but over the past few years I have learned that the better way is to have it sitting in the front like this. That way you're going to be able to see more of the garland. It's going to look so full and lush and beautiful. And there's a couple ways that you can achieve this look. Method number one is you can use these command hooks. So just these simple clear ones with a sticky backing or white ones. And this is what I've done in the past. I've just placed them on top of my mantle like this all the way across, and then I would tie yarn around the garland and then attach that yarn loop to the little command hook. And that works quite well, but I've just recently discovered a new way to do this. So that's what we're going to do today. For this, I'm using the command cord bundlers. Come in a package just like this. You can find them off of Amazon. I will link to them down in the description box below. With these ones, you can stick this part to the mantle, loop this part around the garland, and then attach it. So we're going to do that to this mantle. I am taking my cord bundler, and I'm going to take the command strip, and I'm applying the command strip to the back of the bundler. There's actually, they show you exactly what to do with it. And when you're using command strips of any kind, make sure to follow the directions as to how many seconds you have to push the sticky part of the command strip onto this. Otherwise, you're going to have a loud surprise in the middle of the night when your garland or your art or whatever falls off the wall or the mantle. And I am taking off that sticky backing, and I'm going to apply this up here. I have five of these, so I'm going to use them all. I'm starting by finding the center of my garland. If your garland has an electrical plug for the lights, make sure that's on the right side where you have an outlet. So I'm going to swap mine around. And then I'm going to begin by attaching the center of my garland to my center cord bundler. Taking the garland and the bottom of the cord, I'm just going to kind of thread it through center here. Make sure all of the benches are out of the way and move them around as needed. Wrap it around, shoot in the back like that. I'm going to help it hang in front of my mantle. So we'll keep doing that. And you might want to stabilize it if it's a heavy garland like mine is as you're doing this, so there's not so much pressure on just one of the bundlers. Now that we have the garland completely installed on the mantle, the next secret for a beautiful looking mantle is to fluff that garland up. So take all of those strands of your garland, put them in all different directions to make that garland look full and incredible. I'm also going to gently curve the ends of my garland on the sides of my mantle. Now you especially want to make sure that those cord bundlers are completely covered by greenery, so make sure to bend the stems over those. I prefer a garland that's kind of rooping down. I'm going to skew my stems that way, just kind of have them sort of draping down from the mantle. However, if you don't like that look, you can arrange them in any way that you want. I still want some of the stems pointing up, but a lot of them pointing down to give it that beautiful drapey romantic look. I encourage you to take your time with this. The amount of effort you put into fluffing up the garland is going to be 100% worth it for the final look. I've turned the lights on and look how incredible my garland looks already just with some gentle patient fluffing to make it look full and drape exactly how I want it to. The next step for a stunning looking garland is to add in some greenery of a different type. What I did was I saved these eucalyptus stems from my Christmas tree, so I want to echo the same greenery in there. I'm going to just tuck a few in here, you don't need that many, just for a little bit of extra texture. Now if you have a garland that's less full or has less varieties of needle types, you might want to add in a few different types of greenery picks and you can really customize this to make it look exactly how you want. I'm being very subtle with my greenery picks this year and just adding those few, but you can go as full or as subtle as you want. I'll leave a few examples from previous mantles that I've done so you can see the different looks. Now we're going to hang stockings. My trick for those is to use command hooks again and we're going to hang those sort of tucked underneath the garland and I think that gives everything just such a beautiful look. I'm going to attach the hooks underneath my mantle and you can do an off-center design where all your stockings are on one side, nothing's on the other, or make it symmetrical. I have five stockings, I only found four, so I'm going to make it symmetrical with two on each side and then I'm on the other side and my stockings were from Michael's a few years ago, but I think they still have them, so if they do, I will link them in that description box below. Now this is the part where you could add other sorts of garlands in your greenery garland, so a bell garland for example, maybe some ribbon. However, I really like the look of this mostly natural look garland. I think it really works with my sort of simple gold, green, and white scheme for this year's Christmas decor. I think what I'm going to try to do is just do a couple of ribbon bows on either side of the garland, so let's do that and see how it looks. I'm just going to take this French ribbon that I used in my tree and I'm going to tie it into a bow. So you could tuck something like this right into the garland, let these straight down, see how that looks. I don't know if I love that, so what I'm going to do is tie the ribbon right to my stocking. I think that's going to look really cute. Yes, I really love the bow on the stocking, so I think that's what I'm going to do. But again, use your creativity, use your imagination, put some bows on the side, twirl some ribbon around. I'll leave some examples of other mantles I've done just to give you some inspiration on different looks you can try. Other than a symmetrical garland, you can also try an asymmetrical garland where it drapes off of one side. This is also a beautiful look, especially if you have something balanced on the opposite side. For example, all of your stockings on the opposite side, your Christmas tree on the opposite side to make it feel balanced. Okay, whoops, I didn't quite have enough of that fringed white ribbon to get those big loops and long tail bows that I want to over the stockings. So I'm actually going to use this rose gold ribbon, which I think looks beautiful too. So we're going to tie those in a bow on the stocking. And when working with ribbon like this, don't forget to fold the ribbon half vertically and then cut at an angle to create those beautiful dovetail ends. Here is my final Christmas mantle look, keeping it simple, natural, and a little romantic this year. And here's how it looks with my green, white, and gold romantic Christmas tree. Let me know down in the comments below what you think of my garland this year. And don't forget that you can apply these secrets, tips, and tricks to any garland display in your home for Christmas, whether it's your sideboard, whether it's on an oversized range hood, or another shelf in your home. Now I have a video all about how to apply ribbon to your Christmas tree to make it look full and gorgeous. I'm going to leave that video for you to watch next right up here.