Festive Garlands: Part Five

Let's see, where was I...we were talking about festive white Christmas garlands adorning my home in the spirit of Buddy the Elf, right?

Pardon that overgrown elf chugging a two-liter of Coke;
it's the garlands festooned in the background that pique my interest.

As my youngest daughter and I began to mull over the possibilities for incorporating snowflakes into our grand design, this image on Pinterest jumped into our lives and blew our minds with potential.

Bugs and Fishes via Apartment Therapy

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. This is exactly the sort of thing we had in mind. My youngest is madly gifted at precision art like origami and snowflake cutting, so she set right to work cranking out incredibly delicate and varied snowflakes like a machine. 

We didn't use the tutorial at Bugs and Fishes, worthy as it is. Improvising as we went along, we suspended a natural branch (from the red maple tree in our front yard) from the ceiling, a few inches out from the wall, using Command hooks and fishing line. Then we tied sections of fishing line to the branch and taped on the snowflakes, one strand at a time, taking care to mix up the shapes of the flakes and the lengths of the lines to create a pleasing imperfection. We politely refused our three kittens' offers of assistance with this part of the project and banished them from the room.

The finished effect left us thoroughly chuffed. And the fact that we had snow on the ground on photo day made it even better. Now all I need is Will Farrell swigging maple syrup straight from the bottle at my dining room table and my work here will be done.