If you've followed my blog for awhile, you know that I really enjoy making garlands. I have made three (!) before and I will probably continue to make many, many more. The one I made today is probably my favorite so far. It took a lot of materials and tools to make this simple project, but I already had them all on hand, so this project didn't cost me a dime! Here's how I did it:

Step 1: What You'll Need

Here's what I used:
Computer, printer, paper, a pen, scissors, a box cutter, an embroidery needle, yarn, cardboard, tacky glue, water, pliers and magazines.

Step 2: Making a Pattern

First, I printed the phrase "Seize the Day" off of my computer. I used Impact font in size 400. Since I didn't want to use a ton of black ink, I set it to the outline setting. After printing, I cut them out.

Step 3: Cutting the Cardboard

Then I grabbed a big piece of cardboard. Mine was an old Ramen box and it was slightly corrugated. I traced around the letters I had printed and then cut them out. You can see in the previous pictures that I only printed out one E, but I traced and cut three of them out of the cardboard. This was merely to save printer ink.

Step 4: Decoupage, Decoupage, Decoupage!

Then I found some colorful, chaotic or whatever-I-thought-was-cool scenes from some magazine pages. I placed a letter over the cool picture, traced it and then cut it out to match the letter. I did that for every single letter. Some of them were black and white, while others had tons of color -- one was even a scene from my absolute favorite television show in the world, Breaking Bad (the last E in "seize"). After that, I mixed some tacky glue and some water. It would probably be easier to just buy decoupage glue (Mod Podge), but I didn't have any, so this is what I did. You could also mix water and Elmer's glue. I used my finger to get some glue onto the back of the magazine letter, and then I stuck it onto the cardboard letter, making sure it matched up perfectly.

Step 5: Stringing Them in a Line

After all the glue dried, I used an embroidery needle and some yarn to "sew" through each of the letters, making sure it was at roughly the same spot for all of the letters so they would hang evenly. I had to get out a pair of pliers so I could pull the needle through a couple of times, but it wasn't too hard. Hang it up and now you're done!