Painted Spring / Easter Garland

Say goodbye to a loooong winter with a sweet hand painted Spring / Easter Garland!

I have loved painted wooden shapes and ornaments ever since I was a kid. My mom has a collection of hand-painted wooden Christmas ornaments that, as I understand it, were made by a friend of my grandma’s. At least I think that’s who it was. May have been a distant cousin, I’m not totally sure. But for whatever reason I have always loved them. There’s a whole set of people including a nun (?), a teeny tiny little cardinal,  and my favorites, all three of the three little bears family and Goldilocks. And they’re each holding a little dangling accessory like a bell or a tiny bucket. I used to sit by the Christmas tree when I was little and play pretend with them. Whoever made these clearly spent a ton of time on them, they’re really very detailed. And presumably they were made before I was born so I suppose they were cut out by hand too? I would love to know so much more! But as a result I have an affliction where I basically can’t walk past unpainted wooden shapes without stopping. I’m lucky they’re usually under a dollar or I’d be broke.

So anyway, it’s a story for another post, but I recently discovered that my local craft store had expanded their selection of wooden shapes. And while I was poking around, I found some cute spring-y birds and flower shapes that I knew I wanted to do something with. A little tinkering and I came up with a fun Painted Springtime / Easter Garland. This is an easy project and you can paint the shapes any way you like, you could make them actually look like birds and flowers, you could just paint them solid colors, you could decoupage scrapbook paper onto them, the possibilities are endless and it would be a perfect sweet Easter decoration.

Painted Spring / Easter Garland

Unpainted wooden shapes

Acrylic craft paint

Drill

Twine

1. Lightly sand your wood shapes if they’re rough at all.

2. Paint! Really, do anything you want! I went with spring colors and actually changed my mind halfway through so a few of these pictures don’t match up with the end product. That’s the nice thing about acrylic paint though, it dries quickly and if you change your mind you can just paint right over it!

3. When the paint is dry, drill a small hole on each side of each shape. (I skipped a protective coat this time since this is not a project likely to be touched or banged around very much.)

4. String the shapes, one at a time, onto some sturdy twine.

5. Hang your garland up, if any of the shapes want to flip around on the twine, I’ve found a tiny piece of looped scotch take or a bit of poster putty on the back is enough to keep them from moving.

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Cassie May

Craft and Knitwear Designer at Little Red Window Design

Welcome to Little Red Window! I’m Cassie, a professional craft and knitwear designer working in the field for more than 10 years. I have a degree in Art History from Northwestern University and a Master's Degree in Architecture and Design from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I've designed more than 300 separate knitting patterns, hundreds of craft projects, and I love to bring joy to your crafts and knitting with well-designed, easy to understand tutorials and patterns.

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