My Vintage Inspired Halloween Garland{and a new chalkboard design, too!}

Today I wanted to show you this super cute vintage-y looking Halloween garland I made for my dining room.  We have a bank of cabinets separating our kitchen and dining room and I have always hated seeing the empty back of the upper cabinets in the dining room.  I've been toying around with ideas for that area for years and have never been able to settle on a permanent solution.  My current preference is to attach chicken wire across there and frame it out with molding so I could clip up pictures or Christmas cards or whatever strikes my fancy.  Since that hasn't happened yet, I decided to jazz it up with a cute garland for now.

I got my inspiration from this tutorial shared by Lil' Luna on Eighteen25 way back in 2010.  Basically, you just need a few sheets of cool scrapbook paper {I went with a black and white theme for mine}, some decorative buttons, twine and hot glue.

Start by cutting your paper into strips anywhere from 1-inch to 2.5-inches wide.  The wider the strip, the bigger your accordion "flower" will be.  You'll need two strips of paper per flower.  Fold each strip back and forth to create a long accordion.  No need to be exact -- just eyeball it.  I think my folds were about a half an inch apart, more or less.  Attach your two accordion pieces end to end to for a large ring, like so:

Then, the tricky part!  Flatten your ring into a flower by bringing the top edge into the center, like so:

Put a dab of hot glue in the center and hold it until it stays together.  When you have all your accordion flowers made, you can embellish embellish them with vintage style Halloween printables and buttons.

I attached a flower to my twine every 8 inches.  Just cut a small circle of matching paper and hot glue it to the back of the flower, sandwiching the twine in between.  Leave some extra twine on each end {about 18-24 inches} so you have a cute curling tail effect on each end.  Easy Cheesy!  I like the festive feel it gives an otherwise boring space.

On a whim last night, I decided to switch up my chalkboard wall to make it more Hallween-y, too.  Thanks to Ella Claire for the word art template!!

It's far from perfect since I free-handed it, but it's fun and fresh.  {Here's what it looked like before.}Happy Halloween decorating, friends!