How to Make Your Own Evergreen Window Swags

Use evergreen branches to create your own decorative swags.

An evergreen swag provides a vertical decorative display, usually with branches aiming in two or more directions. Create evergreen swags with your own evergreen pruning or purchase evergreen branches from holiday tree suppliers. The University of Illinois Extension recommends selecting fresh branches, and advises that outdoor evergreen swags may last four weeks, but indoors they may dry out in a week and become a fire hazard. With some basic supplies anyone can make festive holiday swag. Save money and decorate the home with natural, fresh-smelling evergreen window swags.

Things You'll Need

• Gardening gloves
• Gardening shears
• Evergreen branches
• Holly branches, seed pods or other decorative plant material
• Newspapers
• #24 green floral wire, also called "paddle wire"
• Wire cutters
• Decorative elements such as bells, ornaments or beads
• S-hooks from a hardware supplier

Instructions

1. Put on gardening gloves to protect your hands from tree sap.

2. Cut the evergreen branches in the morning if you're cutting your own. The morning is when the tree has the most water in the foliage, so that the swag will last longer. For window swags, cut branches 2 feet long or shorter. Plan to use five branches or fewer per evergreen swag. To create three window swags, cut 12 to 15 evergreen branches.

3. Cut other decorative materials for the swags such as holly branches or seedpods 6 inches or more shorter than the main window swag branches.

4. Spread newspapers over the work surface and set out the supplies for making the evergreen swags.

5. 

   Add ornaments to the evergreen window swag.

   Place the stems of two or three evergreen boughs in your non-dominant hand with the greenest--- the top side---of the branches facing downwards. Wrap wire around the branches 3 inches from the end. Wrap the wire firmly four to five times around the group of branches so that it's secure. Cut the wire so that you have a 3-inch piece of wire extending from the branches. Twist the first end of the wire around the base of the 3-inch piece to make the binding secure.

6. Make a 2-inch-long loop by bending the wire into an oval and wrapping the end of the wire around the place where the wire extends from the branches on the back side of the swag.

7. Turn the swag right side up. Add one to two more branches aiming in the opposite direction. The tip of the branch covers the ends of the first group of evergreen swag branches. For a small window, keep the window swag as small as possible.

8. Cut a 4-inch piece of wire. Bend it into a "U" shape. Push the ends of the wire through the top of the evergreen swag---the end with the most cut branches---over the center of the top branch or branches. Twist the ends of the wire to hold the top branch or branches over the ends of the other branches.

9. Add decorative items such as holly branches and ornaments. Make as many "U"-shaped pieces of wire as you need and follow the same procedure as Step 8 for attaching the decorations. Cut the wire shorter or longer than 4 inches depending on the thickness of the evergreen window swag. You need only enough wire to hold the decoration and twist the ends of the wire together three times.

10. Hook one end of the S-hook through the loop in the back of the window swag and the other end to any hardware you have in place above the window.

Tips & Warnings

• This makes a good family activity that kids can get involved in, too.

• Hang window swags outdoors with a hook or nail above the window. Evergreen swags last much longer outside than indoors.

References

• Country Living: Christmas Garlands
• University of Illinois Extension: All the Dirt: Evergreen Wreaths and Swags
• Country Gardens: How-to Guide for Christmas Decorating