How to Decorate With Tinsel
Closely associated with the Christmas holiday, tinsel is a decorative material that consists of many small sparkling strands that are fixed onto a long base string. Tinsel's original sparkle came from the use of thin strips of silver in early 17th century Germany. Rich German families adopted the use of tinsel to decorate their Christmas trees. With the later adoption of the Christmas tree custom in the U.S. and the development of cheaper ways to manufacture tinsel, 20th century Americans adopted tinsel as a quintessential Christmas tree decoration. Tinsel can be used to festively decorate spaces as well. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Wrap a Christmas tree with tinsel. Start at the top and carefully wind the tinsel around the tree until you reach the bottom. You can also alternately drape the tinsel on the branches to create a scallop shell pattern. You don't need to secure the tinsel to the tree, but you can do so at the opposite ends using rubber bands. You can also decorate the Christmas tree by putting on individual tinsel strands. To do so, you can cut the strands off the tinsel garlands, but an easier way is to buy bags of ready-made individual tinsel strands. As another decorative alternative, consider ready-made tinsel Christmas trees, which are artificial Christmas trees that are made of a stiff material that looks like sparkling tinsel and, like tinsel, come in a variety of colors.
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Set up a ladder to help you reach where the wall meets the ceiling. Pin or tack one end of the tinsel to the highest corner of the wall you want to decorate. Stretch the tinsel 1 foot along the top of the wall. Then loosen your hand and feed the tinsel through it, giving the tinsel some slack, until you form a draped scallop loop about 1 foot from the top of the wall to the bottom of the loop curve. Pin or tack the tinsel you are holding. Now repeat until the top of the wall is accented with a uniform row of tinsel scallop shapes. For an additional festive touch, you can pin or tack Christmas ornaments to the areas where the tinsel is pinned or tacked to the wall.
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Select items and surfaces in your workplace that can be safely decorated. This could include computers, doorways and bulletin boards. Staple or tack the tinsel to the bulletin board, either pulled taught or in scalloped loops. Staple or tape the tinsel to the doorway frames. Tape the tinsel to the edges (outlines) of the computers, including the computer monitors as long as the tinsel does not interfere with viewing the screen.
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References
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