Christmas Eaves...

No. I didn't spell it wrong. Tessie and I made evergreen swags for under the eaves on her cottage this morning. I thought that you might want to follow along.

I usually use green chenille stems, but I didn't have any, so I substituted black. They worked fine, but make the whole swag look a bit darker.

I measured the roof line with one of the stems. and used a whole length of stem for each side.

I bent the stems in approximately the shape that I wanted the swag to be when finished. Then I twisted the two together at the center straight up.

I gathered together some of the lycopodium, some very thin wire, glue and scissors.

Starting at one outer edge and working towards the center, I wired the greenery to the stem. I secured the first piece with the points outward. One at a time I laid another bunch in and wired it on. I over lapped each piece by about half its length.

In the photo, Tessie is holding the finished end and I am holding the working end. As you can see, I didn't cut the wire. I worked right off of the spool. This is not great for a beginner. The wire twists and tangles. If you are doing this for the first time, I would suggest that you cut a piece no longer than a yard.

When you reach the center, stop and start at the opposite end, again working towards the peak.

Depending on whether you like a shaggy swag or a smooth one, you can trim it some. I left mine natural. You may have to fill in here and there with smaller branches. If you do, just simply put some glue on the end and stick them in where needed.


A few years ago I found some cheap artificial flowers that had lots of little Styrofoam balls in bunches to represent berries. I cut these apart and used them for balls on the swag. Again, I just glued them wherever they looked right to me.

Getting the swag stuck to the house without it being permanent could have been a problem. I took the easy way out. I used a light duty staple gun and fine staples. Then I went back and covered those with greenery and balls.

This earned Tessie's seal of approval.

We now have the two cottages installed in the living room. I am sure that there will be a few additions here and there. As we go, I will post photos.



Here's the scene so far. I repositioned the luminarias so that the two cottages are connected. It still needs a few trees and other things.

Tessie keeps running back and forth between the two doors. She keeps whining as she goes that her feet are freezing. It actually got down to 26 degrees here last night. That was a record for the date. I guess I am going to have to knit her some socks now.....

See you tomorrow.