Making Christmas Garland with Mesh Netting Ribbon

Making Christmas Garland with Mesh Netting Ribbon

They can be used to create your own beautiful garlands. By making your own, you can create stunning decorations to use around your home, inside and out. The poly mesh ribbon is great for outside wreaths, decorating around lamp posts, mailboxes etc. While the mesh holds up well outside, it will eventually fade in color somewhat.

You can choose your ribbon color and style, use contrasting material if you like, color coordinate with your existing decorating theme and add in interesting accessories or even your children’s handiwork. The combinations you can create are limitless.

Work garland is made of wire and twists similar to artificial Christmas tree branches spaced at intervals along the wire. It comes in several colors. We have white, lime green and red in stock.

Supplies needed include mesh netting (we used 21″ in this demonstration), scissors, embellishments (ornaments, sprays, contrasting ribbon, poly flex tubing, beads, etc).

Place the garland on a flat surface and straighten the twists. The end is crimped and can be used to attach to something sturdy to hold the garland slightly taunt while you’re working with it. I placed this one in the pegboard attached to the back of my work table.

In general, it will take at least one roll of 21″ x 10 yd of mesh netting. It depends on the size of your bunching or looping. It’s always best to buy a little more ribbon than what you think you need. You can always use the remainder for other decorations.

For this garland we started with a roll of red mesh netting and white metallic. To make sure that my two rolls will be enough to make the garland, start with one color first, then after 12″ – 18″ down the garland, start including the second color. Ribbons don’t have to be the same size.

Start by bunching up a handful of the mesh. You can leave a tail to hang down or turn it under with your first handful. Sometimes once your garland is finished, you may want to add a bow at each end to even colors out, add extra length ect. just depending on where you’re going to place it. Place the handful on the wire and twist the limbs around the mesh tightly, twist 2-3-times.

Continue bunching and working down the length of the garland. Add in your second color.

Try to keep the size of your bunches or handfuls consistent, but if one turns out looser than another, just compensate on the next one.

Avoid trying to make them exact. You want a loose effect and also the netting can be pulled and adjusted once the garland is finished.

This garland isn’t finished yet, but shows you about the finished size. I also took some narrow ribbon in red and white to fill in spaces where there seemed to be too much of one color. I may use some lime green contrast before I’m finished. This will be used in our home for a peppermint theme.

Ornaments or other decorations can be added to make a finishing touch. This garland isn’t finished yet. I plan to use more glittered ornaments, just waiting on the grandchildren to pick out what they want))) Lollipops and candy ornaments will add more color and shine along with glittered ball sprays, and some flex tubing. To use ball sprays, cut single limbs of the spray and use the twists to secure.

You can go down the entire length of your garland with one color, then go back and do the entire length with the second. Either way works fine. You might even want to wait until your place your garland on the tree, mantle, balcony etc. to place the attachments.


Color combinations are practically endless. This blue and lime green combination works well for multicolor decorating as shown in the Santa’s Workshop collections. The garland was made on a red work garland using 21″ lime green and blue mesh netting.

This garland started out with a red and green striped metallic mesh netting, lime green crinkle tissue fabric, flex tubing and clusters of jingle bells. This is the garland shown in the tree pictured above.

The work garland is easy to work with and its a lot of fun to making your own creation! Anything that you’re not happy with can easily be undone. You can also make a basic solid color garland and just change up your accessories and contrasting ribbon to create a whole new look! If you want to take the time, it can be dismantled, accessories removed and the ribbon rolled back up and stored for next year.

The work garlands are 12″ in length and generally yields a 9″ wide garland, depending on the tightness of your bunching and embellishments. You can make it tighter or looser, whatever works best for your decorating needs.