Meet me under the mistletoe

For a simple but elegant doorway garland, create this hanging ball of mistletoe. It is sure to meet your guests with a smile, maybe even a pucker as they linger beneath it.

You may also want to create small mistletoe clusters for garnishing gifts, using silver or white berries,  mistletoe leaves and a favorite ribbon. (see photo above and craft supplies and instructions below)

To make the ball of mistletoe, I used only a few supplies and a just a little labor of love. The supplies needed for this garland are:

• 40 or more mistletoe leaf clusters (about 4" in diameter) using shades of green from the Cut Flowers Holly set on Lettering Delights (these are the rounded leaves with a hole in the middle of its surrounding petals).

• one 4"styrofoam ball (I used the more condensed foam ball in order to spray paint it)

• 15-20 mini white or silver ornaments (mine are 1" balls)

• straight pins with pearl heads, as many as there are leaf clusters (I chose to paint mine with nail polish, see info below)

• large white pearl or silver beads .75" size (I used four)

• ribbon of your choice for hanging (a few yards for bows and hanging length)

Step 1: I chose to lightly spray paint the foam ball so as not to have white foam showing through the leaves. Choose a light color (I used Krylon Celery 3543). Let it dry fully before adding leaves. If you would rather, you could start with a green styrofoam ball.

Step 2a: Cut many clusters of the mistletoe leaves from the Cut Flowers Holly set. The paper and colors I chose are: sage, moss, and leaf green from Paper Source, text weight stock.

Step 2b: Curl and bent each cluster with a bamboo skewer, thumb and forefinger to shape each leaf like real mistletoe. Curl the paper carefully with skewer as you would curl ribbon with scissors.



Step 3a: This is not a necessary step, but I love making colors match in projects, so I used nail polish (in greens and blue-greens) to paint the pearl head straight pins. If you do this, I suggest doing it hours before using, to make sure the pins are completely dried. (see photo above)

Step 3b: Use the pearl head pins to secure each leaf cluster into the foam ball. Every so often add a white (or silver) mini ornament to the cluster while securing (visually spacing throughout the ball). While doing this make sure to save some space at top and bottom of the ball for hanging, and for dangling berries and bow below. Completely cover ball with leaf and berry clusters.



Step 4: Use a few leaf clusters to make the dangling berries which will hang from the bottom of the ball. Thread thin ribbon through the large pearl beads and leaves to make a few small mistletoe clusters, making sure to have plenty of ribbon to create a bow between ball and dangling mistletoe. Once this is done, secure at bottom of ball with pearl head pin.

Step 5: Create a decorative bow with ribbon to hang the mistletoe ball from, making sure to have plenty of ribbon above the bow to secure (with pearl head pin) and hang.



Here are some of the supplies (shown above) for making balls of mistletoe and holly. Remember, this same project can be done with the holly leaves from the Cut Flowers Holly set, red mini ornaments and/or beads and red pearl head straight pins.



This chart above shows the Cut Flowers Holly set you will need for either the mistletoe ball or holly ball. The leaves at the top of the chart are for holly, while the leaves in the last row and a half are for mistletoe. I used the leaf clusters of mistletoe that have a hole in the middle.

Now you will have your own mistletoe ball to meet someone under this holiday season.