If you like making things with paper (I do!) than you simply must check out the blog of Lia Griffith. She is an amazing paper artisan and has tons of free printables and tutorials. I mean… she made runway dresses out of paper – that’s legit.

When thinking about changing my mantel decor for spring, I was inspired by the paper feather garland tutorial she posted around the holidays. So, while all these photos are mine and my final product is a little different from hers, it would be impolite to not give credit where it is due. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?!

I’m apologizing in advance for the color in some of these photos. Working at 11:30pm under horrific builder-grade, ceiling mounted lighting isn’t exactly ideal for beautiful photography. But the kids were in bed and beggars can’t be choosers.

Ok. Grab some colorful paper! I used linen-textured scrapbook cardstock.

Lia offers the feather template free HERE. She cuts them by hand, but I cheated worked smarter and let my trusty silhouette do the work.

 

Use a sharp edge to score a line down the middles.

Then fold gently along the score.

I chose not to “fringe” all my feathers… more like half. (See what I’m talking about with the photo colors – I promise that middle feather is yellow and not pale orange… geesh!)

To add dimension, I spraypainted the tips silver, blue and yellow.

Since I can sew faster than I can tape 40 something feathers to the back of a string, I just ran the feathers through my machine with a straight stitch.

I didn’t line them up exactly and even had some going the opposite direction or at wonky angles. Totally crushing on the final look!

Even if you don’t make one long enough to cover a mantel, 9 or 10 feathers strung together would be super cute hung on a child’s bedroom door. Tweet-tweet!