DIY Thanksgiving Garland and Banner Ideas

It’s easy to love a fall garland at Thanksgiving. They can pull a room together, and even better, many are a cinch to make. Kids can even get involved, both with collecting materials, like fall leaves, acorns and pine cones, and with assembling DIY decorations for Thanksgiving. Here are 16 Thanksgiving garlands to make and love this holiday season.

Turn up the charm on a white picket fence or front porch with a fall foliage garland that incorporates colorful leaves, faux berry clusters and dried flowers. Add your own personal touches by incorporating mini pumpkins or pine cones to deliver all the feels of fall. Start with a length of floral wire, then hot glue the harvest-inspired decoratives around the wire to create this festive garland for Thanksgiving.

It’s a cinch to create inexpensive table decorations for Thanksgiving, including place settings and napkin rings, using acros. For a DIY Thanksgiving garland to impress your guests, start with threading wire and a big bowl of acorns that you can collect in a forest or your backyard. Before you thread the acorns, glam them up with acrylic craft paints and glitter.

For many, the pie is the best part of Thanksgiving. Pumpkin pie, pecan pie, apple pie, oh so many pies. Don’t forget the whipped cream. It’s a cinch to incorporate pies into your holiday decorating, too, with this adorably delicious Thanksgiving pie banner made of felt and chipboard that you can hang on the wall or your front porch. Beth Watson of Creatively Beth shares the step-by-step instructions you need to bring this scrumptious-looking banner to life in time for Thanksgiving.

It’s easy to give thanks for chipboard since it helps crafters make last-minute garlands and banners that guests will love. You can either stencil and cut your own letters or, better yet, buy pre-cut chipboard letters to create a thanks-themed banner. Crafter Elsie Larson at A Beautiful Mess strung together chipboard letters, then made them sparkle for her guests with golden glitter.

For a nature-inspired autumn leaf garland that’s a touch on the boho side, start with magnolia leaves and thick twine. Glam up the leaves with acrylic craft paints in colors like copper, gold and metallic brown. Use colorful ribbons to hang the leaves, and add acorns and pine cones, every 4 to 6 inches along the length of twine. This makes a wonderful garland to hang across a pass-through.

For an easy-to-make garland that uses balloons to celebrate the season, look to Etsy for this balloon garland kit that includes balloons in different sizes and colors, including burgundy, gold, orange and goldenrod. There are also glittery balloons that add an extra sparkle to this Thanksgiving balloon garland. Simply inflate the balloons, assemble and hang on a wall or over a buffet table.

A fall leaf garland — using either real leaves or artificial leaves — can be such a wonderful decoration for Thanksgiving. This DIY can be done in different ways, too. You can either string up the leaves as-is or you can give this garland a more dramatic flair by painting the leaves white, then adding golden or metallic glitter. Another option is to start with a wire garland, then add on the leaves, which was the route taken by crafter Leah Bergman of Freutcake with her DIY fall leaf garland.

Get the kids involved with this project that gets them outside to collect leaves, then bring them inside to embellish them with metallic paint pens. Let kids draw in leaf veins, fun patterns or write what they are giving thanks for this year. You can also use artificial silk leaves for this kid-friendly fall garland project. When the leaves are ready, just string them up and hang them on the wall.

Remind friends and family how lucky they are with this easy, do-it-yourself decoration. Pick up chipboard letters then cover them in copper glitter. Attach letters to twine with hot glue and hang above a buffet, mantel, entry table or anywhere your home could use a bit of seasonal sparkle.

For a refreshingly fragrant fall garland, consider a DIY garland made of dried orange slices, whole cinnamon sticks and bay leaves. It’s simple to make too since all you need to do is string the three botanicals on a piece of twine. You’ll want to do this carefully with a large yarn needle to keep the cinnamon sticks and dry bay leaves from breaking. Crafter Patti Estep of Hearth & Vine shares a tutorial for this surprisingly simple DIY garland.

You don’t need to spend a lot of money to decorate your home for Thanksgiving. For this DIY paper leaf garland, you need only fall-colored cardstock, scissors, colored pencils and some thread or embroidery floss. Crafter Shannon Cairns of Making Frugal Fun gives you a hand by sharing the leaf templates you’ll need to help make this fall paper leaf garland a success. It’s as easy as cut, string and hang. It’s a super-simple way to spice up your walls this fall season.

Add some sparkle to your holiday decor by incorporating a Thanksgiving garland with lights that you can hang on a mantel or wrap around the railing of an indoor staircase. This beautiful garland uses fall-colored burlap and fall leaf pattern fabric to add joy and thanks to your fall celebration. This lighted garland is an easy way to dazzle your dinner guests from the moment they walk in your door for Thanksgiving.

For a simple fall garland, you need little more than a length of yarn and several large pieces of felt in the colors of the season, like red, brown and gold. You may also benefit from a few leaf templates, like the free printable templates at One Little Project. Cut out the leaves using the leaf patterns, string them together, and voila, a delightfully simple and beautiful felt fall garland.

There’s something fun and lively about a metallic tinsel garland. Also, unexpected. Tinsel more often comes out during the winter holidays, but there’s no reason a cheery tinsel garland can’t make a showing at Thanksgiving. This orange and gold metallic garland can be hung from a chandelier, across a mantel or around a door frame. The garland can even be fashioned into a wreath to hang on the front door to welcome guests.

For those who have paper grocery bags or lunch bags at home, this DIY is for you. It’s simple, rustic and dramatic, all rolled into one oak leaf garland that’s perfect for fall. Cut out leaves using a printable template from DIY Beautify, paint a few leaves here and there using acrylic craft paints, then string them together into a budget-friendly garland that looks sensational when strung across a fireplace mantel.