After finishing my Z Gallerie inspired DIY canvas painting, I thought it would be cool to use the dry brush painting method onto a faux fiddle leaf garland. It wasn’t cool, it was a big fail – it looked so bad and was not what I wanted at all. So, after a quick brainstorm, I went back to a simple, tried and true technique to save my Pottery Barn inspired DIY fall garland, and now I LOVE it! You can do this technique to any faux plant, and in whatever colors you need!

Pottery Barn Inspired DIY Fall Garland

This “simple” project was supposed to be fun, easy, and beautiful… and it is all those things, but it didn’t start out that way. I decided to add a little fall décor to our bedroom and wanted a large-leaf garland to add some fall colors and the element of nature. Instead of paying hundreds of dollars for garland in all the right colors with the right vibe, I decided to makeover a bright green garland I found online. Seems easy enough, right? But if you’ve ever tried even one DIY project then you know that it usually doesn’t all go according to plan. And that’s OK because then we learn, grow, blah blah blah. But no, seriously, it isn’t fun when a DIY bombs, but in this case, I was able to revive my idea, and in the end, create something beautiful.

I searched high and low for a large fiddle leaf garland, and I was elated when I found this one on Etsy. The seller ships fast and it came in a box where it wasn’t squished – I highly recommend this Etsy shop. You may even have an old garland on-hand that needs new life, you can use any faux garland that you want. Before I started, I gave each leaf a light dusting using my blush chalk spray paint. I wanted to mute the bright green and create a rougher texture for the rest of the paint to stick to. You could you’re your garland with any color, but hold the can further away than normal and keep it even.

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The first technique I tried came from the dry brushing technique that worked well on my Z Gallerie inspired canvas wall art project. Watered down acrylic paint does not work and dry brushed acrylic paint also doesn’t work on garland. However, the cream acrylic paint did fade out the bright green leaves OK, but I didn’t want all the leaves the same color so I had to figure something out.

I considered adding more acrylic paint to the leaves, but when I remembered my left-over spray paint, I went that route. I ended up using a blush chalk spray paint, gold, and rose gold. If my light green leaves wouldn’t have looked good after my failed painting attempts, I would have picked up some mint chalk spray paint to add a soft green. I’m sure I couldn’t replicate this garland even if I tried, but I’m happy with my mistake. And in the future, I will just start with spray painting and save myself the mess and trouble of trying techniques that don’t work on faux plants.

I left my spray-painted garland outside for about 3 hours and that was long enough to air it out. I knew that this garland would be near our heads while we sleep so I wanted to make sure there wasn’t any leftover smell on it. I’m thinking this six-foot beauty will decorate our mantel next year, the front porch, or maybe the entryway… so many possibilities. I hope you enjoyed this post on my diy fail to something fabulous. If you’ve had a fail to fab project, please share in the comments below. Thank you!

Coming soon: Amazing Anthropologie Inspired Lamp Makeover