DIY Dear Santa Letter & Envelope Garland Christmas Tree Ornaments

One project I wanted to try out this Christmas is making a “Letters to Santa” garland. I thought it would be fun to use a mix of cute envelopes, and handwritten notes.

I had the kids write some letters to Santa & I put them on the garland. I love the personal touch they add, and hope to add new letters from them every year.

Here’s a video of the whole process:

So to start off, I cut some standard envelopes into smaller envelopes of various sizes.

Then I dipped the letters into a tray full of black coffee.

How long you keep them will determine the color that they turn once dry.

Dry them in your oven at 400 for 1-2 minutes. Keep a close watch on them, as you don’t want to start a fire.

I didn’t want to waste any money on using real stamps, so we just drew and painted ours on.

Here you can see the mix of various paper, envelopes, letters, and printed out sheet music we created for our garland. My kids had a blast being a part of this. And I didn’t have to fake any sloppy kid writing- because it was all authentic. Haha!

I simply sewed it all together, overlapping the pieces as I went.

I even made a bunch of these into individual envelope letter ornaments for the tree.

Here is the main garland all finished.

I really wanted the garland to go on our tree in the kitchen, but I am also feeling the urge to make another one for the living room now.

Isn’t it pretty?

I can’t wait to add more of the kid’s letters to Santa through out the years. What a precious keepsake that will be.

And what I love most about this garland is that we made it together.

One of my favorite memories from early on in our marriage, was cutting up greeting cards people had sent us for our wedding & Christmas to use as ornaments for our tree because we couldn’t buy new ones.

So it makes me happy to stay true to our roots and create the ornaments for our tree and decor. Beauty doesn’t have to be store bought. Homemade can be just as cozy & pretty.