Tutorial: Light-Up Braided Garland

This holiday craft is relatively simple, looks elegant on the tree, and cuts down on the stress of holiday decorating by eliminating the need for winding and unwinding multiple cords and ropes of lights and garlands. To store, wrap it around a piece cardboard.

Materials
You will need a ball of twine, scissors, a pen, LED lights, and two skeins of yarn. One skein of the yarn should be in silver or gold and the other should match the main theme color of your tree. You should use an eyelash, fur or other similar yarn. For the lights, you may use LED garland, LED rope (recommended), or any other LED style of lights, but they MUST be LED lights or they will pose a fire hazard. LED lights should be cool to the touch, thereby eliminating the chance that they will catch the yarn on fire. Optional: Craft or hot glue.

Directions
Measure the Christmas tree by wrapping the twine around it from top to bottom, in the same way you would wrap a garland, except much more loosely. The braid will end up shorter than the length of the individual strands, so wrapping the twine at the outside edges of the branches will give a more accurate measurement of how long the strands need to be. When you reach the end of where the garland should be, mark the twine, and then cut it. Measure this length of twine to determine how many feet of lights you need and to make sure a single skein of the yarn you chose will be enough. This piece of twine can also be used as a pattern for cutting the yarn to the right length.

Lay the two lengths of yarn and the strand of lights out so that the top ends of the yarn line up with where the wire meets the female plug on the lights. Create a slip knot with both strands of yarn. Slide the knot over the female plug of the lights and tighten it all the way. You can use tape or a clip to hold the knot in place while you are braiding. Braid the strands until only a few inches of yarn remain. Create another slip knot with the yarns ends and pull the male plug through it. Tighten the knot completely. If you wish, you can secure both ends with a bit of glue.