How to Hang Garland on a Headboard (Upholstered, Wood or Iron)

A garland across the headboard is the quickest way I know to make a bedroom feel like December without adding a single thing to the floor. Done well, it looks like it grew there. Done badly, it looks like a scarf somebody left hanging off the bed. Here is how to hang garland on a headboard so it stays soft, stays put and leaves your sheets alone.

I've hung one in our guest room three Decembers running, on three different headboards, because I keep rearranging that room. The first year it slid down by Tuesday. The second year I used the wrong wire and scratched a painted rail. By the third I'd worked out the order of things, and that order is below.

Length comes first, then fresh or faux, then the attaching, which depends on whether your headboard is upholstered, wood or iron. If you're still deciding on the overall look of the room, the green Christmas bedroom ideas are the place to start. This post is only about the how.

How much garland a headboard really needs

Measure the headboard at its widest point, not the mattress. Then multiply by about 1.5. That extra half is what lets the garland drop into a gentle swag instead of pulling straight across like a clothesline.

In real numbers, it works out roughly like this:

• Twin (about 40 inches wide): a 5 to 6 foot garland.
• Full (about 56 inches): 7 feet.
• Queen (about 62 inches): 8 to 9 feet. A 9-foot strand is the easiest size to find, and it's a good fit.
• King (about 78 inches): 10 feet. I'd join two shorter strands at the center and hide the join under a ribbon.

Headboards that rise at the sides, like a wingback, need less swag and more length at the ends. Lay a piece of string along the exact path the garland will take, then measure the string.

If you land between sizes, buy the longer one. You can tuck extra length at the ends, but you can't invent more. I once bought an 8-foot strand for a queen and it looked tight and a little worried, like it was holding its breath.

Fresh or faux garland over a bed

Fresh cedar, noble fir and eucalyptus smell wonderful and have a looseness no factory can copy. They also dry out fast in a bedroom, because a heated room is a dry room. In mine, fresh garland looks good for about a week. By day ten it's brittle.

The bigger problem is needles. They land on the pillows, then in the sheets, and you'll be finding them in January. Spruce and white pine let go fastest in my experience, while cedar and noble fir hold on a little longer.

Faux lasts the whole month and goes back in the box for next year. The good ones mix needle shapes and shades of green. An evenly glossy one reads as plastic against linen, so hold it up by a window before you commit. Shop lighting flatters everything.

My own compromise is a faux base with a few fresh cuttings tucked in. You get the smell and the real texture, and when the cuttings go brittle you pull them out and the garland still looks full. Plan to swap them after a week or so.

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What to gather before you start

Everything here is small, and most of it is probably already in a drawer.

• Your garland, cut to the length above
• Upholstery twist pins (the corkscrew kind), clear or close to your headboard color
• Green paddle floral wire, about 22 gauge, and a pair of snips
• Velvet ribbon, about 1.5 inches wide, 2 to 3 yards
• A few small brass cup hooks, or removable wall hooks, for wood or slim headboards
• A battery LED string in warm white (2700K) with a timer
• A step stool and extra eucalyptus or cedar stems for the faux-plus-fresh mix

How to hang garland on a headboard, step by step

The order matters more than any single trick. Work through these in sequence and you'll only hang it once. Steps 3 to 5 are the same job done three ways, so read the one that matches your bed and skip the others.

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Upholstered headboards: twist pins and posts

Upholstery twist pins screw into the padding instead of puncturing it. Push the point into a seam, the piping along the top edge, or right beside a button, then twist two or three turns and loop the pin over the garland's wire. A pin in the flat of a linen panel shows, and a pin in a seam disappears. Start with the center and both ends, then add more roughly 12 inches apart. If your headboard has posts or legs, skip the pins and tie each end of the garland to a post with ribbon. Never staple or hot glue upholstery, because the fabric doesn't recover. On silk or a very fine weave even a pin leaves a mark, so use post ties or the wall hooks from step 4.

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Iron and spindle beds: soft ties first, wire second

Iron is the easiest, because the garland has something to grab. The one mistake is wiring tight against painted metal, which chips it, and that's the scratch I mentioned. Start with soft ties: velvet ribbon, cotton twill tape or strips torn from an old linen napkin, tied at the center and both ends. To stop it swinging, add a twist of green floral wire, with a bit of ribbon slid over it where it touches the finish. Fold every wire end back into the garland so it can't catch a blanket. On spindle beds you can weave the garland through the bars, which takes closer to twice the width.

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Getting a full swag that doesn't sag

A garland that droops in the middle and bunches at the ends is almost always anchored in too few places. The fix is a third and fourth anchor, one at the center and one about a quarter of the way in from each side.

Next, check the wire core. Most garlands have a bendable wire running through the middle. Bend it into a shallow arc before you hang it, and it will hold that curve on its own.

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The middle of any garland looks thinnest once it's hung, because that's the part being pulled tight. So here is the trick to a full headboard garland: tuck extra stems in from the back, angled in different directions, until you can't see the wire core from the front. Eucalyptus and cedar cuttings are ideal for this, and they're also the stems you can swap out later.

Keeping it safe around the bed

When to put it up and when it comes down

You're probably planning this in November, so here's the timing I use. Faux can go up the weekend after Thanksgiving and stay until the first weekend of January. Fresh looks best if you wait until about the second week of December, so it's at its fullest around Christmas, and then comes down as soon as the needles start dropping, usually the week after.

If a small tree is going in the same room, read the small Christmas tree ideas first so the two don't compete. A sage-leaning garland sits well in a sage green Christmas bedroom, and cedar cuttings do plenty for scent, with the bedroom scent guide covering the rest.

When it comes down, shake faux garland outside, then coil it loosely in a box with tissue paper. The wire core remembers the shape you bent it into, and crushing it flat means you'll be fluffing for an hour next year. I write the headboard width on the box, which saves guessing next November.

Questions I get about headboard garland