How To Decorate Your Home With Garland For A Magnolia-Inspired Look

There really is no place like home for the holidays, especially when your space is filled with the kind of cozy, festive décor that makes the season feel extra special. Holiday decorations are rooted in tradition, but still, we've seen plenty of trends phase in and out each year. Christmas trees and wreaths are a must-have, and the same goes for the classic tradition of hanging garland. Learning from design professionals can make the process feel less frustrating and more festive. Are you wondering, for example, how to decorate your home for the holidays like Joanna Gaines? The timeless, cozy aesthetic of her Magnolia brand is certainly alluring — especially the signature garlands — and it's achieved by layering greenery with quirky, nostalgic, and luxurious decorative elements.

We all crave lush, welcoming rooms during the holidays, and Gaines' Magnolia has plenty of inspiration to guide your approach. However, making and hanging a garland isn't always as easy as those Christmas movie montages make it seem. Sometimes, it can take hours of fussing to get a result that feels festive yet stylish. Magnolia garlands use a mixture of sturdy hooks, floral wire, and stylish ribbon to pull everything together easily. Instead of settling for a lackluster garland or wasting time with quick fixes to hold everything in place, this idea makes it easy to give your home a festive vibe worthy of the pages of a lifestyle magazine.

Whether you're visiting a Magnolia store or scrolling through the brand's Instagram page, you'll see layered looks everywhere — from cozy, cushion-covered beds to bustling tablescapes. Layering takes a design from flat and awkward to eye-catching and dimensional, something that's especially true for festive garlands. A thoughtful mix of elements gives your creation character and that elevated, inviting feel Magnolia has mastered. If you were taking inspiration directly from the brand, you'd decorate your fireplace mantel with a natural-looking garland full of spiky foliage, berries, and pine cones. Add a couple of Christmas stockings and accents like brass toy soldier candle holders, sculpted woodland critters, scented candles, and vintage books. It's a plush garland design with professional-level appeal.

The Magnolia approach also highlights how layering and creative vignettes use a classic holiday color palette like red, green, and white in unexpected ways — for example, berries and the cuffs of stockings can provide pops of red and white against a green garland. Book covers and raw wood décor bring in earthy Nordic-inspired neutrals and hints of sparkly gold or silver. This approach leaves room for you to add personal touches to the look. Perhaps you prefer fun holiday décor ideas with non-traditional color schemes — like pretty pastels, glacial blues, or black, gold, and white. You can transfer that palette into your garland design with additions, creating a cohesive holiday look across your entire home.

A Magnolia Christmas home is earthy and cozy, with garlands playing a key role in seasonal decorating. In order to get a similar effortless layering, you need to secure your garlands to the wall, door, or mantel discreetly. You want them to look natural, as though they're growing there — avoid hardware that sticks out like a sore thumb. However, they also need a strong foundation. You don't want to spend all that time carefully arranging foliage and décor for it to all fall to the ground the minute you step away.

Self-adhesive hooks and hangers are a go-to option, and they're even recommended by the team at Magnolia. They're easy to apply and remove when the season is over, and the manufacturer usually notes the weight limit. Tension rods are another drill-free hack for hanging your Christmas garland this holiday season. They're especially useful if you want to decorate a doorway. Rely, too, on the existing elements in your home. For example, you might be able to simply drape a garland over a mantel, bookshelf, or sideboard and secure it in place with a heavy ceramic decorative platter on a stand or that cute wooden advent calendar shaped like a Christmas village.

An important part of creating a Magnolia-style seasonal garland is securing those tiny finishing touches, from faux berries on stems to decorative ribbons and bows, discreetly. Take a leaf from florists and invest in a roll of floral wire. Zip ties also work in a pinch, especially if they're the same color as the garland's foliage. It's flexible, making it easy to twist around almost anything, while being thin enough to hide away in bushy garland foliage. The wire is also useful for connecting two garlands together.