Pampas grass is everywhere! Events, weddings, home decor...it's having a major moment and I'm not mad about it! I created a fun hanging installation for my Thanksgiving Tablescape this year and I'm going to share how to DIY it for your next event or home decor addition!

I'm sharing the above photo to show you how much pampas grass I started with - quite a bit! I had a few pieces left over but didn't fill in the back all the way, so it definitely takes a lot of grass. Keep that in mind when you're determining what size installation you want to create! Believe it or not, I foraged my grass off the side of the highway! I'm not really sure if that's illegal or not, BUT there were lawn care workers nearby cutting back all of the grass with weed eaters, so I figured I was just helping out! IF you are foraging your own pampas grass, WEAR GLOVES AND LONG SLEEVES. THIS IS NOT A DRILL! 

WEAR GLOVES AND LONG SLEEVES! 

WEAR GLOVES AND LONG SLEEVES! 

You guessed it - I did not wear gloves OR long sleeves! The grass blades that the "plumes" grow out of are razor sharp and by the end of my foraging expedition, I had cuts all over my arms and hands! Think paper cuts x 10. Ugh! 

The supplies needed are really minimal and you can keep it as simple or make it as complex as you want! The only thing I ordered was chicken wire, which is a must to achieve a lightweight form to insert the grass into! Here are your needed supplies:

• pampas grass (I foraged mine but linking some to order)
• chicken wire
• florist wire (or use twine, fishing line, ribbon... just depends how invisible you need the string to be!)
• wire cutters or my heavy duty craft scissors
• Command adhesive hooks (wall hanging) or open eye hooks (ceiling hanging)
• a friend to help you! (thanks to my friend Lara for crafting with me!)

You know. I should also mention hairspray. Pampas grass sheds. SO depending on where you get yours, you need to spray it (really well!) with hairspray to keep it from shedding. Then let it dry, shake it out a bit to fluff it up, then you're in business.

First things first: where do you want to put your installation?! Like I said, I made mine for my Thanksgiving Tablescape so I wanted it directly over my table. You also need to know how large you want to make your installation...that will determine how much chicken wire you need. We rolled our chicken wire into a small cylinder and closed the sides so that we would be able to attach pampas grass on the sides as well.

We used two eye hooks and two pieces of florist wire, attached to either side of the chicken wire cylinder to hang our wire form over the table.

Keep in mind the height of the chicken wire form. Will you have tall candles on the table? Tall guests at the table? You want it to be 2-3 above the table, depending on your room size and other factors.

After checking our size and location, we moved the table out of the way to have easier access to the wire form. Now you're ready to go to town! I started with 2-3 stems at once, and placed them through the wire form. Alternate adding some on the right then some on the left, to keep things balanced! Weight distribution is a key consideration to keep in mind!

We just kept filling in and adding long and short stems where we saw holes, and it started to take shape pretty quickly!

The end is the hardest part because you have to decide when to STOP! You can keep adding and adding, but depending on the look you're going for, you might not need to! Since our installation was near a wall, we didn't cover all of the spots on the back, which meant that we could use less pampas grass BUT ALSO that our weight distribution was front-heavy. SO I used a butter knife to act as a counterweight; I just slid it into the back of the chicken wire and it worked so well! ;) There's a secret tip for you.

Here's the finished product! I love it! I'm actually really sad thinking about taking it down. I want to keep it and hang it somewhere in my house as a permanent installation, but need to find the right spot! I love how it turned out and it couldn't have been easier to create! Definitely worth trying yourself!