St. Patricks Day Yarn Wreath

Countdown to St. Patricks Day ~ 19 days!!!

I love St. Patricks Day,  maybe its because I am super Irish (I am even a citizen of Ireland) or maybe its because its just a jolly holiday where you get to drink green beer and eat green bagels.  I am a little ashamed to say I have never had a Shamrock Shake at McDonalds that people seem to rave so much about, thats definitely on my to-do list for the next 19 days.




One of my Fav pics of Ireland I took a couple trips ago*

 * Yup you read that right I have been to Ireland approximately 7 times now, I kinda lost count.  But I have the most amazing family over there and I miss them lots so I love to go visit.  If you have never been to Ireland I would highly recommend a trip, its literally the most beautiful place I can imagine.

Anyway I wanted our front door to reflect my love of all things Irish and I guess I have been into making wreaths lately so I decided to make a St. Pat's themed one.  I ended up with this little gem:

Want to know how I did it? Well the wreath part was suuuuper easy, you just take a Styrofoam wreath form and start covering it with yarn, switch on and off colors to make the stripes or if you want your wreath to be all one color you can do that too.  This is a very easy thing to do in bed by the way!

Eventually the back of your wreath will look like this, with all the knots you tied to secure your yarn:



And the front will look like this:

Now you could really just leave the wreath like that if you wanted, I think it looks quite nice.  But I will also show you how I made the fabric rosettes that make up my shamrock.

You will need to make 3 fabric rosettes.  Here is a youtube video to help you. I was very confused on how to make them until I watched this so I highly recommend you watch it.  Then once you have three of those babies made you want to grab some more felt and glue gun them together in a shamrock shape onto the felt.  Then cut away and extra felt around the rosettes. They back of the shamrock should now look like this:

Oh I forgot to mention the stem, to make the stem just cut a little strip out of the felt and wrap & glue some more green fabric around it, then glue it to the back of your shamrock.  Here is my shamrock all ready to go:

* A word to the wise - when making your rosettes you may not want to use a glue gun like I did, glue gun glue doesn't dry clear and it kinda makes a mess hence this little spot:

Now all you have to do is use your glue gun to secure your shamrock to your wreath and your done!

Here is the quick overview:

Materials:

• Styrofoam wreath - whatever size you want to make (mine was 14 inches)
• Yarn of different colors - I used 1 white and 2 greens
• 1/4 yard fabric for making rosettes
• 1 green sheet of felt for back of rosettes and shamrock
• Scissors
• Glue gun & glue for rosettes

Instructions:

1. Using your first color of yarn tie it around your wreath and make a knot.
2. Continue wrapping your wreath with yarn until completely covered, knotting when you stop and end a color.
3. When done knot your last bit of yarn securely, you can even put a little dab of glue back there if your nervous about the knot.
4. Make 3 fabric rosettes using youtube tutorial above.
5. Arrange 3 rosettes into a shamrock and glue onto green felt.
6. Make a small stem by covering a strip of flet in green fabric and glue to back of shamrock.
7. Glue shamrock to wreath.
8. Hang on door and admire!
   

I had sooooo much yarn left over that I also made one for my mom.  I switched hers up a little bit, here is the one I made her:

Check out all the great parties I am linking to!!!