Easy Shamrock Wreath - Toot Sweet 4 Two

This easy shamrock wreath came together in minutes, but it’s taken me 7 years to make! I’m sure you’re wondering “how can that be?” Who in their right mind would want to do a crafting project that takes 7 years? If you are an artist (painter or sculptor), then 7 years might be the timeline for an creating a masterpiece before the artist is ready to share it with the world.

But an easy shamrock wreath made from a grapevine wreath and a bunch of foam shamrocks plus a little bit of ribbon? Not.so.much.

So, here’s the backstory: I have a collection of foam shamrocks. They are of various sizes and colors – some glitter, some plain. I’m sure I bought the first package around the time of our first St. Patrick’s Day after we moved into our new house (2009) following the fire

The year of the fire (2007), I had taken two different “trips of a lifetime” – the first to Ireland with a close friend (Christin) in late August, early September. The second to Hawaii with Charlie, my parents, my two sisters and brother-in-law in early October. Both were fabulous trips and when we came home from each, I started collecting things to create scrapbooks on each trip. I placed my collections of scrapbooks, scrapbooking paper, stickers and pens in separate plastic boxes to store. I thought I’d wait until after the impending holidays to get started on my scrapbooks.

And, then the fire happened on October 22nd.

So, photos gone, scrapbooking stuff all gone. And, the idea of creating scrapbooks became the least of my worries, as we spent the first several weeks homeless, living in a hotel and later with Charlie’s brother’s family. By Thanksgiving, we found a rental condo and moved in with our few meager belongings.

I’ve written a series about this time in our life – the fire, the rebuild and our first few weeks in our new home – and you can read it here: Any Way the Wind Blows. I’m taking these first few minutes to explain my obsession with shamrocks so that you’ll understand why I have this collection of foam shamrocks that I’ve done nothing with for 7 years. Except collecting more!

It seems that around every St. Patrick’s Day holiday, I end up at the craft store with good intentions of creating something fun and festive for our house. So, I buy a bit of ribbon here, some fun picks there and more foam shamrocks!

Determined that this year I would break this endless cycle of buying crafting supplies that don’t get turned into crafts, I bought a grapevine wreath plus I didn’t buy more foam shamrocks!

After sorting through the sizes of the various foam shamrocks I’ve collected, I laid them over the grapevine wreath to figure out some kind of design.

Satisfied that this design would use the maximum amount of foam shamrocks that I could squeeze on my large 26-inch grapevine wreath, I started gluing them in place with a glue gun. I left about 6 inches bare for the ribbon.

The smaller foam shamrocks had a sticky backing. All you need to do with those is peel off the paper backing and press them into place. Easy peasy!

Shamrock overload! And, guess what? I still have probably another 75+ foam shamrocks left for another project!

Then I selected a green glittered mesh wired ribbon about 2-inches wide from my stash of St. Patrick’s Day ribbons and twisted it into shape. I tied the ribbon onto the wreath (it could have been glued, too; I just left enough of the ribbon streaming from the bow to tie it to the wreath). Then, I removed the wire stem from my leprechaun (he’s a floral pick; it was easy – I just pulled out the wire) and hot glued him to the center of the ribbon.