DIY: Rustic Lucky Charm Wreath

The Luck o’ the Irish: it’s something that some posses when it comes to DIY projects and something others are hoping to find at the end of a rainbow.

Transitioning your home from the hustle and bustle of the holiday season into a normal year-round decoration rotation can be hard. From January until Spring, it’s difficult to find a workable decoration flow for many people. But adding a versatile wreath to the mix can bring color, holiday spirit and fun. By now you may be asking how our lucky charm wreath can be “versatile,” but we promise, it can be. Once you have the basis of the wreath, you can change out the felt design and replace it with something for each holiday. As an example, keeping ziplock bags labeled with each holiday allows for a quick change over. Hearts for Valentine’s Day, shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day, and flowers for Spring. Red, white and blue stars go perfect with Memorial Day or the Fourth of July. Leaves work in the Fall, and snowflakes in the Winter. Christmas has endless possibilities. During hockey season, you could incorporate team names in team colors, and a stick and puck. Felt is any beginner or intermediate crafters friend; it’s easy to use, inexpensive and comes in a wide variety of colors and patterns. Not sold yet? Try it for yourself, we don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Our Lucky Charm Wreath is fairly easy for any DIYer, no luck needed to complete!

You’ll need: 

Felt: two pieces in different shades of green
Twine: you could also use burlap ribbon, it depends on personal preference. The twine will take longer to wrap, but has a longer lasting durability.
Straw wreath: you can purchase this from your local craft store, Walmart, etc. If you’re looking at a craft store, check your paper or online for coupons. Places like ACMoore and Michaels have 40-50% off one item coupons on a weekly basis, so save yourself some money.
Silver or gold pins
Scissors
Tracing paper
Pencil

Overall, the total cost for the project rang in at less than $10.

Directions: 

1. Grab a glass of vino, curl up by the fire and get wrapping. The vino and fire aren’t necessary, but getting comfortable is — especially if you’re using twine, because it’s time intensive, about 45 minutes. More than likely, your straw wreath came wrapped in plastic, don’t take it off, it’ll be easier to wrap and more comfortable for your hands with the plastic still on. Keeping the twine on the roll, wrap once around and secure in a knot, then start wrapping, and wrapping and wrapping some more.

Wrap in sections, you’ll find it will come to a point where it’s not sitting correctly, when you reach this point, pull the twine at an angle across the back and start wrapping again at a different slant as seen in the picture to the left. You’ll find yourself with a “v” shape of straw between the bunches of twine, don’t panic you’ll go back over these patches later.

1a. Once you’ve completed the twine wrapping with the straw patches of the entire wreath, secure your last piece similar to the first.
1b. Now, you’re going to do the same thing to your straw patches, covering them with twine and securing the pieces. There will be some overlapping, but it’ll add to the rustic charm of the wreath in the end.

2. Once your wreath is covered, set aside. Next, grab your tracing paper and carefully trace a shamrock in two different sizes of your liking off your laptop or iPad — emphasis on the carefully here! Or if you’re fancy and have a printer, you can just print out a shamrock. For shamrock outlines, click here.
2a. Once you have your outlines, grab your scissors and cut them out.

3. Next, place your two pieces of felt on top of each other, it’ll save you time in the end if you cut both sheets at once. Place your shamrock outline on top of the felt and pin with one of your pins.
3a. As steadily as you can, cut out your shamrock and repeat until you have the desired amount of shamrocks. Our wreath has about 8-10 shamrocks in varying sizes, but visualize to your own tastes, you can always add more easily.

4. Take your wreath and lay out your shamrocks in the desired pattern, play with the design until it’s the way you’d like it to look. Does it look good? Great. Pick up your box of pins and push one pin into the center of every shamrock to secure.

5. Lastly, you’ll need a piece of twine for hanging the wreath. Pick a length that will hang the wreath at a good height for your desired location. Make a loop with your twine and double knot it. Then, secure it with a few pins into the back of the wreath.

Voila, you’ve got a festive St. Patrick’s Day wreath to transition to other holidays. Keep in mind, if you’re transitioning to different holidays, just pull your shamrocks up and replace them with whatever your next group of felt pieces may be. Don’t forget to throw your shamrocks in a ziplock sandwich bag for next year, they’re reusable. As spring nears, we will do a feature on making felt flowers for a spring version of the wreath. Stay tuned!