St. Patrick’s Day Shamrock Wreath Tutorial

shamrock wreath



DIY Shamrock Wreath

Hi guys!!  I am super excited to be here today sharing my first project on Craftaholics Anonymous®.  Now that St. Valentine is out of the limelight for another year,  I have turned my attention to St. Patrick and his special day.  I wanted to make an easy shamrock wreath for our front door to hopefully welcome the “Luck o’ the Irish” into our home!

St. Patrick's Day wreath on Craftaholics AnonymousSt. Patrick’s Day Shamrock Wreath Tutorial

by: Amy

Supplies:You might already have most of these in your stash, if you’re anything like me!

  • a styrofoam wreath form
  • 1 skein of white yarn
  • green felt in a couple of different shades
  • 1/4 yard of fabric for bow
  • scraps of coordinating fabric for rosettes
  • hot glue gun
  • straight pins
  • bow and shamrock pattern pieces

Begin by wrapping your wreath form in yarn.  I pushed a couple of straight pins right into the styrofoam to secure the end of the yarn to the wreath, then wrapped and wrapped and wrapped it around the form until I liked the way it looked.  Once you have covered the form so that there are no gaps you could stop wrapping, but I kept going until I had used up all the yarn because I liked it better the fuller and thicker it got.  When you get to the end, use a couple more pins to secure it in place on the back of the wreath.

Now that the wreath base is ready, it’s time to craft up some embellishments!  Every St. Patrick’s day wreath needs shamrocks and they’re super easy to make out of felt.

how to make felt shamrocks on Craftaholics Anonymous

How to Make a Felt Shamrock:

Print out the pattern pieces for the shamrock and bow from the link above.  Cut 4 leaf pieces out of felt for each shamrock.  Glue the two bottom edges of each leaf together with a tiny bit of hot glue {see pic.2}, then glue the leaves together to form two sets {see pic.3}.  Finally, attach the two sets of leaves together {see pic.4}.  Flatten all four leaves together and use your scissors to snip off some of the bulk in the middle of the clover {see pic.5}.  This just makes it lay open flatter and prettier. {Notice the difference between pic.4 and pic.6?}  Cut a small stem out of felt and hot glue it to the base of the shamrock.

felt shamrock tutorial

I always felt like my local craft store didn’t have a very good selection of felt colors, so I did a little research a while back and started ordering wool felt online.  I get mine from an Etsy shop {just search for “wool felt” } and it comes in hundreds of colors.  It’s a tiny bit more expensive, but it cuts beautifully and I am a much happier crafter now.

Shamrock Wreath pleated rosette

Make a few scrap fabric rosettes to add a little bit of extra color to the wreath, too.  In addition to regular rolled fabric rosettes, I made some of these pleated rosettes.  Just cut a square of felt {about 2-inches by 2-inches} for the back of the flower.  Tear a strip of fabric about 1½-inches wide.  Keep in mind that your finished rosette will be roughly twice as wide as you fabric strip is so the wider your fabric is, the larger your rosette will be. Form the rosette by attaching the end of the fabric strip to the felt square with a dab of hot glue, then continuing to dab glue and pleat the fabric all the way around until you get back around to where you started. You can finish off the center by hot gluing on a button or a small circle of felt.  I didn’t bother with that in this case because I knew I just wanted to use these flowers in the background and the other elements would cover up the centers.

I wanted my bow to be a little bit special on this wreath so I opted to sew one out of cute polka dot fabric instead of just tying ribbon.  It only takes a few minutes and some basic sewing skills:

fabric bow tutorial

Cut the bow pattern pieces out of your fabric.  You’ll need two each of the bow front and bow tails pieces and one bow center.  With right sides together, sew around the perimeter of the bow front pieces, leaving a couple inches open in the middle of one of the longer sides to turn it right side out.  Do the same thing for the bow tails pieces.  Clip the corners and turn both pieces right side out, making sure to get all the corners pushed out nice and pointy.  Press them to get nice crisp edges.

While you are using your iron, press the long edges of the bow center piece to the back about ½-inch on each side.  Fold the piece in half and sew the two ends together {as shown in the top pic.}.  Stack the bow front on top of the bow tails and feed both pieces through the loop formed by the bow center.  Arrange the fabric until it lays right and you’re all done.

wreath tutorial

It reminds me of a little leprechaun’s bow tie!  Now you just have to attach all your elements to the wreath base.  I started with my bow because it was the biggest piece and I knew I wanted it to be in the center.  You could hot glue it right where you want it, but I prefer to use straight pins on styrofoam wreaths.  They hold everything in place firmly and you can remove them without damaging the whole wreath.  That means you could use this same basic wreath over and over again by simply pinning on different decorative elements for each season!  I try to hide the heads of my pins within the natural folds of the fabric or layers of elements so they’re completely invisible.  For this bow, I lifted the edges of the bow front and stuck two or three pins in on each side.

Play around with the layout of your rosettes and shamrocks until you are happy with the way it looks.  I went a little bit asymmetrical to keep it interesting.  Pin all the elements to the wreath base in the same way you did the bow, hiding all the pins as best you can.

St Patrick's day wreath tutorial on Craftaholics Anonymous

shamrock wreath

I just love the way it turned out!  A little bit of green and white is always a breath of fresh air in the early spring.  I have high hopes that these 4-leaf clovers will bring some luck our way this year.  At the very least it will welcome our friends and family and we feel super lucky already to have them around!

How to Make Felt Shamrocks + DIY St. Patrick's Day wreath

What St. Patrick’s Day crafts are you working on? Do you plan to make a wreath?

More St. Patrick’s Day craft ideas:

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Comments

  1. 1

    This is so beautiful! I love the big bow! :D

  2. 2

    I love this wreath, and the shamrocks are to die for! Beautiful colors for St. Patricks Day and Spring! So creative! Thanks for sharing. Kari

  3. 3

    I love your fabric choices — they’re so pretty. It’s nice to see a St. Patrick’s Day wreath that doesn’t scream “green”! Sharing!

  4. 4

    This is so cute-I love it! I don’t usually love St. Patrick’s Day stuff, but this is great.

  5. 5
    chris galbraith

    Love this wreath! Looks simple, too! I like simple!!