st patty's day wreath

Hey all!! Happy Friday! So this wreath combines three of my favorite things- Unity stamps, The Twinery twine, and St. Patrick's Day!! Being half Irish, it's a big holiday in our family :) After I finished the shamrocks, yarn balls, and fabric "flowers" for this wreath, I decided to make a banner and stamp on some felt! I was super excited that it worked so well!
.: materials :.

• styrofoam wreath base
• festive fabric
• yarn (for background and balls)
• felt (for shamrocks and banner)
• straight pins & 2 decorative pins
• twine (I used The Twinery's cantaloupe)
• eyelets
• eyelet setter (I use a Crop-A-Dile)
• ink (I used Stazon's timber brown)
• stamps (I used Unity's February Kit of the Month 2012)
• scissors (regular and pinking shears)

.: directions :.

WREATH BASE::

• wrap the wreath in twine

FABRIC FLOWERS::

• cut out circles from your festive fabric in varying sizes. these will be used to make the "flowers" (6-10 circles per flower)
• put a straight pin through the center of each circle, and pin into the wreath. pin the centers of the circles close to each other to create a nice full flower. continue pinning circles until you get a flower "fullness" that suits you :) most of mine are ~8 circles per flower, with some being fewer and some being more.

SHAMROCKS::

• create your felt shamrocks (I used this tutorial here)
• pin shamrocks to wreath using straight pins. I tried to hide the pins in some of the folds of felt near the center of the shamrock.

TWINE BALLS::

• create yarn balls (good tutorial here) - I use two fingers to start my yarn balls, especially since the ones on this wreath are smaller, and I change directions every ~8 loops. Once you reach your desired ball size, carefully tie off the yarn.
• pin balls to wreath with straight pins. I put the pin through a few yarn strands and then the knot where I tied off the yarn.

BANNER::

• stamp images onto felt and cut out with pinking shears (or regular scissors)
• attach eyelets to each corner of felt and connect with twine
• attach banner to wreath with decorative pins
• hang wreath and enjoy! :)

See how I used the same base and accessories to update this wreath in 2013- {see it here}! And check back here soon to see 2014's version! I love how easy it is to change up everything a bit each year :)

.: linkin up here :.

Frugalicious Friday @ Finding Fabulous

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