St. Patrick's Day Wreath

AKA, the last wreath I'll ever make for our current front door. Or AKA, the ruffled felt style of wreath I'll probably never make again because it was a PITA!

I'd been seeing lots of ruffled felt wreaths on Pinterest the past few months, and was itching to try one myself. I even pinned this heart shaped wreath, wondering if I could make four of these hearts and group them to look like a four leaf clover.

Pinterest via The Idea Room

However, Michaels was out of heart shaped wreath forms, so on the spot I decided just get a regular 16 inch wreath form, and I'd do something with wooden hearts left over from my Valentine's Day wreath, to create a four leaf clover. This would have been my first mistake, that made this project a PITA. I love 16 inch wreaths for front doors, but they're huge when you have to cover them with tiny, folded felt circles.

Tracing and cutting out the circles to make the ruffles was pretty time consuming. I bought a piece of green felt that was 72" x 36" and used nearly all of it to cut out 2.5" circles, that I traced onto the felt before cutting it.

Luckily I realized early on that I could fold the felt three times and pin it before cutting my circles, making things slightly quicker.

But it still took forever, and is why I'll probably not make a wreath like this again.

I used a dot of hot glue to hold my circles together, once I folded them.

And I also used hot glue to attach them to the wreath form. I still don't understand the point of using pins to attach the felt, which is what I've seen tutorials recommend. To me, hot glue is quicker, means no risk of pricking your finger, and it's a lot more secure than pins would be.

Also, you'll notice that I painted my wreath form. Yeah, should have bought a green one to begin with, but when I had to change my plans at the last minute in Michaels, it didn't occur to me until later.

After the hours and hours (and hours!) of cutting circles, folding them and gluing them, I painted some wooden hearts green, that were leftover from my Valentine's Day wreath.

I glued the big hearts to a little heart on the back side, which worked to hold the hearts in a four leaf clover, and as a spacer to position the clover off of the wreath about a half inch, so it wouldn't be lost in  the ruffles.

All in all, I probably spent about 8 hours making this dang wreath. It was definitely one of those projects that you start to hate about half way through. Especially when I've been working 10-12 hour days at my job the last few weeks--I resented the wreath taking up my precious little free time.

But the end result was very cute, so all the time was probably worth it. It's just too bad that I didn't finish it sooner, since I only got to hang this last night, and snap some quick pictures this morning. At least there's ten more days until St. Patrick's Day to enjoy it!

I think my favorite part is the four leaf clover. I painted a layer of sparkles over the green paint, to add a little more depth.

Ah, ruffles! Love the look, not the work. Craft stores really need to start selling perfectly sized, pre-cut felt circles. It would be such a time saver, and considering the number of ruffled felt wreaths I've seen lately, they would make a killing.

Have you made one of these popular ruffled felt wreaths? Did it take you a ridiculous amount of time to finish too?