St Patrick's Day Shamrock Wreath

One night right before I was going to give Jackson a bath I decided I would try to make another wreath out of wire hangers. I have a few wire hangers left and since they aren't the best for hanging clothes I figured I might as well repurpose them.  I didn't have a St Patrick's Day wreath so I thought I'd try to make a shamrock wreath.

So I grabbed a couple hangers and my pliers and went to work bending and shaping while Jackson splashed around and drew works of art with his bath crayons.

I had a vision but I wasn't too sure how I was going to execute it. I also wasn't sure if I wanted my shamrock to have 3 leaves with a twisted stem or 4 leaves. I originally bent both hangers the same: two heart shaped leaves. I knew they didn't have to be perfect since I was planning on wrapping them, they just needed to be basically the same shape and size.

I left the hangers on the counter in Jackson's bathroom for a week while I marinated on what I wanted to do. St Patrick's Day was coming fast so I knew it was now or never (or probably next year) and I really didn't want those hangers to go to the craft graveyard in my spare room. Pretty much at the eleventh hour it came to me so I got to work.

Here's my supply list:

-2 wire hangers

-pliers

-scissors

-quilt batting

-ribbon for wrapping and embellishments 

-hot glue

I had originally bent both hangers to look like this:

Then I changed my mind and I decided I really wanted a shamrock with a curly stem so I bent one of the hearts into a stem. I then bent a small section of the bottom of the open part of the heart into a hook to hold that piece of the shamrock together. I hooked the bottom of the heart and crimped the hook together as tight as I could get it with my pliers.

 The hanger that had two leaves on it was a little trickier. I bent a hook again on a small section of the bottom open part of one of the hearts with my pliers. I hooked the straight line side of the hearts in the middle and then slid the open end of the other heart into the hook and crimped the hook as tight as I could get it. It was pretty easy because the open end of the other heart was curly so it fit right in the hook and stayed in place.

There was enough room inside the hook I just made on the hanger with two leaves to slip the stem part of the other hanger through.

I then wrapped the top part of the stem, right below the bottom of the heart, completely around the whole hook and crimped that as tight as I could get it so the whole shamrock was held together pretty securely.

 Here is how it looks hooked and held together. It's still a little flimsy and bendy. And wow is my floor filthy!

 For the next step (wrapping) I grabbed a bag of quilt batting. I bought this at Salvo for 79 cents.

 I cut the batting into a long two inch strip for ease of wrapping. I hot glued the batting together when the strips ended.

 Here is how the shamrock looked wrapped in quilt batting.

 I then got out my ribbon to wrap some more. I wanted green burlap ribbon but I couldn't find any. I did however find pretty much the perfect comparable ribbon at Walmart. The quilt batting was very forgiving if you have thicker and thinner areas (like I did). You can apply more pressure at the thicker parts to make it all look even.

 When I got to the end of the stem I cut a small piece of ribbon, placed it on the tip and hot glued the sides. I then finished wrapping around that and hot glued the end to the back.

I tied a pretty ribbon around the middle, mostly to cover where the green ribbon intersected since a pretty bow looks way better than the mess of crisscrossed ribbon.

 I absolutely LOVE how my shamrock wreath turned out! It was exactly as I envisioned it!

This wreath was fairly cheap to make, I did pay more for the premium ribbon though. All in all it cost me about $8.