At The End Of The Rainbow...

I've been promising a St. Patrick's Day wreath and I didn't want to close out the week without delivering. The problem was, I just couldn't decide what to do. I still wanted to do something with a rainbow but I just wasn't sure what. I was thinking that it would be fun to make a wreath into a rainbow somehow but I really didn't want to spend much money. I headed to Joann Fabrics to pick up some yarn because I really loved the texture on my Valentine's wreath. When I got there I realized that I didn't want to spend even $2.50 on each skein when I needed so little each of six different colors. I was walking around aimlessly trying to find inspiration when I saw these little spools of ribbon. The grosgrain was $1.00 per spool and the other was $0.50 each. That sealed the deal.

I grabbed a foam wreath form, two different shades of green felt and six colors of the rainbow (I don't mean to be a snob by leaving out indigo, I just didn't have room for it in my plan!).

Because I had six colors I marked off eight sections on my wreath form - six for the colors and two for the shamrocks.

I wrapped the ribbon the same way I would have my yarn, filling each section with the next color in the sequence ROY G. BiV.

I just used straight pins to secure each color in place.

I printed out a few different sizes of shamrocks to use for a pattern...

...and traced them on to my felt and cut them out.

I used straight pins to attach my shamrocks to the wreath. (I decided to wrap the last two sections with some black yarn I had on hand - just to make it look more finished.)

I used mostly green straight pins but also a few yellow and blue in places where they wouldn't be too noticeable.

For a hanger I pinned some scrap ribbon to the back. I used two pins on each end crossing over each other to make them extra secure.

And the finished product. I wasn't so thrilled with it when I just had the ribbon on but when I got the shamrocks on I started liking it a lot more. I still think I'm going to do it differently next year but for now I really am happy with the finished product!

I love the 3D effect from the shamrocks!

I was able to use a 40% off coupon on the wreath form so the total cost of this wreath (including tax) was $8.10. I've still got plenty of ribbon and felt leftover for some future use and because I didn't use any glue this can be totally taken apart if I want - perfect for some cold winter day (next year maybe?) when I'm feeling crafty but snowed in...and that happens a lot in North Dakota!

So what do you think? Do you like wreaths as much as me?  I'm off for the weekend, we're visiting family out of town. Early next week I plan to show you some fab finds from a recent thrifting excursion. Now I just need another semi-warm day to paint them up!