Epic Fail!!

Hello there!! Happy St Patricks Day!!!

Have you ever done a craft that just didn't turn out like you'd planned?

Maybe you had the best of intentions, but they went HORRIBLY wrong?!!

Although it might be a bit embarrassing, I'm going to share with you a project that I've been working on for the last couple weeks that turned out ALL WRONG!!

One of my goals for this year is to make a wreath for every holiday, so I had this great idea for a St Patricks Day wreath. Have you seen the rosette balls that are all over blogland? House of Smiths (yet another of my favorite blogs) has a great tutorial if you're interested! They're made with crepe paper, and they're adorable! So I was looking through my stash of crepe paper, and realized I had a roll of green. I had this great idea to make a St Patricks Day wreath with green rosettes. I even decided to cut my wreath out of cardboard so I could make the wreath for free!! What a great idea, right??....not so much!

So this is what I started with. (the bowl of ice cream is optional! :) ) I spent hours doing the rosettes, and finally got to this

This is when I ran out of crepe paper. So the next day I went and got some from the dollar store. The only problem was it was a totally different green! So I started thinking of other ways I could finish this wreath. I finally decided that I would make a rainbow on the top of the wreath. But I was doing this wreath 'on the cheap' and I didn't want to buy rolls of crepe paper in every color. So, being the genius that I am, I decided to do the rainbow in white, and paint them the colors of the rainbow. This is when the project went horribly wrong! I was already frustrated that I had spent so much time on the green rosettes, but I had no idea how long it would take me to do the white rosettes!! Ughhh.

So, hours and hours later, here's what I had. I didn't like it, but I'd spent so much time on it, that I was determined to make it work!

So while trying to figure out how to finish it, guess what I found?? Another roll of green that matched my green rosettes. Perfect timing. So I figured I'd go all out....
Are you ready for this awesomeness?? :)

Great, eh?? I know, you're stunned with it's beauty, right?? Ughhh. Definitely an epic fail!!
But that darn wreath will remain on my door until I make an Easter wreath, because I'm just that stubborn!! I spent so much time on the stinkin' wreath, and every time I walk through my door I'll remember never to do it again!! Oh well, lesson learned. Learn from my mistakes!

Did you see Jacki's awesome St Pattys Wreath?
You should stick with that one!

Thanks for reading!!
Juli

Shamrock Rag Wreath

I know it's getting close to St. Patrick's Day, but I saw a wreath over at The Magic of Ordinary Things and wanted to make it.

I started with a wreath from The Dollar Store. Can't beat the price.

I had picked up 1/4 yard of six different coordinating fabrics. Most of the fabric was on sale at JoAnn's, so I spent less than $5.00.
I took the fabric and ripped it into 1"-2" strips, than cut it into 10-12 strips. I like the varied in length and width. Here is all the strips of fabric.

Than you just start tying them around the wreath in what ever order you want.
I found that sometimes you need to push the material around so the wreath doesn't show.
I was going to hand the wreath on the door like that with a little bit of ribbon, but it wasn't screaming St. Patrick's Day. That's when I got the idea to have a shamrock in the middle. I had a stencil for a heart and used three of the hearts to make the shamrock. I painted it and than taped some ribbon on the back like this.

And yes that is a mess of glitter. I tried to make it a little more blingy, but it looked BAD!
I think the shamrock in the middle screams St. Patrick's Day (okay maybe not screams), but I think it makes it look cuter.
What are your plans for St. Patrick's Day?

Linking up to
http://sistersstuff.blogspot.com/

Lucky Blocks

"Lucky" Block Decoration

I found this cute St Patrick's Day decoration over at Every Crafty Endeavor and wanted to make one of my own. I immediately sent a message and picture to my sister to see if she wanted to make one too. She replied with a "heck yes" and that got our wheels turning.

First, I went to Lowe's to look for wood. I didn't know how big the blocks were, so I picked up a board that was 3 1/2 inches high and 3/4 inches thick. I asked Lowe's to cut it for me, but I won't be doing that again. They now have a fee for every cut over 2. The board was $6.78 and gave me 20 3 inch blocks, which comes out to about $2.40 for the word lucky and two shamrocks. Not bad.

Second, I had to find paper. I went to JoAnns and found that they had no St Patty's paper. I found other green paper though that was on sale, I even found some with glitter which I used for my letters. My sister went to Micheal's and found green patterned paper as well.

Next, we sanded all of our blocks and painted them to match our paper.
We cut the paper into 3 1/4 by 2 3/4 blocks.
Than used the Cricut to cut our letters out. We used Mod Podge to glue paper and letters on to the blocks.



Lastly, I tied ribbon around each letter.
You can omit this last step and it still look adorable.

So the grand total is probably about $10, which I think is a great price for
such a cute St. Patrick's Day Decoration.
Here are the final pictures.

I think they turned out great!
What sort of St. Patrick's Day decorations do you have in your home?
Let us know.