How to Decorate For a Meaningless Drinking Holiday*

*To me, anyway.  I am not Irish.  I am breastfeeding, so I will not be drinking beer.  St. Patrick's day does not have a tremendous amount of importance to me personally.  However, the kids (who are more Irish than I, thanks to the Hubs) wanted to decorate.  I agreed, but the spending limit was capped at $5.  That was it.  

And you know what?  We did it!  We came in just under $5 by using a couple of BIG elements made from inexpensive stuff (tissue paper flowers! free internet printables!), and from hitting up Big Blue (I'm talking to you, Lowe's) for some of their premium paint chips.  Want a wreath like this for your mantel?  Entryway?  Playroom?  Here's how to do it.

Supplies, you ask?  Grab these things:

Paint chips - the square kind.  Thanks, Big Blue.  Get way more than you think you will need.  This project is deceptive.  You may want to come up with a clever cover story, or pretend to not speak English, just in case they ask you what your paint chip intentions are.  Also, make sure your eight-year-old doesn't ask, "Hey, Mom, wait, don't we need to pay for those?" right as you're walking out past the cashier.  This would probably be very embarrassing.

A circle punch.  Mine was a 2-incher; I think it would have looked better with 2.5 inch circles.  Depending on the size of your paint chips, 3 inches may actually be too big.  I'm sure that you could do this without a circle punch, but you would have to really be in it to win it.  That's a lot of circles, dude.

A super-premium, top-of-the-line flat wreath form.  Or an uneven circle cut from the side of  a diaper box.  Your call.  You'll also need a hot glue gun.  That's it!


So! First, cut out all of your ill-begotten paint chips and stack them by color.  When I say all, I mean a BUNCH.  My wreath is about 8 inches across, and I used at least 50 paint chips.

Next, start hot-gluing them on.  Try a practice layout first just so you know how far apart you're going to have to space the disks to avoid running out.  For this particular wreath, I started with the second-darkest color I had chosen as the base.  Next, I layered in the deepest shade and the white.  All of the medium and light greens were next, and I finished with the gold color for ornamentation.  I felt like this helped add some depth to what was the essence of a two-dimensional project.

After I had the entire wreath form (...heh) covered, I turned over the remaining disks and added a big dollop of hot glue to the back of each, and let it dry.  This was to help with relief between the layers and add some dimension.  Once they had all firmed up, I added a fresh layer of glue to the dried-up glob to affix to the wreath.

Finish layering, let dry, and ta-daa!  All done.  Add to your other chic Irish/beer themed decorations, and admire your new mantel: