Rach Makes St. Patrick's Day Decorations

Happy Belated St. Patrick's Day!!! One of these days I will post about a holiday before it actually happens. Neither my husband or I are Irish but there has always been something appealing to me about Ireland and St. Patrick's day. I guess I have Irish envy!

This year I decided that we should make corned beef and cabbage and invite some friends over for St. Patrick's Day. Hubby had never even had corned beef! And to make it feel festive (and because I need the tiniest of excuses to craft), I decorated the new fireplace mantle to be festive!

Here it is:

Here's a close up

It's not too different from the Valentine's Day Mantle I made. I was lazy this time and just wrote the chalkboard. I filled one apothecary jar with corks that I have been collecting. Someday I will have enough to do something fun with. The other one has mini cupcake liners just like the other one.

You can find the free printable at Designs By CP. I liked that it had the word rainbow. I am a sucker for a rainbow.

I swapped out the candlesticks I used for these darker ones and actually used candles! I wrapped the candles in some leftover burlap from the banner and a piece of gold ribbon I had. I added a clover made following the directions that Flamingo Toes did when she created her beautiful wreath. 

I even went about and did my own wreath following her tutorial. It was just too cute to resist. Here's mine:

To make the banner, I cut out printed the word lucky and cut it out on cardstock. Then I just traced the letters and painted them in using some gold glitter. After it dried I outlined the letters with a black sharpie. I folded the top of each flag over and attached it to a piece of twine using my hot glue gun. 

I added the shamrock garland after everything else because I thought it just needed something. I used my handy cricut but didn't know if I had a cartridge that had a shamrock shape. Luckily I know of a great website that tells you this information. If you have a cricut and don't know this site you will be so excited. Its call My Cut Search. You type in what shape you are looking for and it tells you every cricut cartridge that has that shape on it. I found out pretty quick that Paper Doll Dress Up had them and I actually had that cartridge. I cut out the large shamrocks at 2 1/2" height and the smaller dark ones at 1 3/4". Then I cut out some gold circles and ran everything through my sewing machine in a pattern. I have made these before for my sister-in-law's mother-in-law's birthday party at this post Rach Makes Ombre Purple 60th Birthday. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of them, but she hung them from her fireplace and they looked great. Its a super easy way to make garland that looks great.

The last piece of my mantle was the rainbow and pot of gold in my empty oval frame. This is just paper I cut up and glued together. Nothing fancy, but the hubby said its his favorite piece of the mantle decorations.

Hopefully this inspires you to be creative and decorate your house. I am already thinking of all things I should do for Easter. I just wish it wasn't only 2 weeks away! Happy crafting :)