Easy (Sorta) Cheesy St. Patty's Day Decor
I love decorating for each holiday. It usually consisted of little garden flags in the front yard and a "holiday" wreath on the door. Inside I usually do a table runner and placemats. Now that we have a nice focal point mantle, I'm branching out, and decorating the fireplace as well.
This year for our door, I found a great door "wreath" at Joann's. I moved my wooden "Welcome" sign over to the side. I also found a cute metal sign that I hang up on my sign post along with "Lucky" garland at Hobby Lobby.
Now for the inside. For the most part, other than the outside, I've never really decorated for St. Patrick's Day because most of the stuff you find is pretty cheesy. Now don't get me wrong, I like a little bit of cheesy (decide for yourself), but I don't go for the shiny gold coins, shiny green garland, gold buckets, etc. I like bling, but it seems to me that almost every indoor decoration for St. Patrick's Day is big on bling.
I did my own table runner. If you want the embroidery pattern, all you have to do is subscribe or send me an email, and I'll send you the embroidery pattern straight away. I sewed up the table runner, and in between my bottom fabric and the top I went ahead and used some stabilizer to keep it stiff. When I went to embroider, I thought the stabilizer I used would be enough so I didn't use any embroidery stabilizer. As you can see, it puckered a little bit, so I would suggest if you do attempt to do this on a table runner that already has some stabilizer, add to it. It certainly won't hurt. When I do use stabilizer for my runners, my go to choice is tear away.
The pictures don't show it, but the "Live, Laugh, Love" was done with metallic thread. The last time I attempted metallic thread was a disaster. I learned the hard way that metallic thread is actually a plastic thread and that the friction will cause it to melt. I had to take my machine apart, and luckily I was able to fix it myself without having to take it to the shop. I then did what I should have done the first time, and read about working with metallic thread. The key is to go slow. The slower the better. I had my machine set on the second slowest setting, and it worked like a champ!
I used my trusty Cricut machine to make my arrangement. I simply found some shamrocks and cut them in different sizes and used floral styrofoam and floral pins to make a "bed of shamrocks". I then found some St. Patrick's Day cuts and cut a few out and glued them to wooden picks that I stuck in the styrofoam as my arrangement. I wanted to use some washi tape on the wood picks but I couldn't find any I like at Wal Mart or Joann's (it was Sunday and the Hobs was closed). I'll go by there this week and see if I can find a pattern I like - if not, I think it worked out just fine. I then took my ribbon I bought at Dollar tree and double side taped it around my candle bases.
I think it turned out pretty nice, and I've asked my husband over and over again if he thinks it's cheesy (thus the title of the blog).
Now for my fireplace mantle. In the next few months I want to paint and redo the mantle, so the only permanent piece is the 150 year old mantle clock. So, I've decided that until I redo it - or maybe even after - I'll rotate the decor by the season/holiday. As I stated earlier, it seems like everything for St. Patrick's Day is glittery and blingy. While I ordinarily love a bit of bling - it can be pretty cheesy for home decor at times. My suggestion is to use it sparingly (which I didn't really do). I found two cute pieces at Hobby Lobby that caught my eye - and the rules went out the window. Of course, they were self inflicted rules, but they still went out the window. I bought two of the burlap banners and the Irish prayer cross at the Hob as well. I spent less than $20 on my Hobby Lobby purchase since all of their St. Patrick's Day decor is 40% off. The two pieces at the ends of the mantle I found at Home Goods for 12.99 each. I wanted to do the green, but not go totally crazy on the green.
Since I did break my rules for the bling, I went ahead and kept everything pretty simple for the mantle, and I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out. I'm open to any suggestions to make it better.
