A Bouquet of Shamrocks

Only 10 days to Spring!!!! This is an amazing thought considering the super cold and snowy Winter we have had here in Northern Idaho. Just last week there was a foot of snow on the ground and the temp was below 0. This makes the thought of warmer Spring weather soooo exciting! Soon we will even be able to plant flowers outside for summer bouquets. Can’t wait! In the meantime, how about a Bouquet of Shamrocks for your table this St Patrick’s Day? Well, we have the perfect solution. These Shamrocks are made with pre-cut Foam Shapes, wooden dowels, and a few large buttons. For the vase, we re-purposed a salad dressing container and added a few spiral chenille stems for a simple and easy “good luck” centerpiece.

Supplies Needed:

Shamrock Shapes
3/16″ Wood Dowels
Large White Buttons
Plastic Container & Spray Paint
Small Glass Gems
Black Sharpie Marker
White Nail Polish
Rainbow Color Chenille Stems
Low Temp Glue Gun

Directions for Making a Bouquet of Shamrocks:

1. Let’s start by making the vase for the Shamrock Shapes. We re-purposed a salad dressing container by peeling the label off and spray painting it Metallic Gold. It works perfectly with a few glass gems inside to hold it in place. Plus, it’s easy to make it gold! If you already have a vase you would like to use, skip to step 4.

2. One coat of Metallic Gold Spray Paint was all it took! Make sure to let it dry in a well ventilated area. It was dry in less than 30 minutes and ready to decorate.

3. Once the container is dry, attach ribbon to the top of the vase (shown below) with a low temp glue gun. We used a 1″ Black Saddle Stitch Ribbon and added a Large White Button to the center. Next, fill the vase about half full with small clear glass gems. This will provide weight to the vase and allow you to add height to the bouquet without it falling over. The gems will also give you something to poke the wood sticks in and will help hold their place in the vase. If you don’t have glass gems, marbles or small rocks would work.

4. Now it’s time to make the Shamrocks on a Stick! Click here for step by step instructions for outlining the shapes, adding the polka dot, and adding the buttons.

5. For our Shamrock Bouquet we made 5 Shamrocks on a Stick (using 10 shamrock shapes total). Each wood dowel takes 2 shapes (finished on opposite sides). Attached Shamrock Shapes to 3) 12″ long 3/16″ wood dowels (the pre-cut size the dowels come in) using a Low Temp Glue Gun. Add glue to the stem of the shamrock and attach to the end of the wood dowel. Then add glue to the back of the shamrock and attach the other shape to the back. Press to secure. Both sides should show a finished shamrock. Below are the 3 shamrocks on 12″ wood sticks (held in place by the glass gems in the gold vase).

For the other 2) shamrocks we cut two 3/16″ wood dowels (1) 6″ and 1) 9″. To make the 6″ and 9″ lengths we needed, simply “cut” the dowels with scissors. Scissors will not cut them all the way through, however, you can “score” them all the way around and then snap them at the score. No saw is required for cutting the dowels.

Attach the Shamrock Shapes to the shorter wood dowels and add them to the bouquet in front of the taller ones.

Optional: Add a “rainbow of colors” to your Shamrock Bouquet with Chenille Stems Spirals! Simply twist chenille stems around a sharpie marker, pen, or straw. Then gently pull each end to the desired length for the perfect spiral shape.

Since the chenille stems only come in 12″ pieces and they are shorted once in a spiral, you can add additional height by attaching them to a short piece of wood dowel. The bouquet will look best if you add different lengths of chenille stems. We added a red, orange, yellow, green, and blue chenille stem to our bouquet.