St. Patrick's Day Wreath

Since putting away the Christmas decorations, I haven't had a wreath on my front door. I usually always have something up there, and the lack of decor has made the front of the house seem sad and unwelcoming.  It has been too rainy and grey outside for my usual floral spring time wreath, and the lack of anything cheerful up there made the poor weather feel all the sadder.  So, time to make something happy!

The twig wreath base was already in my stash.  I bought it on clearance at Joann's back in December, for about $3.  It was labeled as an autumn piece, but the simple champagne gold color seemed good for a number of seasons, so I grabbed it.  Then last week I bumped into the laser cut wooden shamrock, also at Joanns (on sale for $4), and decided I'd make a St. Patrick's Day wreath to fill the empty door!  I painted the whole shamrock an emerald green metallic, then used a pencil to draw in where I wanted the knotwork strands to go over and under one another.  The over passes got a touch of metallic peridot for highlight, and the areas where the strands passed under got a bit of forrest green shadow.  Then the whole thing got a few coats of clear sealant.  I used some deep green jewelry wire to attach the shamrock to the wreath, and hung it with some ribbon from my stash.  Since all the paint, wire, and ribbon was in my stash, the whole project came to $7.