Top o' the mornin' to ya!

Sorry, that was lame.

I'm not a huge fan of over the top decorations for holidays (except for Christmas...and sometimes Halloween...), but I thought the O'Lenney house could use a bit of Irishing up.

Thankfully, I keep a drawer full of felt for just such occasions. Doesn't everyone? Well, you should. This is crazy easy, and although I used my sewing machine, this project can be done without sewing.

Let's get started.

the goods:

1 sheet 8x10 dark green felt
2 sheets 8x10 light green felt
12 Felt circles (or just use another sheet of felt and cut yourself)
Thread
Glue - Elmer's or hot glue
String of some sort for your garland - mine was 52" long, gold, and sparkly
Triangle template
Letter templates

how to:

1. Cut your triangles. I hate to waste felt, so I just took my sheet, folded it in half, and then made my triangle. That way I could get 3 triangles from each sheet with minimal waste. Mine was 5" wide x 6" long. I did 3 triangles of dark green and 4 of light green.

See? Minimal waste. You'll use those scraps later to cut out your letters.

Make life easier for yourself and double (or quadruple) your felt when you cut to save time. Felt is super easy to cut and forgiving.

2. Lay out all of your pieces. Make sure your garland string is long enough. Mine must barely made it. It's leftover ribbon from a Christmas gift. I save everything. I double checked the length on my fireplace first to be sure it was the right fit. Shockingly, it was.

3. This is where those little circles come in. These were left over (see a theme here?) from an order a long long time ago for a Christmas garland that I never made. I didn't love the colors together when I received it, so I've just been cannibalizing them for projects over the years. Turns out they make fine shamrocks.

4. Go to your computer and print out some letters. I used Aldhabi in 250 point font. I wanted something with serifs that looked kind of Celtic, but nothing that would be a pain in the rear to cut out.

TIP - turn on Rulers and Grids in your view tab (Microsoft Word). You can then see how large your letters will be. It will save you from printing and resizing and reprinting over and over.

5. Cut out the letters and make sure you like the size.

I cut around mine leaving a fairly generous white border. I then went back and fine-tune cut the felt to make it look just right. I wanted my letters kind of thick, so this worked well.

6. I used good old Elmer's school glue to stick my letters on. Easy peasy.

7. Tack your triangles to your string/ribbon. It will ensure you have even spacing and don't run out of string. Binder clips work well for this, too.

8. Sew (or hot glue) your string onto your triangles. I used gold thread (because it's fun) in a zigzag stitch to make sure it was on there really well. Garlands wouldn't get much abuse, you think, but I knew one good tug and Henry would have the whole thing apart if it wasn't really secure.

9. Looking good! You could just stop here, but...

10. Max was still napping, so I decided to press my luck. I stitched the shamrocks on. The glue adhered the letters really well, but I didn't want these circles disappearing over time. I was going to go over the letters too, because I thought the gold thread would look cool, but Max woke up. So I called it. Maybe I'll go back and do it later. I left the gold thread in the machine just in case.