Darling, easy to make St. Patrick’s Day Decor that is less than $5 for both items!
I love decorating for the holidays! Sometimes, I go straight from Valentine’s Day decorating to Easter decorating in my home. However, this year, I decided to put together some cute St. Patrick’s Day decor ideas using Dollar Tree items and I’m thrilled with what I created for just a few dollars.
In this blog I’ll share the steps and photos for how I created these St. Patrick’s Day decor items. I’ll also put my video below for those of you that prefer to watch it on video.
Materials Needed:
- 2 vases – $1 each from Dollar Tree
- St. Patrick’s Day hanging decor – $1 from Dollar Tree. They make these for every season so just look in the holiday section (or pick one up elsewhere).
- Package of tissue paper
- 6 dowel rods (approximately 12″) or Wilton Candy Melt treat sticks (11.75 inch)
- Twine or ribbon
- Piece of Styrofoam
Tools Needed:
- Scissors
- Hot glue gun and glue sticks
Steps to Complete the first St. Patrick’s Day decor vase:
First, remove the items from the wall hanging decor.
I love to pick up these wall decor pieces from Dollar Tree because I can remove each of the decor pieces and use them to make decorative picks for a vase. After I started cutting the pieces apart, I realized that the ribbon can simply be pulled off of the five St. Patrick’s Day decor pieces pretty easily.
Next, cut the Styrofoam.
The Styrofoam needs to fit into the bottom of the base very snug because it is going to be holding your decorative picks. If there is a lot of room, it will tip and move. I had to cut a few pieces and place them side by side so that the Styrofoam didn’t move around and felt snug.
Then cover the Styrofoam with tissue.
I like to wrap the Styrofoam so that you don’t ever see the white Styrofoam show through the vase filler. I use the same color of tissue that I am using for the vase filler and simply wrap a small piece around it and put it into the vase.
Using hot glue, attach sticks to each decor piece.
Apply a thin line of hot glue in the center of the backside of each decor piece. As you do this, begin to think about how you are going to arrange the sticks in your vase. This helps determine whether you might want the decor piece to be positioned very high on the stick or maybe a bit lower.
In this project I used the 11.75″ Wilton Candy Melt treat sticks. I had purchased them with a coupon and got a bag of 20 for a couple of dollars. I like these because they’re so long, they’re already white (no painting required), and they break off so easy, which let’s me get varying heights in my vase.
Then place decorative sticks into the Styrofoam.
I like for my tallest decorative stick to be in the center and typically angle the remaining picks. I also think the displays look better with an odd number of decorative picks. These projects usually work best with 3-5 items.
Varying the heights of the decorative sticks adds interest to your St. Patrick’s Day decor piece. Simply break off some of the stick before sticking it into the Styrofoam.
Next, fill the vase with tissue paper shred and trim the shred as needed.
Tissue paper shred is super easy to make. Half a package makes way more than you need for this project and only takes a few minutes to make. See my blog post about making tissue paper shred as vase filler for more information.
After filling up the vase with tissue paper shred, trim pieces as necessary. I do not crunch or smash the tissue paper down into the vase because I think the “fluffy” look is much better.
Finally, add some ribbon or twine around the vase.
This adds a great finishing touch.
And that’s it! My first St. Patrick’s Day decor is done.
You have two remaining decor pieces that we’ll use for the second vase. Since I like to have an odd number of items in my vases, I needed to figure out a third item to add and decided on a tissue paper flow. It was a perfect solution because I already had extra tissue paper and tissue paper flowers are so easy to make.
Steps to complete second St. Patrick’s Day decor vase
First, I made a tissue paper flower.
To make the tissue paper flower, you must first cut a section of tissue paper. I usually just cut along the tissue paper fold line to get a section about 4″ x 8″. You will need about 6-8 sheets that size.
Next, fan fold the tissue, with each fold being about an inch wide.
Then, tie a double knot in the middle with fishing line or a small ribbon. Make sure you’re making the knot in the middle.
Then, use scissors to round each side of the accordion-folded tissue.
Then, carefully pull each layer of the tissue apart on one side. Repeat on the other side.
Using hot glue, adhere the stick to the flower in the opening. Use something to press and hold the stick to the tissue so that you don’t burn your fingers.
Then, cut a piece of Styrofoam, wrap it in tissue paper, and place it in the 2nd vase.
Again, make sure the Styrofoam fits snugly in the vase so there isn’t movement.
Next, insert decorative picks into the Styrofoam.
I placed my tissue paper flower in the center and a shamrock pick on each side, inserted at an angle. Remember, you can break off part of your treat stick to get varying stick heights.
Then, add tissue paper shred.
And finally, tie a ribbon or twine around the vase.
Coming up…
I just finished my Easter shopping spree at Dollar Tree. They have several really cute wall hanging decor (just like the St. Patrick’s day ones). I purchased a few and will do this project again, but next time will use a fun, galvanized metal container.
