Dollar Tree St. Patrick's Day

This past weekend, I was in Michaels when I decided I wanted to do just 1 more small St. Patrick's Day item. I'm not really into the holiday, but since I started blogging, I've seen the crafting value in every holiday. I made a lot of stuff for Valentine's Day, including 3 wreaths, and loved all of it.

I wound up deciding (as I sat pondering the items) to make a wall hanging. I am not in love with the bows on it.

What I used:

1 Dollar Tree "Canvas" (it was pre-printed)
3 Wooden Hearts from Michaels
3 Foil Cardboard Hearts- On Hand
Shamrock printed ribbon from Michaels
Paint- On Hand
Goldish wide sheer ribbon- on hand, but I got it at Dollar Tree
Matte & Golden Shimmer Mod Podge- On Hand

I love the sign itself. I hate the ribbons used. I painted the canvas brown, then used "Shamrock Green", forest green, and darker brown to streak the canvas. I loved it! Lastly, I coated the canvas in golden shimmer mod podge, to give it a bit of that pot of gold feeling.

I painted the larger wooden hearts forest green, and the cardboard side of the foil hearts Shamrock green. Word of advice- if you have it, skip the cardboard and use wooden hearts, these things curled horribly, and kept tearing when I put my fingers on them. Mucho Re-paint-o.

I mod podged the cardboard hearts to the centers of the wooden hearts with matte finished. I wasn't going to add any gold to it, but it kind of stood out against the golden shimmer background, so I wound up adding a layer of golden shimmer.

Lastly, the ribbon. Oh, the ribbon.

I noticed right off the bat that the white shamrock ribbon was too white against the rich, earthy tones I had used. I had some thing sheer tan ribbon, so I added that, made a bow, glued it on, and called it good over night.

Looking at it today, I hated it (though, to be fair, I hadn't really loved it last night). Today, I got the bright idea to distress the ribbon with brown ink. It wasn't horrible, but not great. I have a regular green ink pad, so I used that, too. Big mistake- while that pad works for distressing the edges of paper, it really soaked into the ribbon, leaving green blobs.

Being truly frugal, I was not about to give up on that bow, so I glued it on. Let it sit. Ripped it back off. Dollar Tree plasticy canvas is a lot stronger than one would think, as it's held up to having the bow ripped off it twice now.

I decided to stain the ribbon with the left over coffee from this morning. It accomplished 2 things. 1- it washed all the ink distressing from it except two random, huge green blobs. 2- it stained it. Faintly. It was far more white now than it was before staining it, since it washed the ink off.

I finally gave up. I pitched the hideous bow. It was useless. I really do like my sign without it, but since I don't have a stem for the shamrock, I felt like I should have something there.

Well, whose going to judge my 3 leaf, stemless clover? No one, it's in my house, not an art museum!

 

And while this photo was taken early on, before the ribbon debacle,  this is what it looks like again. Well, except I did skip a step. That wide sheer ribbon I had? I used it to make a hanger for it. 

See? The top part, not the ugly bow.

This post is linked up at the link parties listed here.