St. Patrick's Day Topiary: Tutorial

I really have no St. Patrick's Day decorations. I usually leave up my Valentine's day decor for half the month of March and then start putting up Easter. I wanted to come up with a fun craft for St. Patrick's day that looked elegant and was easy to make.

You will need:

- a pot
- a styrofoam ball ( I used 4" balls.)
- Four leaf clover garland
- floral foam
- a wooden dowel or stick
- paint
- ribbon
- green moss


I started out trying to hot glue the garland around the ball. After a few burnt fingers and a few melted clovers I figured there had to be an easier way.
On my next try I decided to stick one end of the garland into the ball, then I wound the garland around a few times, cut off the piece and stuck the other end into the ball to secure it. I just kept doing this, changing the direction and placement of the garland until the ball was covered. Much easier, much safer and much faster.

I then painted my pot black and my dowel gold. I wedged a piece of floral foam into the pot and stuck one end of the dowel into my covered ball and one end into the foam. Next I covered the foam with the green moss and tied a gold ribbon around the pot. It ended up looking a lot cuter than I hoped.

I have a nook in the wall of our entry where we have a painting hanging. I usually like to use this little shelf below the painting for a little holiday decor display. These two topiaries turned out perfectly for this spot. Now I just need to come up with something to go inbetween them. Hmm...