Easy Carnation Shamrock Tutorial and Prints Back in Stock

Well, it has been an interesting week that did not exactly go according to plan. When we found out Jamie was in labor last week the girls and I ran around like crazy and began our journey up to NH within a few hours of getting the call that the baby was on her way. What we didn't account for was Lola getting quite sick on our way here. So, we made it to NH but just got a quick view of the baby at the hospital that first day and then I've pretty much stayed quarantined with Lola at my parents ever since - not exactly how we planned our visit going. =( We even have had to change our plans for returning home. So, not only have I not gotten any snuggle time with my newest niece, I haven't done much of anything at our new Dear Lillie space, or gotten any regular work done either. I took my camera out that first day but haven't since and I've barely touched my computer.

Hopefully Lola will start feeling better soon so we will at least get to hold the new baby a tiny bit before we return home. I had those first couple of posts earlier this week pretty much ready to go ahead of time but then got behind even though I have photos for quite a few more posts on my computer I haven't had a chance to get them all sized and edited. Hopefully I can start playing catchup today!

So, this morning I thought I would show you how to make the shamrock carnation that I used in our St. Patrick's Day Vignette.

Here's what you will need:

Scissors

Toothpicks

Sharp Knife - I used a Steak Knife

Carnations - I used four small bunches from the grocery store

Moss - I used a long roll of moss that I found at JoAnn's

Floral foam (you can use the wet or dry kind, I actually made two - one of each, the wet kind is MUCH easier to cut into a shape, but the dry one was easier to stand up and lean)

First use a pen or marker to sketch out your shape (this doesn't have to just be for St. Patrick's Day. I think it would be nice as a cross or bunny or Easter). Then use a knife to cut out the shape.

Above is the dry foam which was a pain to cut out and below is the wet foam which was MUCH easier to cut. (I actually ended up trimming it down to be a three leaf clover instead of four because it looked better that way with all of the carnations in it, but forgot to retake a photo of it once I trimmed it down to three).

Once you have your shape cut out attach your moss to the foam. Because I wanted to be able to reuse the moss later I just used toothpicks that I trimmed down to hold the moss in place. If you don't want to reuse your moss you could just hot glue it to the dry foam. In the spots where you can see the toothpicks poking out really far I had not trimmed them yet. It helps if you angle them downward as you are pushing them into the foam.

Now just cut the stems of your carnations down so they are an appropriate length for the depth of your foam and start pressing them in.

Once you have them all filled in it should look like this. If you turn it on it's side you will be able to see some toothpicks (as you can see in the photo below), they aren't noticeable from straight on so you can either leave them be, or you could paint them green to match the moss or hot glue some moss on to them).