DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Saint Patrick's Day Wreath Craft

The diameter of the completed wreath is about 15 inches.

This craft is fun for older children (and adults!) - Age 6+.  There are quite a few steps that younger kids (Age 2+) can help with, but they won't be able to do the craft independently.  This is a good family project!

Materials:

• Wire coat hanger
• 14 to 16 tp rolls
• Optional:  Saint Patrick's Day color paint like shades of green or colors of the rainbow (we used shades of green)
• construction paper (you could also use craft foam or white paper if you're using our templates)
• tape,
• glue,
• scissors

Instructions:

• ADULT:  Take each tp roll and cut a slit HALFWAY through.
• Optional:  Paint tp rolls a saint patrick's day color.  You can see from the finished craft that not too much shows through, but my kids have fun painting, so we painted them all shades of green.
• Let dry.
   
• ADULT:  Bend the coat hanger to form a circle.
• Using the slits cut halfway through the rolls, slide each of your tp rolls onto the hanger to form a big circle of tp rolls.
• Optional:  Take a bit of masking or scotch tape and tape the tp rolls together.  (tape the openings of the tp rolls on the inside of the circle together).  This will keep the rolls from spinning around while you're working.  If you decide not to do this, the paper shamrocks and rainbows will keep everything from spinning on the finished craft.
   
• You can either print the templates below and cut them out or do what we did:
  • Fold a piece of green construction paper into 4.  Trace a shamrock onto the front of the folded paper and cut out (that way one cut/trace makes 4 shamrocks).  Repeat so you have 8 shamrocks.
  • Fold a piece of red construction paper into 4.  Trace a large circle onto the front of the folded paper and cut out (giving you 4 circles).  Repeat with yellow construction paper, only make a smaller circle -- then green, then blue.  Glue the circles together (red, yellow, green, blue) and then cut in half.  You'll have 8 rainbows!
• One person can be doing this part while another is assembling the tp roll wreath base.  This works well if you have crafters of different ages (the base is more difficult than cutting out hearts).
• Tie a bow on the top if you want to.
   

If you're like me, right now you're envisioning all the different types of wreathes you could make this way... Halloween with jack'o'lanterns, ghosts and bats, Christmas with holly leaves and berries, Autumn with leaves, etc, etc.  I'm sure you'll see templates/instructions for various wreaths made along these basic lines pop up on the site over the next year or two!

Template for shamrocks     (color)   or   (B&W)

Template for rainbows        (color)   or   (B&W)

Printable version of these instructions