Gold Shamrock DIY

Decorate for St. Patrick’s Day with this shiny gold shamrock DIY project. It only takes a couple inexpensive supplies and it so easy that your kids could help you with it!

Happy Wednesday! I am back to share my next St. Patrick’s Day craft. This gold shamrock was inspired by art projects that we did in school back in the day so it would be a perfect craft to get the kids or grandkids involved, with a couple modifications of course.

Realistically, it is a gold and silver shamrock because I did not realize until I was about to make it that the gold Mylar tissue paper that I was using had a silver backing! Oh well, it still looks good as silver and gold.

Do you remember making the art projects in school where you took a square of tissue paper and squished it around the end of a pencil eraser? Then you would glue it down to a piece of construction paper that was cut into some shape? Well this is essentially that project just scaled up a bit. Ha!

This gold foil shamrock is a perfect craft to make while watching your favorite TV show or listening to an audiobook. It is one of those mindless projects that are easy to do but take a while! To be honest with you, I totally underestimated the time it would take to make this little shamrock! LOL! I thought I would bang it out in an afternoon. Um, no. It took me working on it here and there over three afternoons in total. However, like I said it is super easy and mindless so you can watch something while doing it.

This is the perfect project for someone who has more time than money or who just loves to craft! The other great thing about it is that you could do this with any shape for any holiday or season. I could see this being a fun way to make graduation decorations or New Year’s Eve decor with the silver and gold colors!

Watch the quick video

Don’t want to read all the instructions? I have included a video in this post showing you how to make this gold shamrock. If you can’t see the video, turn off your ad blocker. Also, if you ever want to slow down the video, just click on the three dots in the lower right hand corner of the video and you can change the playback speed. If you want more detailed instructions, continue reading.

Supplies to make a gold shamrock

*There are links to products in this post that I use or are similar to products I use. If you buy something from one of these links, I may make a small commission (with no additional cost to you) from the purchase. I will not recommend anything that I would not buy myself.

Shamrock template – see below
Gold Mylar tissue paper
Foam Board
Cutting mat, rotary cutter and 24″ ruler – this is optional, you can just use scissors to cut your fabric but this makes cutting fabric so much easier!
Hot Glue Gun
Scissors
Xacto knife
Pencil

Print out your shamrock template

I used one of our previous projects, our DIY wood shim shamrock, for a shape to trace around but since you don’t have one of those, Mr. Wonderful was nice enough to digitize the image for you so you can print it out.

To access the shamrock template, click on the links below:

I would recommend printing these out on cardstock if you have it because that will make a sturdier template. If not, regular paper will work too. The most important thing is to print these templates at 100% to make sure the size is correct. Every printer is different so just make sure your settings are NOT set to ‘fit to page’ or that the box is not checked letting your printer make changes. If your printer does not print all the way to the edges, that will not be a big deal because these templates overlap each other.

The size of the shamrock is about 14.5″ tall x 15.5″ wide. Because the size of the shamrock is so big and certainly larger than a 8.5″ x 11″ piece of paper, you will have to print out several parts to the template. Lay them out on the table and line up the X and O in the middle of the shamrock to make sure they are pieced together correctly. Tape the different parts of the template together before you cut it out and trace it.

Trace and cut out your shamrock

Lay the shamrock template that you just printed and cut out onto a piece of foam board and trace it. The foam board will give your shamrock sturdiness to use as a stand alone decoration or to mount on a wreath like I did.

You will not be able to cut the foam board with scissors since it is so thick, but you can use an Xacto knife. It worked well to get around the curves and into the corners.

Paint your shamrock gold

I have learned from previous projects that it is a good idea to paint the background of your project a coordinating color so you do not see a lot of white coming through whatever you are using to cover it. In this case I used a metallic gold acrylic paint to cover the shamrock.

This is a totally optional step but I think it makes a difference in the finished project. You don’t have to worry about painting two coats as you will not be seeing it mostly anyway.

How to make a gold shamrock

The first step in making a gold foil shamrock is to cut out the Mylar foil tissue paper into squares. I left the tissue folded width wise how it was in the package and cut it into 1.5″ strips using a cutting mat and rotary cutter. You can just use scissors if you don’t have these though.

Then I cut the strips into squares. Each strip had about 5-6 pieces that were together so this was a quick way to cut the whole package of tissue paper.

After you have a pile of gold squares, you will start to attach them to your shamrock.

Take one square with the gold side up and poke a pencil eraser in the middle of it. Fold the tissue around the end of the pencil. While holding the tissue paper in place, add a dot of hot glue to the tip and press the tissue paper down onto your shamrock. Hold it there for a couple seconds before lifting it off.

Repeat this process around the perimeter of the stem keeping them in from the edge by just a bit.

Fill in the stem in between the strips on both sides. The foil tissue gives it a cool shiny, reflective look and feel.

Fill in the DIY gold shamrock

Next, repeat these steps around the perimeter of the shamrock and about a million more times to fill in the middle of the shamrock. Just kidding, it is only a thousand times. 😉

You will finally make it to the end of the project even though at times it may not seem like it. LOL! Then you can appreciate how cool it looks!

How to make this a kid friendly project

You can easily trace the shamrock template onto poster board instead of foam board so a kid can cut it out with scissors. In addition, you could use regular glue instead hot glue to glue down the tissue paper. I used hot glue for the speed of the drying process on the foil. Another option is to just print out a smaller shamrock so it doesn’t take so long for the kiddos! 😉

How to hang the gold shamrock

I just glued a piece of twine onto the back of the shamrock and hung it over the wreath to hang on a command hook. Since the shamrock is so light, is was enough to hold it.

This was not a favorite project of mine but it was still fun making it. You know when sometimes you have something in your mind and it doesn’t come off exactly as you imagined? This was one of those projects for me. Not saying it is bad, there are just other projects I like more. 🙂 What do y’all think of it? I will be back soon to share my St. Patrick’s Day decor with you. Chat soon friends!