ridiculously easy st. patrick's day decor

Want to know how to make something cute for St. Patrick's Day in under five minutes?  Without it looking really tacky?  I originally saw this idea on Pinterest, but the link only went to a picture of it, so I couldn't find the actual source.  The picture had clear glass vases filled with little green things.  At first I thought, what are those and where can I get them?  A few days later I saw someone making split pea soup on Food Network, and it dawned on me.  Duh, they're split peas!

I grabbed a couple of bags of them at the grocery store.  Then today I found some twine and a glass milk bottle from Goodwill, and here's what I came up with in about three minutes.

 

Not too shabby.  Or maybe it IS shabby....shabby chic, maybe?  :o)

I think the peas and twine give it a nice rustic look.  Might be cute to stick some silk flowers in there.

I also tried it with mason jars, and I like them even better.

Just enough green to be festive, without looking like something that you made in grade school.  :o)

spring wreath

 

Spring has officially sprung here in Georgia, and I've been wanting to try my hand at making a simple, inexpensive wreath for our front door.  Grapevine wreaths and silk flowers were 50% off at Hobby Lobby last week, so I took advantage.

I didn't want to fool around with florist's wire, so I pretty much hot-glued everything right to the wreath.  The pink flowers (not even sure what kind they're supposed to be!) were more stubborn since they had thick stems, so I actually tucked those into the wreath itself:

The sunflowers were a little easier to manage so hot glue was all I needed for those:

I added some cute monarch butterflies and this wreath was pretty much done.  I had bought some ribbon for it too (also 50% off!), but decided I didn't want it on there after all.  Our front door has a very tight seal on it to begin with; good for child safety, bad for those over-the-door wreath hangers.  So I put my trust in the biggest beast of a suction cup I've ever seen and hung my wreath up with that.

So what do you think?

I've never been a fan of pastels or Easter eggs on a wreath, but these colors really say "Hey, it's finally spring!" to me.  Now let's see if the "world's best" giant suction cup lives up to its name.  :o)