Spring is fast approaching and March is upon us, bringing one of the most festive holidays with it—St. Patrick’s Day! Here at the Rhinestone Shop we’ve put together a few sparkling ideas to make the most of this green season. Take advantage of our huge selection of shapes and colors to make glittering accessories that will have you celebrating the holiday in style with authentic European crystal rhinestones.

St. Patrick’s Day means you get to pull out all of your greens, oranges, and whites to share your luck of the Irish. Check out our color chart to find exactly what you want, including emerald, sun, and white opal. Read on to discover six great things to make for St. Patrick’s Day.

1. Headbands

Headbands are a fun and easy way to celebrate the emerald holiday. To start, you need flat backed rhinestones, E-6000 glue, and a flat headband. You can make simple lines for narrow headbands, or you can set patterns. Try three rows of rhinestones, one each of green, orange, and white/clear to symbolize the Ireland flag.

Alternatively, you can use fabric headbands and sew-on or hot-fix rhinestones. Either way, these headbands are a dazzling way to get festive while adding a bit of flair to your hair.

2. Lucky Earrings

There’s no accessory quite like earrings. They’re a great way to show off your personality and holiday spirit. Earrings are a nice way to add a touch of sparkle to your outfit without becoming overwhelming.

At the Rhinestone Shop, we offer a huge variety of colors, sizes, and shapes, including heart shapes. Heart-shaped rhinestones are actually a clever way to create quick and easy shamrocks and four-leaf clovers. For a pair of lucky earrings, you will need 6–8 heart-shaped rhinestones and settings, E-6000 glue, stiff felt for backing, small, sharp scissors, and earring backings.

First, fix the European crystal rhinestones to their settings. Arrange three to four rhinestones (depending on if you want traditional shamrocks or four-leaf clovers) with the heart points pointing toward each other on the felt backing. You may want to draw an outline on the felt backing to ensure proper placement. Once you have your rhinestones in place, glue them to the felt backing and carefully trim around the edges. Remember, the felt backing may show through, so choose a coordinating or neutral color for the backing, like green or black. At this point, you can affix the rhinestones to the earring backings, but make sure the placement is identical for both earrings otherwise they may look lopsided. Then you can sport your lucky earrings in style!

3. Lapel Pins

Similar to earring, lapel pins are a fun but more subtle way to show your St. Patrick’s Day spirit. If green just isn’t your color you can still be festive wearing a pin. We suggest making shamrock and rainbow lapel pins to add a touch of sparkle to your wardrobe.

Shamrock – You’ll follow a similar procedure as you would for earrings, but you’ll need settings and a flat pin backing. Use heart-shaped rhinestones, with the points meeting in the middle and keeping the rhinestones evenly spaced, set them against felt, glue, and trim away the excess. Glue the shamrock piece to the pin backing.

Rainbow – Make a statement piece with a rainbow array of colors. Moving from smallest to largest, set half-circles of purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. Using smaller rhinestones will take a little more finesse, but the results will exhibit a little more detail. Set the rhinestones to a felt backing, trim the excess, then glue to the pin backing.

4. Irish-themed shirts

What better way to display your Irish pride than with a great, bold shirt design? Start with a plain shirt or one with a flat design. You can use hot-fix rhinestones from our shop to accent the pre-existing design, or you can find some great free design templates on the Internet. Some of our favorite designs are:

• Four-leaf clover
• Buckled hat
• Pot of gold
• Rainbow
• Leprechaun (for the extra ambitious!)
• Ireland flag

To start, you need to choose your design and transfer it to the fabric. The easiest way to do this is to place the template behind the fabric and pin it in place. Using a chalk pencil, outline the template on the fabric. If you’re having trouble seeing the template through the fabric, hold it to a sunny window or a bright light. Once you have the chalk outline, you can use hot-fix rhinestones to outline your pattern and fill in the gaps. The overall effect is eye-catching and whimsical, making this an ideal option for your St. Patrick’s Day accessories.

5. Bling Hats

Hats are an easy, fun way to add some pizzazz and sparkle to your St. Patrick’s Day outfit. You don’t have to start from scratch, and adding simple rhinestone embellishments are a breeze.

Go to your local craft store or clothing store. The seasonal section will likely be full of different hat styles and a wide range of materials. If you’re feeling ambitious you can go whole hog and bling the entire hat surface, or you can simply create a sparkling hatband as an accent piece. Depending on the hat material, you can glue the rhinestones directly to the hat, or use sew-on rhinestones to make your custom designs.

6. Bejeweled Belt Buckle

A simple accessory that packs a lot of punch is to add rhinestone embellishments to belt buckles. A little bit of flair goes a long way, so you can use as few or as many rhinestones as you want! Make a shamrock accent in the middle or deck out the whole piece in green.

At the Rhinestone Shop, we love celebrating St. Patrick’s Day and looking forward to spring. Don your green and share in the holiday spirit with these fun ideas. No matter which way you decide to embellish, you’ll get a lot of compliments on your holiday attire. Don’t get pinched!