St. Patty's Day Crafts

So I'm not really one to be into all the various holidays throughout the year (federally mandated or not) but seeing as I am a mommy of two small kids, I jump at the chance to create something for and with the kids.

March, which as undoubtedly come in like a lion, has left us with more indoor time that we'd prefer so boredom is a big issue; with me and Mason. I tried to remember what holiday, if any, came in this month and hallelujah St. Patrick's Day with its green, shamrocks and pots of gold lit up on my iCal.

I really wanted to make something with supplies I had on hand, rather than go out and buy more crap to fill up the house or my craft room and possibly never be touched, because I just either never got around to it or it just didn't work out with what I had intended to use it. So I searched shamrock/clover templates online. I remember last year having downloaded one in which Mason and I created a shamrock face on a popsicle stick. He loved that. While I thought we could do that again, lets do something new as well. The thought of making shamrocks on a stick for decoration in the house quickly came to mind. I had bought these cheap green and yellow buckets from the dollar bins at Target, intended for Sophie's birthday party (and yes I do realize that is it 3 months away but you can never prepare too early for these things), and thought about making a shamrock centerpiece of sorts with it.

My idea was to use popsicle sticks as the stem and construction paper to cut out the shamrocks. But then I thought, cutting out 10-20 shamrocks would take forever to trace and then cut and it was fast becoming a bad idea. Then I remembered a valentine that Mason got from one of his classmates. She had used hearts as the leaves and petals for a lollipop flower which I thought was super creative. I wonder if I can make a shamrock using heart shapes? A few clicks of the mouse and sure enough it is possible. So down to my craft room to get my heart punch, two sizes, and away I punched. Now having done a few crafts with my son, and each time never being quite prepared for the task and it always ending in frustration and/or boredom, I got wise and decided that while Mason was at school I'd punch all the hearts ahead of time. So after lunch, I'd lay out the punched hearts and popsicle sticks and we'd glue away with our craft. Well of course, now that I was prepared, Mason had little interest in this craft. Yeah, he glued one or two hearts on the sticks, but he was way more fascinated by my heart punches and went on to punch about a million hearts out of all the scraps of paper in his craft cubby doth producing an overflowing display of what he calls his bucket of hearts. We proudly displayed it next to all the other decorations on the mantle until he decided he wanted to get it down, though he was too short to reach and all the hearts came tumbling out and littering my family room carpet. It now resides on the countertop and has been promptly forgotten by said four year old.

Anyway, it was a super easy craft and I had fun putting it together even if Mason showed now interest. So here is my final result.

All I did was use the Marvy Uchida heart punch to punch out hearts from green paper. Then used a hot glue gun to attach to the popsicle sticks. For the frame, I just added scrapbook paper from a calendar pack. Super easy. Super simple.

On the mantel I took spring florals in a vase and sort of made the bucket like a garden of small shamrocks. I used the martha stewart heart punch and smaller popsicle sticks and adhered the hearts to the sticks with a glue stick. A little more kid friendly (you could use a glue stick for the bigger ones too). Here is a close of up my sproutlets.

I just took some beans from my local grocery store in the bucket and stuck each popsicle stick in. Again, super easy. Super cheap and super simple.

And here is our pot of gold, filled with chocolate coins and placed next to frames filled with scrapbook paper from the march section of same calendar pad.

So if you are feeling bored this weekend make some shamrocks with hearts and popsicle sticks with your little ones. I have another craft in mind that I hope will spark a little more interest, and since it involves food I have a feeling I will get success.