Suzie Button of Suzie Button Creations sent over this great project for St. Patrick’s Day. Use party hats to create hanging treat cones for the kids (or adults) this St. Patrick’s Day. These would also make great party favors. Hang from the backs of chairs if you are having people over for a meal this St. Patrick’s Day. Find the full project here.
Guest Post: Eco-Friendly St. Patrick’s Day
[Editorial Note: I’m posting this on behalf of Celebrate Green! Info at bottom]
March can be a drab month–waiting for winter to end and the first signs of spring to emerge. That’s why, whether you’re Irish or not, celebrating St. Patrick’s Day is a cool idea–especially if you make it eco! Here are some simple, fun, affordable ideas for you and the family that will make those not included green with envy!
- Gather your friends and neighbors for your own St. Patrick’s Day walking parade. Whether it’s around a cul de sac or down a street or two, you’re sure to have a great time if you dress in green and wish everyone the luck ‘o the Irish as you pass by! Encourage participants to make hats out of whatever they have around the house or before the parade, ask guests to bring an old white/beige t-shirt and meet at your house. Cut shamrock shapes into potatoes and stamp on the shirts with eco-friendly fabric paints.
- Decorate at least one room in the house with the spirit ‘o the green. Gather everything green you have lying around from books to clothing to flower pots etc., even green sheets. Set the timer for ten minutes and let the kids decorate the room. Then have a party there! Put on some Irish music, learn a jig and celebrate.
- Skip the corned beef. It’s not really Irish anyway! (According to the History Chanel, no one in Ireland ate this except for a few royals. But when the Irish immigrated to New York’s lower East side, they were looking for a cheaper alternative to bacon and probably learned about corned beef from their Jewish neighbors.) Since one of the most Earth-friendly habits you can get into is eating less (or no) beef, focus on the veggies. Cabbage is great if people like it, but if they don’t, potatoes are usually a favorite. How about setting up a potato bar and color the taters green with pureed veggies like kale, spinach, arugula, or pea pods. Add spice with green salsa or more interesting taste with sage.
- End a party or St. Pat’s family dinner with homemade organic oatmeal cookies and pistachio, lime or mint ice cream/sherbert/sorbet.
- For evening entertainment, borrow or rent A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The story centers on an Irish immigrant family in Brooklyn in the 1900’s and their young daughter’s struggle to stay positive in the midst of poverty. Better yet, choose to start reading the book of the same name on St. Patrick’s Day.
- If you want to enjoy the occasion with a touch of beer, always a St. Paddy’s Day favorite, check out the many organic alternatives.
- A few quick, easy, no waste games for your gathering:
- See how many words two teams can make from the longest place name in Ireland: Muckanaghederdauhaulia
- Have everyone try to guess the meaning of Irish words like: handfasting, sean-nos, or a jaunting car. Answers and more words are here.
- Here’s an Irish children’s game: One child is Mr. Fox and the other children line the wall. Mr. Fox stands about 10 feet away with his back turned. The children in the line say, “What time is it Mr. Fox?” He replies, “one o’clock.” Then the children walk slowly toward the fox, repeating the question and answer until the Fox says, “Dinner time.” The fox chases everyone back to the wall. It anyone is tagged, he/she is now the Fox.
Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell-Lipson are mother and daughter and co-authors of Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family, available at www.CelebrateGreen.net
Guest Post: Lucky the Leprechaun Terrarium
St. Patrick’s Day isn’t the craftiest of holidays for me. Let’s face it. How many shamrocks can you stand to make out of green construction paper? I’d much rather be cooking corned beef and drinking a tall mug of Guinness!
But since Caley (one of the editors of FaveCraft) asked me to provide a St. Patrick’s day DIY, how could I say no? Last year, I had the opportunity to actually meet Caley in the most unlikely of places. DUBLIN IRELAND! I was there for the U2 concert and she had emailed me about contributing to the website. We ended up having tea in Temple Bar and talked a lot about what influenced our crafting.
So I guess it’s fate that since we met in Ireland I’m providing a St. Patrick’s Day DIY. The only thing I could think of was a terrarium. I’d made one with a little fimo clay gnome some years back and I thought switching out the gnome for Lucky the Leprechaun would be perfect. However, living a mile high in a little town in Montana doesn’t exactly provide one with a wealth of houseplants for a terrarium. How about NO plants at all! Not this time of year. I was reduced to using some dried moss I’d stored away from a trip to Idaho and running to the grocery store for alfalfa sprouts! That’s what living in a small town does to you. You learn to improvise and use what you have!
This is a simple project and one that soon sparked my own imagination when I thought it’d also be fun to start your own indoor sprout herb garden.
Lucky is easy to create. You’ll need green orange, black, yellow, and flesh colored clay to create Lucky. And if you’re wanting to create the rainbow for the pot of gold, you’ll need white, blue and red clay. I found a little glass jar at the thrift store. If you’re actually making a terrarium you’ll need some carbon (found at pet stores) and some potting soil and a small houseplant.
Construct Lucky. I’m sure most of you can look at him and figure it out for yourself, but I’ll write the instructions anyway. Remember to wash your hands when changing to different colors of clay as they can intermingle with each other. I rolled out the hat in green clay to look like a tall cylinder. Then pinched out the bottom brim. Roll out a thin small piece of black clay . Flatten down and wrap around the top portion of the hat. Then make a yellow buckle. I formed a tiny square, flattened it and used a toothpick to shape the outline of the buckle.
Using flesh colored clay, roll out a ball that will be Lucky’s head. Make a couple of eyes with black clay and a nose from the flesh colored clay. I simply rolled out two small balls of black and one of flesh. Then attached them by pressing down with a toothpick.
Now, you’ll want to make the body. Pinch off a large portion of the green clay for Lucky’s chest and roll it into a large square shape. Pinch off four smaller pieces of green clay and mold them into two arms (sleeves) and two legs (pants). Attach them all together. Pinch off one small piece of black clay for Lucky boots. Attach this to the bottom of his pants and roll the end of a toothpick in the middle to make it look like a pair of boots. Next roll out two small pieces of flesh colored clay and roll into balls. Attach under his sleeves as his hands. The beard is made of orange clay and shaped by making a long ‘V”. Attach it to Lucky’s face, use your toothpick to make his mouth and use the ends of the toothpick by dragging it on the clay to make it add ‘hair’ texture.
Make your pot of gold by rolling out a ball of black clay and pinching the top out for the rim of the pot. Then roll out a small piece for the handle and attach. Make tiny balls of gold and put them inside the pot. Make your rainbow by rolling out different colors. Attach all together and flatten. Then attach the rainbow over the pot of gold.
There you have it! Lucky the Leprechaun Terrarium -or- Herb Garden!
Erin Go Bragh!
xo,
Maize Hutton
www.maizehutton.blogspot.com
How to: Throw a St. Patrick’s Day Party
While St. Patrick’s Day is exactly a week away, you may be celebrating this weekend with a night on the town or better yet, a party at your own home. This Saturday and Sunday, many cities will be holding their St. Patrick’s Day parades and festivals. After attending one of these events, invite some friends over for a St. Patrick’s Day party. To help you prepare, I’ve put together some tips on how to throw a St. Patrick’s Day party. Even if you are planning a quiet night at home with the family, you can still get a little festive with these ideas!
St. Patricks Day Party Ideas:
- Invite friends to wear green to the party. As the party host, make a shamrock pin with felt, crochet or fabric yo-yos. Wear some lovely green and gold beaded jewelry.
- Replace your outdoor/porch light with a green-tinted light bulb to help direct guests to the right house.
- Hand out homemade “Kiss me I’m Irish” buttons to party guests, like the one shown above. The buttons make for fun party favors. You can also use the buttons as prizes for party games (see end of list).
- Make a simple centerpiece with a square box turned into a Leprechaun Hat. Search through old gift boxes for an appropriate sized box. Turn the box over so that the lid forms the brim of the hat. Paint the box bright green. Once dry, remove the box from the lid and paint a band of black around the top. Add a square gold buckle on the front. When dry, replace box on lid.
- For an even simpler centerpiece, make a Leprechaun’s Pot of Gold. Fill a small black cauldron left over from Halloween with gold chocolate coins. For a bit of fun, paint a rainbow on a large rectangle of paper and hang over the pot of gold.
- Use a small heart rubber stamp and green ink to create shamrocks for adorning napkins, paper plates and other party accessories. Stamp three hearts with the points nearly connected and painted a curved line for the stem.
- Cut out felt shamrocks in green, orange and white (the colors of the Irish flag), punch small holes on each side and string onto twine to create a St. Patrick’s Day party garland.
- String green Christmas lights from the walls or wrap around an indoor tree.
- Create a green party punch. In a large bunch bowl, mix 1/2 gallon lime sherbet with 2 liters of ginger ale or lemon-lime soda.
- For those drinking at the party, you can serve a traditional Irish beer, such as Guinness, and a cheap, light beer which you can dye green with a drop or two of green food coloring.
- Make shamrock cookies with green icing. If you don’t have a shamrock cookie-cutter, connect the points of three hearts together and add a small stem before baking.
- Get competitive with an Irish Trivia/St. Patrick’s Day party game. For example “When was the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade?” The team with the closest answer wins. Answer: The first St. Patrick’s Day Parades were not in Ireland, but in Boston (1737) and New York (1762).
Favorites Friday: St. Patrick’s Day
As a current inhabitant of Dublin, I am particularly excited about St. Patrick’s Day (even if none of my Irish friends are). This will be my second St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland, and I plan on doing a better job this time around of attending events in the four-day-festival the city now holds. Though I will probably avoid the drunken chaos of the Dublin parade, I have to hear some traditional Irish music and see some Irish games (hurling, Gaelic football). In the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, here are our favorite St. Patrick’s Day craft projects from all over:
My Picks
Kraken Crafts (love the name!) shows us that lovely St. Patrick’s Day crafts can also be easy. She made this shamrock garland with the help of fusible interfacing.
This St. Patrick’s Day Afghan knitting pattern is a really neat project from the Aranknits list. Each month, someone different designed an Irish-inspired afghan block, until there were 16 different blocks to make up the afghan for St. Patrick’s Day.
Recycled aluminum cans are used to create a shiny leprechaun hat and shamrocks. The assemblage by Aluminous Publishing makes a lovely St. Patrick’s Day centerpiece. Yay for green crafting!
Mindy’s Picks
Try making these shamrock boutonnieres from Martha Stewart. She does everything so well.
Wish a friend luck with this St. Patrick’s Day clover card from carriescards Etsy shop.
Kelly’s Picks
This cute fabric Shamrock tutorial posted at Sunshine’s Creations is made by creating yo yos – so easy and really great to use as decorations. The site suggests making garland out of them!
Fabric Shamrock made with Yo Yos by Sunshine Creations
This sparkly Four Leaf Clover Brooch by A Fanciful Twist is so bright and colorful I think you could wear it to bring you luck all year long!

Sparkly Clover Brooch by A Fanciful Twist
Celebrate National Craft Month
March is National Craft Month! It’s also a great excuse to break out some unfinished craft projects or start up a new craft that you’ve always been interested in. National Craft Month is also a great time to teach someone else a craft or to use your crafty talent for one of a number of amazing charities. And if you’re not a craft, there is no better time to start.
If you need a little inspiration, we have some great projects over at FaveCrafts for the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day and Easter holidays.
Top O’ The Morning Leprechaun Greeting
Papercrafted Blossoms Easter Eggs
How are you going to celebrate National Craft Month?