Making a St. Patrick’s Day Leprechaun!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! 🙂 Did you remember to wear green? I hope nobody pinches you if you forgot! Today’s post is about making a leprechaun out of a paper plate! Sound fun? Let’s get started!

You will need a small paper plate that is blank on the back, some orange yarn (I couldn’t find solid orange yarn), glue, scissors, a peach or tan crayon, a black marker, green construction paper, a set of large wiggly eyes (or draw your own eyes) and some scraps of black, yellow and orange construction paper.

You will create your leprechaun on the BACK of the plate. Depending on how you look at the pictures, you might think we used the front, but we didn’t. 😉 Use the peach or tan crayon to color the back of the plate. It’s rather hard to see in the picture because the color is so light, sorry.

It’s time to make the leprechaun’s hat. Using the green construction paper, cut out a simple hat.

Use a strip of black paper to add a band to the hat.

Now we’ll make the buckle for the hat. Cut a square from the yellow paper that is a little bit larger than the height of the black band. Cut a small square from the black paper that is smaller than the yellow square. Glue the black square in the center of the yellow square.

Glue the buckle in the center of the black band on the hat.

To glue the hat onto the leprechaun’s face, apply glue to the top portion of the plate where the hat will touch.

Press the hat onto the plate.

Next cut 2 eyebrow shapes from the scrap of orange paper. Glue them on just below the bottom of the hat.

Glue on the wiggle eyes or draw on some eyes with the black marker.

Now draw on a bit of a nose and a mouth.

Cut a bunch of yarn pieces around 3 1/2 – 4″ long. You will need a lot of them! Lol This bunch is just a start. 😉 I used 102 pieces of yarn.

Put a small line of glue on the plate where the leprechaun’s chin would be. Lay the ends of the pieces of yarn on the glue, lining them up evenly.

Continue adding pieces of yarn until the leprechaun’s beard is as full as you want it to be.

And you’re finished! Great job! Your leprechaun is now ready for St. Patrick’s Day! Better keep an eye on him because leprechauns can be pretty sneaky and they love to play tricks on people! 😉 Happy St. Patrick’s Day! 🙂

Making a Super Simple Shamrock and a Four-Leaf Clover

St. Patrick’s Day is tomorrow! Do you decorate your house in green four-leaf clovers and shamrocks? Maybe some leprechauns and pots of gold? Here is a super simple way to make some greenery for tomorrow! All you need is a piece of green paper, a green pipe cleaner, scissors, a pencil and some tape. Start by making a square piece from the green paper.

First we will make a four-leaf clover. Fold the green square in half.

Then fold the paper in half the other direction.

Use your pencil to draw a heart shape on this little folded square. Keep the folded side at the bottom.

Use your scissors to cut on the line you just drew.

Open the paper up and you have a four-leaf clover! 🙂

Turn your four-leaf clover over and tape the pipe cleaner to the back side.

Turn the four-leaf clover right side up again and there is your finished project! Great job! You can go on to color or decorate it if you want to.

Now, using the same idea as we did for the four-leaf clover, we can make a shamrock with just a couple of cuts with the scissors. Cut on the fold lines and remove one heart shape.

There is your shamrock! Tape the pipe cleaner to the back to have a stem for your shamrock. If you would like to, you can cut on the folds where the heart shapes meet, but only cut about half way. Then the leaves on your shamrock can separate a little.

I hope you will have lots of fun making four-leaf clovers and shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day! 🙂

It’s Time to Hunt For Leprechauns!

It’s that time of year again! St. Patrick’s Day is getting close! Have you noticed anyone causing mischief around your house? This time of year they say there are leprechauns lurking about and they like to play tricks on people. They are so quick and small that they are hard to see. But here’s a trick for you – make some leprechaun binoculars to help you look for the leprechauns!

You’ll need 2 empty toilet paper rolls or 1 empty paper towel roll (cut in half), some construction paper, scissors, glue, markers, a piece of string or yarn and whatever you want to decorate with like mini pom poms or stickers, etc. First cut a piece of construction paper the length of each empty toilet paper roll and long enough to wrap around it.

Glue one end of the piece of construction paper to the empty toilet paper roll, then wrap the paper around and glue the other end.

Hold it in place a little bit till the paper holds together on its own.

Do the same thing for the second roll.

Glue or use double sided tape to hold the 2 rolls together so they look like a pair of binoculars. Decorate them in ways that might be appealing to a leprechaun. They seem to like green, white, black and gold or the colors of the rainbow. Here I added some mini pom poms.

I added a rainbow and a shamrock to my leprechaun binoculars. What will you add to yours?

Poke a hole at the top of the binoculars on the two outside edges. Tie one end of a piece of string or yarn to each hole so that you can wear your binoculars around your neck.

And there you are! You’re ready to go looking for leprechauns! Happy Hunting!! 🙂

Searchin’ for the Green!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Are you wearing green today? The color green is always popular on St. Patrick’s Day, so for a fun activity let’s go searching for things that are green! Depending on what the weather is like where you live, you can search for green things inside and outside. You can keep a tally of how many green items you find just to impress yourself with how observant you are. Can you find more green things than I did? Here’s some things I found at our house:

Celery

Romaine lettuce

Lime Jello

Spinach

Broccoli

Lime Juice

Green Beans

Avocadoes

A green plant inside the house – Aloe plant

Some green plants outside the house. These are daffodils just breaking through the ground this spring.

Grass

Pine tree

Irish Springs Body Wash

A green crocodile…which is Rusty’s dog toy.

Green UniKitty Lego

Green M&M’s candy

You can play “Searchin’ for the Green” in a couple of ways. You can just leisurely wander around with the family while everyone points out anything green that they see. OR you can give yourselves a set time…like maybe 5 minutes…and see how many green items you can find. OR you can give yourselves a set time and see if you can find a set number of green items before time runs out. Like trying to find 15 green items in 5 minutes. OR you can give each person a piece of paper and pencil and have them secretly write down each green item they see. When time is up, you can sit down together and see who found the same green things or who found a green item nobody else spotted. This is a great way to help reinforce the color green for the little ones and to help everyone be a little more observant of your surroundings. However you choose to play this game, I hope it will add some fun to your St. Patrick’s Day! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #32 Shamrocks for Breakfast

It’s Tuesday again and here comes another round of taste testing! (Sorry to post so late, but it’s been one of those days!) Today’s taste test is a bit different. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow, the test today is to see if you like shamrocks for breakfast or not! 😉 You’ll need a slice of bread, an egg, some green food coloring, butter, some green sugar, cinnamon and a skillet and spatula for cooking.

First, cut the center out of the slice of bread in the shape of a shamrock. If you have a shamrock shaped cookie cutter, that’s a great help.

Keep both pieces of the bread. We’ll use both of them.

Butter the top side of both pieces of bread.

Lay the “outside frame” piece of bread in a skillet, buttered side down. Then spread some butter on the top side too.

Crack open the egg into a small bowl and beat the egg with a fork.

Add a small amount of green food coloring to the egg. Start with a very small amount of food coloring! You can always add more. 😉

Mix the food coloring into the egg.

Turn the skillet on to a medium heat. When the skillet is warmed up, add a little bit of butter into the opening of the shamrock shape.

Slowly pour the green egg mixture into the shamrock opening in the bread.

Turn the heat to low and cover the skillet with a lid. For best results, I would suggest you keep the egg & bread in this position while it cooks. I turned mine over to finish cooking it and the shamrock shape isn’t quite as clear as it might have been if I hadn’t turned it over.

When the egg is cooked through, remove it from the skillet to a plate to serve it. Now for the other piece of bread in the shape of a shamrock. I placed it in the skillet on a medium-low heat and toasted it on both sides.

I removed the shamrock from the skillet and with the butter side facing up, sprinkled it with some green sugar and a little bit of cinnamon.

And there you are! A breakfast fit for any leprechaun! 😉

I hope you’ll enjoy trying this out for St. Patrick’s Day! 🙂

Some St. Patrick’s Day Fun

Happy Monday, everyone! It’s only 2 days until St. Patrick’s Day! Do you celebrate at your house? If you’re looking for another fun activity to do, here’s one I posted last year that’s simple and yet brings a lot of fun to your kids. It’s all about searching for hidden shamrocks and getting a prize from the end of the rainbow. Here’s a link to the fun!

https://wordpress.com/post/thekidsniche.com/1573

Follow the link above to get all the details. I hope you’ll give it a try! 🙂

Leprechaun Binoculars!

St. Patrick’s Day is getting close! Have you noticed someone has been causing mischief around your house? This time of year they say there are leprechauns lurking about and they like to play tricks on people. They are so quick and small that they are hard to see. But here’s a trick for you – make some leprechaun binoculars to help you look for the leprechauns!

You’ll need 2 empty toilet paper rolls or 1 empty paper towel roll (cut in half), some construction paper scissors, glue, markers, a piece of string or yarn and whatever you want to decorate with like mini pom poms or stickers, etc. First cut a piece of construction paper the length of each empty toilet paper roll and long enough to wrap around it.

Glue one end of the piece of construction paper to the empty toilet paper roll, then wrap the paper around and glue the other end.

Hold it in place a little bit till the paper stays in place.

Do the same thing for the second roll.

I added a rainbow and a shamrock to my leprechaun binoculars. What will you add to yours?

Poke a hole at the top of the binoculars on the two outside edges. Tie one end of a piece of string or yarn to each hole so that you can wear your binoculars around your neck.

And there you are! You’re ready to go looking for leprechauns! Happy Hunting!! 🙂

Cuteness Overload for St. Patrick’s Day

Well, I hurt my eye last night and it’s making it hard to craft or use the computer today, so I thought I would share someone else’s awesomeness today. St. Patrick’s Day is just a week from today! Wow, we are moving right along through March! I got an email from Bakerella yesterday about how she makes Mini Shamrock Shake Cakes and I just had to share these with you!

How cute are those??! Wouldn’t they be fun for a little family St. Patrick’s Day celebration? Cupcakes and frosting and sprinkles, oh my! Here is a link to Bakerella’s website so you can find the recipe for making these cuties!

https://www.bakerella.com/mini-shamrock-shake-cakes/

Enjoy!! 🙂

A Rainbow From Donuts!

St. Patrick’s Day is coming! Will you be looking for gold at the end of the rainbow? Would your kids be happy to find a DONUT at the end of the rainbow? I found the cutest rainbow made from food that would be great for your St. Patrick’s Day celebration! Check this out!

Rainbow Cloud Donuts for St. Patrick's Day. These rainbow treats are perfect for a festive breakfast idea or a class party activity.

It’s just so cute I had to share! This came from Painted Confetti and here is the link to the great idea!

Rainbow Cloud Donuts for St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast

Thanks go to Brandy for this super cute idea! Have fun!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Still need something fun to do for St. Patrick’s Day? Here’s a super quick idea that can still bring plenty of smiles! You’ll need some green paper and a “prize” for each child that will be participating in this game. Start by drawing some shamrocks or clover shapes onto the green paper. I happen to have a cookie cutter shaped like a four-leaf clover so I placed it on the green paper and traced around it with a pencil. You will need as many shamrocks as there are children.

Cut out each shamrock.

Write a message on each shamrock. I wrote “It’s Your Lucky Day!”

Make sure you have 1 shamrock for each child. I made 4 for this example.

Turn the shamrocks over and write a number on the back of each one, starting at 1 and going up.

Make the same number of little squares of paper and number them with the same numbers so that there is a square with the matching number that is on each shamrock. Get your “prizes” together and tape 1 numbered square to each prize. A prize can be a small toy, a new book, some candy or a special cup of snacks, just for a few suggestions. Have your prizes in a place where they can’t be seen by the children. Hide the shamrocks but leave a tiny bit of green visible. Gather the kids in the same place and turn them loose to hunt for the shamrocks. If you like, you can make up a story about a mischievous leprechaun that visited your house and left behind shamrocks for them to find. The kids must search for the shamrocks in order to find the treasure from the end of the rainbow that the leprechaun brought them. Or make up a story of your own. 🙂 When all the shamrocks have been found, the kids should bring them to you and you can give them the prize that has the number taped to it that matches the shamrock they found.

This should be a fun little treasure hunt for kids of all ages. 🙂 Have fun and Happy St. Patrick’s Day!