Fun and Easy St. Patrick's Day Crafts: Leprechaun

St. Patrick's Day offers a lot of creative crafts for children to enjoy. One simple craft that goes hand in hand with the holiday is a toilet paper roll leprechaun. This craft is simple enough that it can be made by toddlers and young children and requires minimal craft supplies so it is an ideal craft for day cares or large groups. Generally, leprechauns are infamous with St. Patrick's day but they can also be equated with the marshmallow cereal Lucky Charms making them ideal crafts is you are doing a cereal theme.

For the leprechaun craft all you need is a toilet paper roll, construction paper, glue or tape, scissors, and googly eyes, but they are optional. If you do not have these available you can use a crayon, pencil, or marker to draw on eyes of this St. Patrick's Day craft. The color of construction paper that you use is entirely up to you but for a traditional leprechaun I used green, brown, black, and yellow. You will need to cut two strips of green construction paper, one for the clothes of the leprechaun and one for his hat. The strip for the hat can be lightly wider. Both strips must be long enough to go around the toilet paper roll. Also from the green paper you will need a circle, slightly bigger than the toilet paper roll and a circle cut out of the middle of that one so that it is the same size as the toilet paper roll. You will also need two small strips of black construction paper that will be used as a belt and as a trim around his hat. Additionally, you will need to cut out a strip of brown paper for his boots, which will be slightly less as wide as the clothes, and his beard. The beard can be pretty narrow with the exception of the front which will have an U shape. Finally cut out two very small squares of yellow construction paper for the leprechaun's belt buckle and hat trim.

With everything pre-cut you and your young child can begin gluing on the pieces so that toilet paper roll is transformed into a leprechaun. The first step to do is glue on the boots strip to the bottom of the toilet paper roll. The next step is to glue the clothes strip directly above it and then the hat strip at the top of the toilet paper roll. Keep in mind that you will want to glue or tape the hat strip on so that it is partly above the toilet paper roll. This way you can fold it down and glue the small circle that you cut out on top of the folded paper. Next you can place the larger circle on the toilet paper roll so that it touching the bottom of the strip. Now add the belt strip, beard strip, and hat trim strip. The last gluing involves the small squares on the center of the hat trim and center of the belt and if you use googly eye, gluing them.

This St. Patrick's Day craft doubles up as a cute decoration as well as an play figure. Your child can play with the leprechaun all year long or display it happily during the middle of March. The leprechaun takes very few supplies so it can easily be done by multiple children and is simple enough that it requires very little help from parents and teachers. It was designed with young children in mind and my four-year-old and I had a fun time making it together. For step by step pictures of making this St. Patrick's Day craft and other wonderful fun and easy crafts for this holiday visit EasyToddlerCrafts.com.