St. Patrick's Day Crafts for Kids

St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner and people are starting to decorate! Here are some fantastic, fun, and easy St. Patrick's Day crafts for kids (and kids at heart!) to help celebrate.

Irish Flag Safety Pin Brooch

Materials:

Six size four safety pins, gold colored
One 2 and 1/4 inche coil-less safety pin, gold colored (at the craft store!)
Pony beads in orange, white, and green
Small shamrock sequin or three green sequins glued together in a shamrock shape
Glue (I prefer Aileen's Tacky Glue)

Procedure:

On two of the small safety pins, place six green beads each. Put six white beads on two more of the small pins, and six orange beads on the remaining two. Close each pin.

Spread the coil-less pin open and thread the loops of the beaded pins on. Start with the two orange beaded pins, then the two white, and finally, the two green.

Close the coil-less pin and glue the sequin shamrock to the bent end.

To wear, pin it to your clothing so that the green beads are to the left of anybody facing you.

Cost: You will need to purchase both types of pins, and the beads and sequins, in packages that will range from about $1 to $3, but each package will make quite a few brooches and other projects. The cost of one brooch will be less than 50 cents.

Claddagh Door Decoration

Materials:

Skin colored craft foam
Red craft foam
Long gold tone metallic pipe cleaner
Glue (either tacky glue or low-melt hot glue)

Procedure:

Trace your hand twice onto the skin colored foam. Carefully cut out the hands.
Draw a heart shape on the red foam and cut it out. The heart should be as wide as your hand cut-outs are.

Lay the hands down on your work surface so that the index and middle fingers are pointing toward each other. Lay the heart over the hands. You want the thumbs to just be touching the top bumps of the heart, and the tips of the middle and index fingers to be slightly under the heart. Once you have worked out the proper layout, lift the heart up and apply glue to the middle and index fingertips, then lay the heart back into place and press the parts together. Let the glue dry.

When the glue has dried, turn your hands and heart over. Cut a two inch piece from the gold pipe cleaner, then shape the pipe cleaner into an M shape and glue the two ends to the back of the heart, up near the top. Bend the small piece of pipe cleaner into a U shape, and glue the two ends to the top of the heart, at the center of the M. Let the glue dry.

When all of the glue is dry, hang the Claddagh on your front door or wall, using the U shape as your hanger.

Cost: Craft foam can be purchased in forty or fifty sheet packages for under $5 (best deal, and you will have plenty left for future projects!), or individually for about 50 cents each. Metallic pipe cleaners usually need to be purchased in packages of 25 for about $3 per package. Glue will cost just pennies for each project. One Claddagh door decoration should average out to less than one dollar to make.

Pot of Gold Treats

Materials:

Small empty babyfood jars
Gold foil wrapped chocolate coins
Rainbow and shamrock stickers
Black acrylic paint
Wide paintbrush

Procedure:

Wash the baby food jars and soak the labels off of them. Let dry completely.

Paint each babyfood jar solid black. Let the paint dry, then place rainbow and shamrock stickers on the jar in an arrangement that pleases you.

Fill the jar with foil wrapped chocolate coins.

Cost: The babyfood jars are essentially free, unless you purchase the baby food just for this project, in which case you can find small jars of baby food for under 50 cents. The coins will cost about 50 cents for a small mesh bag, enough to fill two or three jars. Stickers can be found for under $1 per sheet, and each sheet will have enough for several projects. Acrylic craft paint can be purchased for about 75 cents for a two ounce bottle. Total cost per jar should be less than 75 cents.

St. Patrick's Day Wreath

Materials:

Either a styrofoam wreath or a twisted grapevine wreath, both available at your crafts store
Shamrock shaped foam cutouts (I prefer to trace a shamrock shape onto a large piece of foam and make my own, it is cheaper and you can have different sizes of shamrocks this way)
Black "pot of gold" shaped foam cutouts
Yellow foam circles, to represent gold.
Gold glitter
A small claddagh, made the same way as for the decoration above, but about half the size
Green acrylic paint
Paintbrush
Glue

Procedure:

Paint the wreath solid green and let dry.

Glue the shamrock shapes to the wreath. You can cover the entire wreath with them, overlapping to give a nice effect, or just glue some on at various points on the wreath. It's up to you.

Cut out two or three pot shaped pieces of black foam. Glue a yellow foam circle to the back of each pot and let dry. After they are dry, turn them over and put a thin layer of glue on the front of the yellow foam. Sprinkle with gold glitter. Let dry, then glue the pots of gold on to the wreath.

Put a layer of glue on several of the yellow circles and sprinkle with glitter. When dry, glue these on the wreath in groupings of three.

At the bottom of the wreath, in the center, glue the claddagh on.

Cost: Foam wreaths cost about $1 each, grapevine wreaths about $1.50. Foam and paint costs have been detailed in the other projects here. Glitter is less than $1 for a small package that should last for many, many projects. Total for one wreath will be less than $2.

I hope that you've enjoyed these Frugal Crafter St. Patrick's Day kids craft ideas!