Quick and Easy St. Patrick's Day Wreath

I have been wanting a nice March wreath for my front door, and since we have a house full of Irishmen, I decided on a St. Patrick's Day theme.

I bought a big package of large shamrocks from the craft store. The package in in two colors so I alternated the colors and formed a wreath, hot glueing the shamrocks together into a circle.
Next the kids simply added foam shamrock stickers and shamrock "jewels".
All these stickers were very cheap at the craft store, much cheaper than buying a ready made wreath.
The beautiful final results---in less that a half-hour.
(I guess according to this picture, it could also be a frame for a cuties head!)

I hot glued string onto the back of the wreath to make a hanger for it.

It now adorns our front door---a invitation for any visiting leprechauns.

Of Snakes and Rainbows and Saint Patrick

First and foremost I want to share our all time favorite St. Patrick books. It is quite a collection, but after all, we are Irish (some more than others!)

If you click on the book's cover, it will take you to the Amazon link.

This is our very favorite St. Patrick's Day craft book.

Our favorite Leprechaun book,

and our favorite St. Patrick video.

We have been enjoying rainbows and shamrocks, and now we are learning all about Saint Patick.

One of the stories we have heard about St. Patrick, is that he drove all the snakes out of Ireland by beating his drum to drive them into the sea. So what better that some snake crafts.
I found these springy spiral snakes at the DLTK website.

These snakes were for Mark and Grace to make.
First Mark and Grace decorated their snakes.

Nice job!

Lastly you simply cut the snake out along the black line, forming a spiral.

They came out great. I threaded a string through the tail of the snake. They spring up and down, and after we hung them from the ceiling, they twirl nicely in the breeze.

Kim and Luke made a colorful, rainbow snake, also from the DLTK website.

Kim and Luke, with my help, colored all the parts of the snake in the color of the rainbow. There is an option of printing this in color. This would have been a better choice for us, as the kids got tired of coloring and they needed a lot of help.

I cut out the pieces and then decided instead of just gluing the parts together, that I would put brass fasteners between each segment of the snake so that it could be played with, not just hung up on the wall.

We put the snakes together following the colors of the rainbow. Both kids are getting really good at naming the colors in the correct order.

Luke's snake.

Kim's snake is just lovely. You can see in this picture that I didn't cut around the snake's tongue. I thought it would rip off too easily if I cut it and made it so skinny. (Six hours after being played with constantly, they are still in one piece.)

Make sure to check out the other We Made It, Saturday Showcase posts.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

We started Saint Patrick's Day with our favorite book- Patrick:Patron Saint of Ireland- by Tomie dePaola. It just wouldn't be a Saint Patrick's Day if we didn't read this.

A few days ago we started on some crafts for the day. We made three hearts and formed them into a shamrock, and just as the legend goes, we discussed the Blessed Trinity, and wrote The Father-The Son-and The Holy Spirit on each leaf of the of the shamrock.

We arranged our shamrocks around a old Irish Blessing that I had printed. I found a lovely coloring picture of Saint Patrick here.
We watched our favorite video-many, many times, thanks to our friend Anne. I searched around and found our "shamrock name mobiles"-uh-oh- I need to make one for Kim and then I can put up the whole family.
Becky made some yummy greeen sugar cookies last night- and hopefully- there will be enough for tonight after a dinner of cornbeef and cabbage!

HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY EVERYONE!!