Grab Your Wee Little Leprechauns and Let’s Get Crafty! {Round 2}

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If there’s one thing my five-year-old daughter Samantha loves it’s Irish Dancing — which means St. Patrick’s Day is a huge deal in our house. We’ve basically been doing green crafts since February 15. Parents – grab a green beer for you, mix up some green milk for the kiddos, turn on this song (it’s one of me and Sam’s favs) and let’s get crafty! 

For additional St. Patrick’s Day ideas to celebrate at home, check out this post from last year: Grab Your Leprechauns, It’s St. Paddy’s Day Crafting Time!

Leprechaun O’Fork

We love to paint with things other than paint brushes! In the summer we paint outside with leaves, flowers, plants… we’ve painted with vegetables before, rocks,- you name it, we’ve painted with it. Sam made this cute leprechaun using a fork for his beard. She did use a regular paintbrush for his face. 

leprechaun craft

Rainbow Rain Showers 

This gets messy — but is also fun! (Use a plastic table cloth to make clean up easy!)

Directions:

Fill a bowl or jar with water – almost to the top

Spray shaving cream to the top as the “clouds”

Mix food coloring in individual bowls with water

Using droppers or straws drop the food coloring mixture through the clouds and watch it “rain”

Unfortunately there was no pot of gold for me at the end of this rainbow – just a big mess to clean up (but also lots of fun!!)

rain shower experiment

The (Shaving Cream) Hills of Ireland 

After we made the shaving cream rainbow rain showers, all Sam wanted to do was play in the “shaving cream clouds” when we were done. The problem was the “clouds” were FULL of food coloring and I knew one hand in there would result in permanently-stained hands (Even I have to draw the line somewhere!!) So I made her a deal- no food coloring shaving cream but rather I’d make her a separate shaving cream batch for playing. Introducing my “Hills of Ireland” as I named it. A ton of mounds of shaving cream, a ton of green and gold glitter, some plastic gold coins and St. P scatter I found at the dollar store and voila – shaving cream fun with no permanently-stained hands!!

shaving cream sensory bin

 

Rainbow Cauldron Hand Prints

Ok, so if you want to do this craft my recommendation is to do it FAST. I had no idea how fast paint dries on kids hands. Paint the kids hand from palm up, FAST, then press down on a piece of paper or canvas. We had to do it a few times because by the time I’d get to the blue pinky, her red thumb was completely dry. Super cute and easy- but trust me, go fast!

I cut the shape of the cauldron and the girls added Mod Podge and glitter and then we cut our gold coins out of glitter paper I had on hand. 

rainbow handprint craft

DIY Rainbow Puffy Paint

Super easy and super fun (and smells good if you get good smelling shaving cream!) Mix equal parts shaving cream and school glue. Mix well and add a few drops of food coloring. I printed off a few shamrock printouts – or fun to just freestyle paint!

making puffy paint

 

Shamrock Pancakes

We also whipped up these cute green shamrock pancakes by using a heart-shape cookie cutter. Yummo!

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Fingerprint Shamrock

We made these Fingerprint shamrocks on teensy canvases I found at Michael’s. I added a magnet to the backside of it to make a little fridge magnet. 

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For now, I’m off to create our next messy activity, take Sam to Irish Dance (have a kiddo that’s interested? Her studio is offering awesome ‘Try It Out’ summer camps this year!) and FINALLY have that green beer. Actually, I don’t even care what color it is at this point! Find Sam and I over at @BusyInGroveCity on Instagram where we’re always making messes and crafting our way through the year! Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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Amanda Decastro
Amanda DeCastro has called Columbus, Ohio home her entire life. She currently lives with her husband and four-year-old daughter Samantha in Grove City, where they love to share everything there is to do south of Columbus and beyond on their Instagram handle @BusyInGroveCity. In addition to sharing their favorite things to do around town, Amanda and Samantha stay busy making kids crafts - and they truly live by the motto “the messier the better!” When Amanda isn’t shuttling her daughter from activity to activity, she can be found working part-time at Spectrum News 1 OH where she heads up community relations. An elementary school principal’s wife, Amanda is also involved with the South-Western City Schools Educational Foundation board and serves on the advisory committee for the South-Western City Schools Career Academy Interactive Media Design program. A Capital University grad, she is also involved with her alma mater serving as a frequent guest speaker and mentor for current public relations and marketing students.