St. Patrick’s Day crafts and recipes

St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner. I’ve put together a fun list of holiday-themed crafts and recipes for you to enjoy. They’re all easy, and most are simple and safe enough for kids to help with. They mainly involve green things, and leprechauns and shamrocks and four-leaf-clovers – that sort of thing.

But you’ll also find recipes for Irish Stew, delicious brownies, onion soups and more.

Crafts

1. Make an adorable leprechaun yarn bug. This one requires just a few items from a craft store, and is safe enough for older kids or smaller kids with supervision.
2. Print out some St. Patrick’s Day coloring book pages for the kids. These are as simple as loading paper and clicking print, but they keep kids entertained for hours, at a fraction of the cost of colorbooks.
3. Very cute pipe cleaner shamrock pins from Martha Stewart. So simple, but it does involve a utility knife, so be sure to supervise kids on this one.
4. This little lucky clover pattern is a great beginner’s crochet project. Use it to teach kids how to crochet, or if you’re experienced at crochet, this one will take you no time.
5. Make green-on-green shamrock images using a scratch painting technique. Scratch painting is like magic, as you scratch away one layer of paint to reveal another color below. Once you teach kids how to do this, you’ll have trouble getting them to stop.
6. Here’s a Leprechaun Hat that can hold chips. This is terrific as a centerpiece or as a something to bring to a pot luck.
7. Don’t forget to make a green hat with a shamrock. This is another craft where the kids can work on most of it by themselves (just be sure to have an adult use the hot glue gun). And that’s a good thing because once one kid has one of these, every kid will want one!
8. Male a Celtic cross. This is the simplest cross, but throw in some crayons or markers, and kids have the opportunity to get creative.
9. Make a leprechaun marionette that dances when you pull the strings. This one does involve a needle and thread at one stage, so make sure older kids or adults handle that portion.
10. Go super-simple old school and make a shamrock potato stamp. This one just takes a potato and a table knife to carve into it, so older kids and adults can make the stamps and leave the stamping and decorating to the little kids.

Recipes

1. The Leprechaun Fizz is a fancy drink for kids – lime sherbert in ginger ale or sprite. It’s very colorful and fun!
2. If you want to eat a traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal, check out these recipes for Irish Stew.
3. Bailey’s Chocolate Mousse Pie – why, yes, it is made from Bailey’s Irish Cream.
4. Shamrock sandwiches make a great appetizer or light meal.
5. Irish coffee brownies, flavored with Irish Whiskey.
6. St. Patrick’s Day savory potato muffins.
7. Guinness and Onion soup. This Irish twist on the French onion classic uses Irish cheddar (if you’ve never tried it, it’s fantastic).
8. St. Patrick’s Day cookie pops – fun for kids to help with, since there’s a lot to do that doesn’t involve any cooking.