A Shamrockin' St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 

This is a holiday that, I think, is less frequently celebrated when you are a parent to young children. St. Patrick's Day pre-kids consisted of lots and lots of drinking. Now, the only green beverage we've been gulping in this house is milk! (And it was dyed that way, not rotten or anything). But, I love any excuse to celebrate and do fun things with my kids; and when our van started to make some worrying noises I knew I was going to be spending the day inside with the kids while Mr. Bee took it to his cousin's.

Our St. Patrick's festivities started last night after the kids went to sleep. After the kids were soundly asleep I made a leprechaun made and delivered mini green cupcakes! That same leprechaun also hid some St. Patrick's Day gold around our house with a special pot of gold to be found at the very end. Imagine The Toddler Bees' surprise when they woke up this morning!





After the excitement of a treasure hunt we were able to sit down to a delicious pancake breakfast. But not just any pancakes! We had shamrock shaped pancakes! I attempted a leprechaun hat, too, but it didn't quite turn out. And the batter was dyed green but it was hard to tell when they are cooked. But, hey, a pancake is a pancake and I'm not one to turn down buttery-syrupy-cakey goodness.




Once breakfast was over I pulled out a game of St. Patrick's Lucky Bingo. Bingo is very popular with Toddler Bee and he managed to beat me 5 times (I only won twice!). We used the Leprechaun gold from our hunt as markers for our game so we could play multiple times.

Green coins were found at our dollar store. 

Next came snack time:

Carrot stick beard, raisin eyes, cucumber and celery hat, and an apple slice smile

Shamrocks out of cucumber and a leprechaun man! So my leprechaun is a little beady-eyed and broad-mouthed...we can't all be super models.

We even made some special green dessert for after dinner! It's Oreo cookie crumbs on the bottom, vanilla pudding dyed green, topped with whipped cream, and a mini-cupcake. (Mr. Bee is not a fan of whipped cream, the crazy man.)

Even our lunch today was green! I added green food colouring to a pot of water and made pasta. At first I tried using my neon green dye but that didn't seem to be making any colour changes. So, I went with a darker green (about three/four drops) and it turned out perfectly! We had skewers of pickles and cucumbers, too, and a cold glass of green milk.

We played a few more rounds of Lucky Bingo before Mr. Bee was able to make it home (with a repaired vehicle, I might add). I was even a nice wife and made our roast dinner since I knew Mr. Bee wouldn't be home in time to do it.

It was a great St. Patrick's Day and even though The Toddler Bees didn't really know what was going on it was a fun way to break up the monotony of winter and a great excuse to have fun with the kids!

St Patrick's Day Craft - Leprechaun and Shamrock Tree

I've been googling and looking on Pinterest for some St. Patrick's Day crafts and there is surprisingly little out there for kids in the 2-3 age bracket. So, I've had to improvise and create some ideas of my own!

Today, we decided to make two St. Patrick's Day crafts. Neither are labour intensive because I have a sicky little boy on my hands and he's not wanting to do much of anything today.

But, this craft uses some of his favourite things...paints and glitter glue!

Let's start with our Handprint Leprechaun!

What You Need:

White paper
Brown and red paints
Pink & red construction paper
Green and yellow paper (I used cardstock)
Blue paint or paper
Black marker
A hand (hopefully you have at least one of these...)

How to Make it:

Mix some brown and red paint together to get a ruddy colour. Then, paint your child's hand with this and press the hand onto a piece of paper. Make sure the fingers are spread out a little! Note: It is incredibly hard to get a 3 month old to let you paint her hand and press it onto paper.


While this is drying, cut out a green hat. I added a small strip of yellow and a buckle. Glue this to the paper above your handprint (the fingers of the print should be pointing down), leaving some white space between the hat and the handprint.


I cut out a red smile and glued it onto the handprint near the top. Then, I had my toddler dip his finger in blue paint and dab on some eyes, once that dried I added a black dot in the middle.

Add a black dot for a nose and then cut out two little pink circles for rosy cheeks.

And there you have a bearded Leprechaun!


I asked my son if he wanted to add hair and he said "NO!"...so, we have some bald leprechauns. If you wanted, you could paint on some hair or even use yarn!

Our next craft is a Handprint Shamrock Tree


What You Need:

White paper
A pencil
Brown paint
Green paint
Green construction paper or cardstock
Green and gold glitter glue
White glue

How to Make it:

Trace your child's hand and forearm onto a piece of white paper and paint it in with brown (my toddler helped with this part).

Give your toddler some green paint and let them dab and smear on some green leaves. While they're doing that, cut some shamrocks out of your green paper.


Add glue to the back and let your toddler stick them onto the paper.


Squeeze some glitter glue onto a scrap piece of paper and let your toddler finger paint it onto the tree.

Ta-da! A shimmery shamrock tree!

We added 1 lucky four-leaf clover!

St Patrick's Day Craft

St. Patrick's Day is not a holiday I pay as much notice to now that I am no longer a bar-hopping, green beer swilling youth. This year, my son is just old enough to grasp some of the St. Patty's fun so I've been digging around the internet for some themed crafts.

Today, we did our first green-themed craft!

"Lucky" Poster


What you need:

Thin cardboard
Exacto knife
Cutting board
Sheet of plain white paper
Tape (preferably masking or paint)
Green paint
A shamrock stamp (bought or made yourself)

How to make it:

Write the word "Lucky" on your piece of cardboard. Then, use your exacto knife to cut out the letters. This is your stencil!



Tape your piece of paper over the cardboard. Now, when I did this I couldn't find my masking or painter's tape so I had to use duct tape. I do not advise this! Even though I pressed it on my pants a few times (to make it less sticky) I still couldn't get it off the paper. All that means is I had to leave the tape on the back and cut the excess off. So, it was just an extra (unnecessary) step.

Then, give your toddler a brush and the green paint and let them go to town!


While you let it dry you can get your stamp ready. I cut a russet potato in half and then carefully cut out a four-leaf clover shape. It didn't take very long at all.


Once your "Lucky" picture is dry peel it off the cardboard. Put some green paint on a paper plate and let your child stamp some clovers around their picture.

Ta-da! An easy way to start getting ready for St. Patrick's Day!


And it's just about time to swap out my winter subway art for my St. Patrick's one!

Download here

Bonus note: This site has some awesome ideas for St. Patrick's Day! My favourites are to fill your kid's shoes with candy coins and green things the night before St. Patrick's Day; to hide candy coins around the house and have your kids find them; and, to have a scavenger hunt with a pot of gold (candy) at the end; and, topple over some furniture, leave a bit of a mess and make some green footprints (with washable paint ) in your house to make it look like some leprechauns had a party! Such awesome ideas.