Cheap and Easy St. Patrick's Day Crafts!

I was commandeered into volunteered to do a St. Patty's Day craft with the kids in my MOMS Club. Since our craft budget for the year is only, like, $20, I opted to just get the supplies out of my own pocket since if we have a craft each month, that means there's less than $2 to spend for supplies on each craft! So I chose some pretty cheap crafts! No cute little foam craft kits, no!

Rainbow Streamers

Materials:
Paper plates
Crepe paper streamers in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. (Or green, white and orange, if you want to do the Irish flag!)
Tape and/or stapler
Scissors
Circle cutter (optional)
Crayons or pens (optional)

Step 1: Use circle cutter or scissors to cut a large circle out of the center of the paper plate. (Do in advance if prepping for a bunch of crafters.)

Step 2: Cut 1-2' lengths of each color of streamer (one of each per child.) Older kids who can use scissors can cut these themselves. (Also good to cut in advance if expecting a lot of crafters.)

Step 3: For the younger kids, affix a piece of tape to one end of each streamer and let them tape onto their plates. Older kids can get their own tape, or affix tape to streamer and plate. Or staple, but many kids can't punch a stapler hard enough to make it work well.

Step 4 (optional): Kids can color their plates before or after taping on streamers.

Step 5: Play! These kids danced around with them, wore them as hats, and one got hung up as a wind sock in a bedroom with a ceiling fan.

 

I found the plates, and most of the streamer colors (2 rolls/pack) at Dollar Tree. I had to get orange and purple from Party City, and they were normally $1/roll, but were on sale 2/$1.50. Total cost: $6.50, and I have puh-LENTY of leftovers!

Shamrock Necklaces

Materials:

Drinking straws (striped or colored assortment best)

Plastic pony beads (or any large-holed beads)

Yarn

Craft foam (or foam shamrocks)

Construction paper (optional)

3/4" or larger craft punch (optional)

Scissors

Hole punch

Tape

Step 1: Cut straws into 1/2"-3/4" lengths. Scissor-savvy kids can do this part as well. You'll want to cut 2-3 straws per child (based on lengths of yarn you cut.)

Step 2: Cut 2' lengths of yarn (1 per child) and tightly wrap a small piece of tape around one end to make it easier to thread through beads. Tie a pony bead onto the non-taped end.

Step 3 (optional): Use a medium-sized craft punch in any shape (circles, leaves, flowers or shamrocks best, probably) on extra craft foam or construction paper and use hole punch to make hole in center of shape. Depending on width of straw openings, and if you have a hole punch with a smaller hole, you may want to use a smaller hole so the foam shapes don't just slide over the straws.

I didn't have a craft punch with enough center space to make a hole, so I just hand-cut a bunch of circles.

Step 4: Use a cookie cutter or printed template to cut shamrock shapes out of craft foam (or construction paper) and use hole punch to make 2 holes in one of the leaves.

Step 5: Use a tray, little cups, bowls or egg carton to hold all the beads and show them how to get started!

At around halfway beaded, you can have them string on the shamrock, but it's not really important where it goes. Help them tie the ends together (I just threaded the yarn back through the original pony bead at the end and tied it off.)

I found all the supplies for these at the Dollar Tree. Straws, pony beads, yarn and foam shamrocks $1/pack. I already had construction paper, and Dollar Tree sells packs of colored craft foam as well. Total cost: $4

Submitting to Somewhat Simple's St. Patrick's linky, Dollar Store Crafts, Catholic Icing's St. Patrick's Link-up, MeloMomma's (Kid-Friendly) Share It Friday, No Time for Flashcards Link and Learn, My Shae Noel's All Things Wonderful linkup, and C.R.A.F.T.'s Making Monday Marvelous