This Year's St. Patrick's Day Decorations

I added a few new St. Patrick's Day decorations to my collection this year.

Here's my St. Patty's Day mantel.

This garland is new. It's an image from the Silhouette. It was so easy to do and I love how it turned out!

Here's a close up.

This frame was inspired by a piece I saw on Inspiring Creations Blog last year. I made a version of it last year but decided to have another go at it this year.

This is a frame. All I did was paint the edges and mod podged scrapbook paper on top. Then, I painted a tree on cardstock and glued Shamrocks, I cut from my Silhouette, on the tree. I embellished the frame by mod podging shamrocks and the word "Luck" (also cut on my Silhouette) and covering them with a layer of mod podge. When all of that was dry, I added ribbons and buttons. I like the way it turned out and this craft was also something I did for craft night with my craft crew.

Here's another copycraft I found on pinterest. icandy handmade created the inspiration piece and I just changed it a bit for me.  I'll be putting pictures on the four dangling blocks.

Here are close ups of the blocks.

I just embellished them with random things.

I tried to make each block unique.

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

This final decoration was inspired by the heart one I made at Valentine's Day. I cut Shamrocks on my Silhouette, glued them to a piece of scrapbook paper, and added a gold coin for a pop. I used an old frame I had that was trimmed in gold. This took twenty minutes max. I really like it.

So, my holiday collection keeps growing. I hope you're inspired by some of these easy decorations.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Lamb Hat

Back in the fall a friend asked me to make her daughter a hat.  I gave her links to all my favorite pattern writers.  She found this adorable lamb hat pattern and asked me to make it.

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Cat in the Hat Crochet Hat & Bow

In case you didn't know, March 2 was Dr. Seuss's Birthday.  Ryan's (my oldest) elementary school was having a day filled with fun activities for the kids to celebrate Dr. Seuss and his birthday.  

One of the activities that occurred was a school parade.  Any child, teacher, or staff member who dressed as a Dr. Seuss character could walk in the parade.  Ryan begged and begged for me to help him dress like The Cat in the Hat.  He actually thought I would make him a whole tuxedo like outfit.  He was dreaming on that one.  I did however crochet him a hat and bow-tie that mimicked The Cat in the Hat's attire.  

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St. Patricks Day Printables

Sorry for the delay in the St. Patrick's Day Printables!  It isn't too late to break out the printer and add to your decor!

From Madigan Made

From I Should Be Mopping The Floor

From Eighteen25

From Lil' Luna

From The Blooming Homestead

From The Hands-on Housewife

From I share Printables

From Tip Junkie

From Auntie Lolo Crafts

From Funky Polkadot Giraffe

From Anything But Perfect

Jill's St. Patrick's Day crafts recap

In case you missed these posts last year, I wanted to provide you with some pictures and links to things I made last year.  I have a crocheted shamrock hair clip tutorial to show you in a couple of days too.

I created two different shamrock patterns, one is a 4 leaf clover and the other is a 3 leaf clover.  You can chain these together for a beautiful garland.

Shamrock Crochet Patterns

I also made a cute crocheted Leprechaun hat that can be hung as decoration.  I've provided the updated links so you can get the pattern for yourself.

Leprechaun Hat Decoration

Check back later this week to see the Crocheted Leprechaun Hair Clip Tutorial.

Update from Jill

Hello again to all our wonderful followers!  I appreciate you following our blog so very much!

You might be wondering why I have been so absent from the blog lately.  Well, I want to give you an update on myself and my family.

The last couple of months have been both overwhelming and exciting.  For those of you who don't know, my husband is an Associate Minister here at a church just outside Atlanta.  Before Christmas we were contacted to consider a new ministry position in Dayton, Ohio.  We began to pray for God's direction and leading.

After the New Year, we were contacted again to see if we would be interested in considering the new Associate Ministry position.  Dayton is only an hour away from a majority of our family.  This would be the closest we have ever been to family as we are currently 8 hours away.  We were also very excited about the potential of this new job as my husband would be working directly with the Senior Minister.  The Senior Minister was our Children's Minister growing up and my husband interned under him after college.  Our families have remained close throughout the years.

In February, we traveled up to the Dayton area, looked around the community and formally interviewed for the position.  We were offered the job and are now preparing to move.

We will miss Georgia, our friends and church family here, so very much.  It truly is a bittersweet move for us.  Thankfully, we have many ways these days to stay connected and we can visit when we need some warmer weather!

As you can imagine, caring for three kids, keeping up the duties of a SAHM, organizing, packing, and figuring out what to do with our house has left little time left for both crafting and blogging.  We will be moving at the end of the school year so I have some time to get it all done, but it just seems like an unsurmountable task.

There are many big decisions for us to make before we move and trips back and forth until then.  Thankfully, I have some great projects to share with you over the next couple of months.  Please be patient with me as I navigate this big transition.  I may not be able to reply as quickly as I like to comments or emails, but I promise I will get to them.  I hope to be settled and back to some semblance of myself by the end of summer.  Until then, I will still be around and sharing a couple crafts a week.

Thank you all so much for your support of all we do and Our Seven Dwarfs!

The Leprechaun Came!

  St. Patrick's Day 2011

John and the girls made a Leprechaun trap.  They know he loves green so they added some green grass and kiwi served in a green bowl.

While they were preparing the trap, the Leprechaun sent me shopping.  I got a green movie, 2 packs of M&Ms, green Andes, and mint 3 Musketeers.

The Leprechaun came and skattered Shamrocks all over the carpet.

He made a mess with the Easter grass.  He loved the kiwi. After he ate that, he filled the bowl with Andes candies and 3 Musketeer bars.  He neatly arranged everything under the trap.

Here's a close up.

He rode Mariella's plasma car and left a Shamrock sticker as proof.

This is what the trap looks like now. The girls will think they've captured the Leprechaun.

Mariella seeing the mess the Leprechaun made.  Notice, she's chomping on some chocolate already.

Sisters!

Happy girls!

GraciAnn's funny face!

Mariella

This is the beginnings of our green jello surprise.

The recipe can be found here: http://www.oursevendwarfs.com/search/label/St.%20Patrick%27s%20Day

The next layer of the jello surprise.

The finished Jello Surprise minus pecans.  I left those out.  The girls LOVED it and so did my husband!

John's St. Patty's Day dinner!

*I didn't take a picture of this, but, when the Leprechaun was here, he went potty.  Because he's such a little guy, he couldn't reach to flush.  It's amazing, but I guess all the green things he eats causes his urine to be green.  Our potty was full of green! (Thanks to the food coloring!)

I hope you had a wonderful St. Patrick's Day too!

The Leprechaun Visits: Our St. Patrick's Day Traditions

The Leprechaun Visits:
Since my oldest daughter was one, we've had an annual visit from the Leprechaun.  He's a funny guy.  He comes to our house, leaves Shamrock stickers all over, and even uses our potty and forgets to flush!  Did you know a Leprechaun pees green? (Thanks to some green food coloring!) The Leprechaun also leaves green treats, gold coins, and a present (or a couple of small gifts) wrapped in green.  It's great fun to have the Leprechaun visit.

St. Patrick's Day Decorations:
This is the first year I've decorated our house for St. Patrick's Day.  Being a part of blogland inspires me to decorate for all holidays.  Having two little kids, that seem to appreciate the decorations keeps me going too.  Well, I think most of the decorations are done.

My front door wreath.

A mantle sign.

Another mantle decoration.

The mantle tree branch.

Our welcome mat. 

Another mantle decoration.

St. Patrick's Day Photoboard

A Leprechaun pot by the front door.

St. Patrick's Day Clothing:

We definitely wear green on St. Patrick's Day.  Who wants to be pinched?

This is St. Patrick's Day 2009.  They are so itty bitty!

These are this year's tshirts.



I still have plans to make Shamrock clippies for the girls.  Stay tuned for those.

St. Patrick's Day Food:
We always have the traditional corned beef for St. Patrick's Day.  I go light on the potatoes (we're not huge fans) and heavy on the carrots (we love carrots). We also add cabbage.  Believe it or not, my girls usually eat it. Great drink options are green limeade, adding green food coloring to lemonade, sprite, or water. Dessert options can include mint chocolate chip ice cream, lime sherbert, pistachio pudding, cake made green with food coloring, rainbow cakes http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/catch-a-rainbow-cake-687429/ or cupcakes http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/taste-a-rainbow-cupcakes-842128/.  I think we'll try my mom's recipe for green jello this year.

Here it is.  It's delicious!

JELLO SURPRISE

2 small boxes lime jello

1 #2 can crushed pineapple drained (save juice)

Make jello with the pineapple.  Chill.  When firm:

Prepare 2 envelopes of Dream Whip as directed.  Add 8 ozs cream cheese and spread over thickened jello. 

Pineapple Sauce

pineapple juice, add water to make one cup liquid

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

3/4 cup sugar

2 Tablespoon flour

2 eggs beaten

Mix dry ingredients and then slowly add liquid and eggs.   Cook over low heat until thickened.  Cool.  Spread over cream cheese and sprinkle with pecan pieces. 

St. Patrick's Treats:
If you enjoy giving little gifts on St. Patrick's Day, here's an adorable, inexpensive idea. http://thecraftingchicks.com/2011/02/little-gifts-for-st-patricks-day-free-downloads.html

If you have any great traditions you want to share with us, please do!  We're always open to new ideas.