It’s the week of St. Patrick’s Day! I guess a good old-fashioned “top o’ the morning” is in order.
If you know anything about me, you know I love a good DIY or craft, and it’s made all the better if I get to do it with my son, AJ. AJ and I did two crafty art projects for St. Patrick’s Day this year, and I got the bonus of doing one project with my four-month-old, Teddy.
I’m going to show you all three projects here today. I hope one – or even all three – of these will be something you can do at home with your little ones.
#1: Toddler Trinity Stamp Activity
As a Jesus-loving momma and a part-time church worker, I couldn’t resist explaining the Trinity using the three leaves of the clover or shamrock.
For this activity, I bought sponges at the dollar store and utilized a sharpie, scissors, green paint, and paper that I already had. First, I cut my sponge into one heart-shaped sponge and one small rectangle. Then I filled a disposable bowl with green paint.
I had my toddler stick one side of the heart sponge into the green paint and then put that on top of the white paper three times – one on the left, one in the center, and one on the right, with pointed part of the heart pointing inward.
The heart served as the leaves of our shamrock. Then using the rectangle piece of sponge, we put paint on one side and stamped it underneath the pointed parts of the heart to make the stem of a shamrock.
We then had a conversation about what the Trinity is and labeled each of the leaves as father, son, and Holy Spirit, respectively. AJ was tickled pink with the final project and can now tell me the three parts of the trinity!
#2: Baby’s First Shamrock
This is the project that I was able to do with my infant. Teddy is four months old, and I had the thought that I’d like to have something that has his little footprints on it for his baby book or a family album. This project will be perfect as a keepsake, and for now it’s hanging up in our kitchen as St. Patty’s Day decor.
For this project, I used green paint, poured into a disposable bowl, white paper, a paint brush, and my infant’s two little feet.
I simply dipped his bare feet into the green paint, and then gently press them onto the paper to make a transfer of his footprints.
I will note that the first time I got too much paint on his foot. We ended up using a second sheet of paper, and I wiped the excess paint off on it before making the art project on a clean piece of paper. Not all of the prints turned out perfectly, but that’s okay. It’s still turned out really cute – and I can’t blame him for having wiggly toes when experiencing the sensation of paint for the first time.
We made three sets of footprints. Each set had the eels facing the center of the page. The first set was at the top of the page, and the other two were on either side, facing their respective sides of the page.
Then, I painted a green stem with the paint brush.
I then traced around them with a black marker to really finish the look. I added his name, the date, and that it was his first St. Patrick’s Day on the page.
Here’s the finished project!
#3: The End of the Rainbow
It wouldn’t be St. Patty’s Day without a reference to a rainbow and that ever elusive pot of gold.
Using a sharpie, I sketched an image of a cloud with a rainbow, bowing out of it, and into a pot of gold. This is a fairly rough sketch, but it did the job. I even made myself a copy so that I could do the project with my four-year-old.
This project requires paint in a variety of colors, your sketched rainbow on a piece of paper, and Q-tips.
I helped AJ decide which color should go in each spot. Then I helped him dip his Q-tip in the paint and had him put dots of paint in between the lines to make the image come to life with colors. I’ve done this before in a similar craft or we focus on the story of Noah’s ark. I’ll link that here. For today it was kind of fun to have that lucky part of golden rainbow as a symbol of St. Patrick’s Day.
These Q-tip painting projects are perfect for hand-eye coordination!
Here’s our final project.
If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll see several reels posted today and tomorrow that feature these projects. Keep an eye out!
What crafts for this fun holiday have you done? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below. And let me know if you tried any of these easy DIY paint projects!
Kate with a Twang 