Studio 5 Party, Holiday and Ideas Contributor Alisa Bangerter shares unique ideas that will add some extra fun and creativity to your celebration.
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• Leprechaun Dust – Tuck some gold foil wrapped coins or chocolate kisses under the pillow your sleeping child. Sprinkle a tiny bit of gold glitter by their pillow. Make sure to sprinkle some of the glitter in several places around the house so the child can see where the leprechauns have been.
• Trail of Golden Candy – While your child is sleeping, place a trail of gold wrapped candy leading to a hidden prize. When they wake up they will see the trail and be curious to where it leads. Have something at the end of the trail such as a box of Lucky Charms cereal.
• Follow the Rainbow – This is the same concept as the trail of golden candy. The child wakes to find a rainbow colored ribbon or yarn tied to his bed. The child follows the ribbon that has been wound thorough the house to find the “pot of gold” at the end.
• Leprechaun Mischief – Turn over some chairs and put some items in your home out of their normal places. Cut some tiny paper footprints out of green paper and place them around the room. Tell your children the leprechauns have been there causing “mischief.”
• Gold Hunt – Hide gold chocolate coins or real money in your home. Instruct children to go on a “gold hunt” to find as many “pieces of gold” as they can. You could also change this to a shamrock hunt and hide paper shamrocks instead of candy or money.
• Green Treasure Hunt – Place a shamrock with the first clue to a treasure hunt under a child’s pillow, on their breakfast plate, etc. Have each clue lead to something green. For example, have a clue lead to green lettuce in the refrigerator, have a clue lead to a green car or even a green article of clothing. You could even have a clue lead to a neighbor named Mr. Greene. Be creative.
• Green Scavenger Hunt – Have a scavenger hunt that has green items to find. Divide into teams and assign point values to the different items. Have items such as: a green pencil, a green crayon, a green piece of candy, a green plant, a green toothbrush, a green can of soda, a green sock, a green apple, a green book, etc.
• Green Dinner Party – Invite your friends to a green dinner party. Send invitations that are green and in green envelopes. Request that everyone come dressed in green. Have everyone bring a green food item. Make sure to play Irish themed music.
• Gold Guess – Fill a jar with gold chocolate coins or actual money. Display the jar in a prominent area in your home. Have everyone that comes to your home make a guess at the amount of items or the worth of the money in the jar. Give a prize or the jar of items to the person coming closest to the correct answer.
• Green Food – Use green food coloring to dye food that normally is not green. Use food coloring in items such as eggs, pancakes, peanut butter, waffles, muffins, bread, biscuits, mashed potatoes, pudding, milk, yogurt, noodles, etc.
• Green Toilet – Place green food coloring in the toilet tank to create a surprise of green water.
• Shamrock Sandwiches – Use a cookie cutter to cut a sandwich into a shamrock shape. Other items can be cut into shamrocks such as tortillas, waffles, pancakes, etc.
• Rainbow Bread – place a small amount of milk in several cups. Add a different color of food coloring to each. Let children paint a “rainbow” on a piece of white bread using a clean brush and the colored milk. Place in toaster.
• Grow Some Luck – Plant clover seeds in a pot and see over time who can grow a four leaf clover.
• Leprechaun Kisses – While your child is sleeping, use a rubber stamp and some green dye ink to carefully stamp an image on their cheek. I like to use a heart, lips or shamrock image. When your child awakes they can see the “evidence” of being kissed by a leprechaun!
• Limerick Contest – Have a contest for who can make up the best or funniest limerick. A limerick is a five-line humorous poem with an AABBA rhyme scheme.
• Tiny Leprechaun Shoes – Paint some tiny shoes green (use some toddler or baby shoes form a thrift store). Adhere gold glitter on the shoes. Place the shoes out the morning of St. Patrick’s Day and inform your children that a leprechaun must have visited and forgot their shoes!
• Lucky Fortunes – Make some homemade fortune cookies and dye the batter green. Add fortunes that are lucky – for example, “You will be lucky in love this year!”
• Shamrock Cupcakes – Make shamrock-shaped cupcakes by placing three tiny balls of foil between the cupcake liner and cupcake pan before baking. Evenly space the balls of foil to indent the baking cup in three places. This will cause the cupcake to be shaped like a shamrock after it is baked. Frost with green icing.
• Irish Quiz – Create a simple quiz about Ireland and St. Patrick’s Day. Give a green prize to who can get the most correct. This can be fun to do at dinner time as it is not only fun, but is educational as well.
• Rainbow Door – Place streamers in the colors of the rainbow across the top of a doorway. Hang the streamers side by side so the entire doorway is covered. This is fun to do for a child so when they wake up they have a rainbow covered door they can walk through.
• Lucky Text Message – Utilize technology by text messaging your teenager or other loved ones. Send a text that wishes them a “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” and that you are so lucky to have them in your life.
• Green Ice -Freeze green beverages to make ice cubes. Place the green ice in a cup and add Sprite or 7-Up.
• Black Pots – Remember to watch for black plastic pots and cauldrons on clearance after Halloween. The black pots are perfect to use for St. Patrick’s Day as pots for leprechaun gold.
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