St. Patty's Day Fun

It's been awhile since my last post, I know.  We had family visiting last week and this week is proving to be busy as well.  I've accepted three substituting jobs but will have next week completely free since it will be spring break in our area.

On the crafting front, I signed up for the Clean & Simple 3 card class which started last week.  I've only had a small amount of free time but plan to get caught up with the videos this afternoon and hopefully have some time to play on Saturday.  That said, I did find the time to put together a little something special for Meg.

As many of you know, Meg is extremely proud of her Irish heritage and name so celebrating St. Patty's Day with a Bucket 'O Green has been a tradition in our house for many years.  As she grows older though, it's harder and harder to find cute things to put in her bucket.  This year was made especially difficult because so many of the candies/sweets that she likes are chewy, gooey and off limits due to her new braces.  I decided to make a little something special for her to try to make up for it.

I began with a quart size wide mouth mason jar, some glass enamel paint and Mr. Huey's spray, all of which I had in my craft stash.  (Imagine that!  *wink*)

I poured some of the enamel onto my silicone craft mat and added a couple of drops for the green spray.  After mixing them well I applied a thin coat to the outside of the mason jar (and outer ring lid) and then baked it in a 200 degree oven for 40 minutes.   This sets the paint into the glass so that it doesn't rub off.

While they were cooling I punched two circles (one large scallop and one smaller circle) from green cardstock and used them to decorate the top of the metal lid insert.  (Sorry no individual photos here.) Using E6000 glue, I adhered the lid insert to the outer ring so that they are virtually one piece rather than two.

At this point I'll reveal the final result as it will make further explanations much simpler.

I filled the jar is filled with the complete contents of two 11.5 oz bags of mint M&Ms.   (Yes, almost a pound and a half of those babies fit into one jar!)  My original idea was a gold painted terra cotta pot filled with Rolos (another of her favs) but with the braces I had to come up with a Plan B.  Obviously I'm biased but I think it turned out really well.

To make the tag I layered a green hand cut banner over a larger gold one (leftover from my handmade Christmas gifts) and topped them both off with a piece of white vellum punched out into a circular shape.  The Happy St. Patrick's Day greeting and clovers are some extremely old rubons that haven't seen the light of day for at least 7 years.  (See, it pays to be an organized hoarder!)  I tied both a gold ribbon and a green/beige burlap ribbon around the lower mouth of the jar and used green/white baker's twine to dangle the tags.  I threw in a plastic gold coin for good measure.  On the top of the jar sits a little leprechaun that I picked up at Hobby Lobby for $2.00.  He's adhered with the same E6000 glue that I used on the lid pieces.   I think this turned out sooooo cute!!!

Here is a photo of Meg's entire bucket of happiness that she received when she got home from school.

She loved it all but especially her leprechaun friend, as I knew she would.  And she's worn those silly socks to bed every night since Monday.  LOL!!

Did you do or make anything special to celebrate this year?