Wednesday, March 16, 2011

St. Patricks Day Fruit Salad

This is my last St. Patrick's Day project for the year. A fruit salad, perfect for breakfast tomorrow morning.


Using cantaloupe, honeydew, and pear (soaked in a bit of lemon juice and water so it doesn't turn brown) I made an orange, green and white salad for the colors in the Irish flag. I also used a cookie cutter to make some shamrock shaped pieces of honeydew melon.

My cutter was pretty large so I could only get two lucky shamrock's out of one melon. I had to use the end slices and cut them out from the middle before the seeds started. But if you have a smaller cutter you could make lots of shamrocks and mix them right into your salad!

Or you could always use slices like this and fill the negative space with the fruit salad.


I didn't happen to have any pineapple around the house but thought that might be a nice addition to represent gold.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Adding a beard to a leprechaun hat is super easy!



This last minute St. Patrick's day project is super easy and quick. From start to finish it took less than 15 minutes to complete! And bonus, it cost almost nothing at all. I found this leprechaun hat on sale for $1.49. I also bought a piece of orange craft felt for .29 cents. (If my math is right that totals $1.78- see really cheap!)


To begin I made a pattern using a piece of printer paper. First folding it in half the long way. (If you were to hold this paper around your chin from one ear to the other like a beard you'll see where I'm going with it.)

Then fold in half again. (The folded edge will be the center portion of the beard and the sides will end up being next to your ears.)


Now cut the the paper to this approximate shape.

Here I've shown the parts I cut away on the bottom and the tiny sliver on top to give you a good idea about the shape. You'll end up with two pieces but you'll only need one to trace.

Next cut out an area for your mouth from the center of the beard (folded edge).



And also a mustache shape.


These pieces will be the templates that are traced onto the felt.



I also extended the beard so that it was as long as the felt (which was longer than the paper pattern) to give myself extra for stitching onto the hat at the end.


I traced in pen so it was easy to see but you should use something lighter like a pencil or an orange marker so the lines disappear.


Now that you have your felt cut use a little dab of felt glue to attache the mustache pieces onto the beard.


Be sure to glue this so that any trace lines that weren't cut away on both the mustache and the beard face the back.

The final step is to attach the beard to your hat. A few stitches on the sides of the beard and hat together do trick. And you have a perfect leprechaun disguise for a St. Patricks day parade!


One last tip to figure out the best placement of the beard... hold it against your face while wearing the hat and place two pieces of tape onto the hat to mark the placement.

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