During St. Patrick's Day, the decorations tend to get a bit garish. Metallic green and gold strands of beads—yuck! I'm all for keeping things simple, but that being said, we do want to get in the spirit. What's a family to do? St. Patrick's Day Placemats! This is a super simple craft that takes just a few moments to make. It can take your table from simple and ho-hum to a bright and colorful place to celebrate your St. Paddy's Day dinner.

Materials

• scrapbook paper, two pieces for each placemat
• green construction paper
• shamrock template
• pencil

• black permanent marker
• scissors
• laminating sheets (make sure to get the ones that do not require a thermal laminating machine)
• double-stick tape

Instructions

1.
Choose 2 pieces of scrapbooking paper that will be the background for your placemat. For these placemats, I wanted to keep the backgrounds simple. I went with a thin rainbow pinstripe for the front of the placemat and an alphabet print for the back. (This way, after the holiday, we can flip the placemat over and use the other side to help my daughter to practice her ABCs!)
2.
Use your pencil to sketch a shamrock onto your green construction paper. (I'm a terrible sketcher so I found a shamrock clip art image in Microsoft Word and used it as a pattern to trace onto the green construction paper.)
3.
Once you are happy with your shamrock shape, trace it with the black permanent marker to make it stand out a bit more, and write your kid's name in the center. You can also decorate and personalize the shamrock in any way you choose, using colored markers or crayons. (All decorations should be flat, as this shamrock will be laminated as part of the placemat.)
4.
Use your scissors to cut out the shamrock.
5.
Apply the shamrock to the scrapbooking paper with double-stick tape. You can also use glue, but I prefer tape because it allows me the freedom to move the shamrock around to find the perfect spot.
6.
Attached your second piece of scrapbooking paper to the flip-side of the placemat, also using double-stick tape. Check your edges to make sure they match up.
7.
Once everything is in the right place, laminate both sides of the placemat.

Tips

• Don't want to use a shamrock? Trace your child's hand onto green construction paper and write their name, age and the year on it instead.