Everyone loves to get a card handmade by a child, especially grandparents and other relatives. You and your child can show someone a little love this St. Patrick's Day with a simple homemade greeting. You can jazz up this craft by adding your own spin and showcasing your own unique personality—try using a photo to personalize the card even more.

Materials

• scrapbook paper or cardstock in green, white, gold, yellow, and/or black
• Shamrock shaped cookie cutter (or another shamrock pattern you can trace around to make a shamrock stencil)
• something round (about an inch in diameter) you can trace around
• markers, colored pencils, or crayons

• a straight-edge cutter or scissors
• a glue pen or scrapbook tape
• 1 precut card and envelope (optional) (If you don't want to use a precut card you can cut your own to size from cardstock)

Instructions

1. If you're not using a precut card and envelope, fold your cardstock in the center and cut it to the size you want your final card to be. You can also leave it full size if you're using an 8 ½ by 11 sheet of cardstock— simply fold it in half.

2. Cut a piece of cardstock just a little smaller than your card in an accenting shade of green, and glue it to the front of the card so that a border is showing all the way around from the original card. A straight edge cutter works really well for this (but should be used carefully by adults or older children supervised by adults).

3. 

   You can also double mat the card by cutting another smaller piece of cardstock, then centering it on the card so the other two colors show in a border around the outside of the smaller center piece of cardstock (like shown in the photo below).

4. Write your message on the front of your card. (Helpful tip: Write your message before you cut the piece of cardstock so you can cut it with the message perfectly centered. This is easier than trying to center the message on the cardstock after you cut it.)

5. Select a piece of green construction paper and place your shamrock cookie cutter on it.

6. Have your child trace around a shamrock cookie cutter, and then help him cut out the shamrock shape form the green paper.

7. Glue to the shamrock to the front of your card.

8. On the inside of the card, repeat the process of cutting smaller cardstock pieces in contrasting colors to create a border.

9. Make a pot of gold by selecting a piece of scrapbook paper and placing your "something round" on it.

10. 

    Have your child trace halfway around the round object and then draw a line straight across to make the top of the pot. Add some gold cardstock to the top, cut to look like gold coins coming out of the pot. If you don't want to make the pot of gold out of scrapbook paper, you could also let your child draw it.

11. 

    Glue your pot of gold to a piece of cardstock.

12. Glue your cardstock with the pot of gold to the inside of your card.

13. 

    Once it's dry have your child draw a rainbow going into the pot of gold with markers, colored pencils, or crayons.

14. 

    Don't forget to add who made the card on the back, with a little personalized seal, "Made with love by___________."

15. Put your handmade St. Patrick's Day card in an envelope and send it to someone you love.

Tips

• Instead of handwriting your message you can also type it into a word program on your computer, print it out on a sheet of cardstock and cut it to size.