St. Patrick's Day Crafts for Kids

Legend has it that if a child hangs this banner from his door on St. Patrick's Day, leprechauns may leave gold coins in the pot during the night.

1. Cut two of each of the letters in the word lucky from colored paper. (Ours are 3 inches high.)
2. Sandwich the matching letters around a length of string and secure them with a glue stick. Leave a couple of feet of excess string at each end of the banner.
3. Cut two matching pot shapes from black felt. Glue the shapes together along the sides and bottom. Let the glue dry.
4. Using the string at the banner's bottom and a tapestry needle, stitch across one layer of the pot's opening. Tie the end of the string to itself just below the letter Y, as shown. Tie a loop in the string above the L for hanging.

You won't need luck to get this Saint Patrick's Day pinwheel to turn – just a puff of air. Download our template below (scroll down to the March 24 issue). Use it to cut the shape from a double-sided sheet of scrapbook paper. Fold an edge of each leaf section as marked on the template. Press a tack through the center of the pinwheel and into the side of a pencil's eraser, leaving a bit of space so that the paper can turn freely. Blow on the side of the shamrock for the best spin.

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Dish up a paper-plate party hat that can easily be customized for any occasion.

1. On a dinner-size paper plate, draw a circle about 1 3/4 inches in from the edge.

2. Fold the plate in half, then draw half of a shamrock shape along the fold inside the circle, with the base of the shape touching the line.

3. Cut out the shape and the head hole along the curved line.

4. Bend up the shape. Have your child try on the hat, and widen the head hole as needed.

5. Decorate the hat with paint, crayon, markers, and glitter.

Warning: This easy-to-make prop may give your child mischievous ideas. Print out our beard template below (from the March 2013 issue). Cut the shape from a piece of faux fur and a piece of corrugated cardboard (with the corrugations running vertically). Glue the fur to the cardboard. Place a bit of glue on the end of a bamboo skewer, then insert it into one of the center flutes of the cardboard. Let the glue dry before employing the disguise. This is a great St. Patrick's Day craft for preschoolers!

Cut four half-inch rings from a flattened cardboard tube, then cut through one of the folds on each ring. For three of the rings, bend and glue the two ends to form a heart-shaped leaf. Fold the fourth ring into a triangular stem and glue the ends together. Glue the stem between two leaves, then glue on the third. Paint the shamrock green. When it's dry, hang it with fishing line or string.

• RELATED: St. Patrick's Day Crafts for Kids