Doing a craft with your children around a holiday, like St. Patrick’s Day, helps to make their day extra special. Not only do crafts provide a fun project and pretty result, they also give you the opportunity to teach your children about the day’s history while sparking their creativity. When making this salt dough shamrock craft, your children will learn about measuring, cooking and gain some self-esteem from their newfound talents. This shamrock necklace is the perfect way for your children to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day, especially if they have a school uniform that does not incorporate green! They will want to share the extra necklaces with their friends.
DIY Shamrock Necklace Tutorial
Materials
- 2 cups of flour
- 1/2 cup of salt
- 3/4 cup of water
- 20 green food-coloring drops
- Rolling pin
- Skewer or straw (to poke holes in the salt dough shamrocks)
- Shamrock cookie cutter or small heart shaped cookie cutter
- Yarn (gold, green, or rainbow are all great St. Patrick’s Day colors)
How To Make This Salt Dough Shamrock Necklace St. Patrick’s Day Craft
- Preheat the oven to 300°F. Have your children help you make the salt dough mixture by combining the flour and salt. Next, add the food coloring to the water and stir. Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients and stir. When it begins to thicken up, let them use their hands to work it into a dough ball.
- Once the dough ball is formed, sprinkle some flour onto a flat, dry surface such as a parchment covered countertop or large cutting board. Let your kids use a rolling pin to roll the dough out until it is about ¼ -inch thick.
- Use the shamrock cookie cutter to press out several green clover necklace pendants. Or if you only have a small heart shaped cookie cutter, you can use that and then press the hearts together to form four leaf clovers. Once you have all of your shamrocks ready, use a skewer or straw to make a hole at the top center of each shamrock.
- Transfer the salt dough shamrocks to a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper and bake for 45 minutes (oven should already be preheated to 300 degrees). Carefully flip the shamrocks over to the other side and place them back in the oven for another 15-30 minutes until hardened.
- Remove the salt dough shamrocks from the oven and allow them to cool.
- Use yarn to string each shamrock, tying a double-knot tightly where the two strings meet.
Necklace Safety Tips
Please note while this is a great preschool shamrock craft, I would just let them have the shamrocks to play with under supervision and not make them into necklaces for toddlers. Bear in mind that necklaces are a strangulation hazard if given to children that are too young and that children should never sleep in necklaces. Please see these necklace safety tips from Arnold Palmer Hospital.
There you have it! Your shamrock necklace is ready for your kids to wear and makes a fun, “lucky” keepsake after St. Patrick’s Day is over.
St. Patrick’s Day is a great time to talk to your child about the two meanings of “green!” What are your favorite St. Patrick’s Day crafts and traditions?
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