Easy-to-Make Cards & Crafts for St. Patrick's Day

Create your own luck with an easy four-leaf clover pin. Cut clover shapes out of different colors of green felt, layer the pieces together and secure using glue. Embellish the clover with buttons, ribbon, and other trims. Adhere a safety pin to the back.

Add shamrocks to your decor with these easy-to-make soaps. Cut a 3/8-inch slice of green soap, then use a small round cookie cutter to stamp three circles for each piece of soap. Also cut a piece of green soap for the stem. Arrange the circles and stem in a purchased soap mold, available at craft and hobby stores. Set aside.

Cut the white soap into cubes and melt in a glass container in the microwave. Let the soap set until a film forms. Remove the film with a toothpick and pour the white soap into the mold over the green soap. Reverse the process to create green soap with white shamrocks.

Use large-scale medallion and border stencils to turn a plain tablecloth into a dramatic accent you can use year-round -- but especially on St. Patrick's Day. Lay a tablecloth on a flat surface and place the stencils, securing them with a bit of tape. Fill in the designs with fabric paint, using medallions on the corners and aligning border stencils along the sides. We used white paint on a taupe-color cloth.

Source: Stencils: stencilwerks.com

Let the celebration of all things green (and Irish!) start with this festive handmade card. Make several so you can send them to special Irish (or Irish wanna-be) friends and relatives.

Show your heritage as well as your crafty side with this decorative wall quilt. Coordinate green fabrics to piece a Courthouse Steps block. A center square holds a synthetic suede shamrock surrounded by check and print fabrics.

St. Patrick's Day is the perfect time to tell someone how lucky you are to know him or her. This handcrafted card is easy and fun to do.

Make a colorful St. Patrick's Day card for a lucky someone using our simple instructions.

This little hat is just the right size for a small plant or sweet treat. Plus it'll look great as a centerpiece on an Irish-filled table at a St. Paddy's Day party.

Show off your St. Patrick's Day celebration by creating a scrapbook layout filled with all things green. In this example, designer Lee Ann Russell combined photos from a St. Patrick's Day breakfast with papers and embellishments in the holiday's primary color.

Design tips: (1) Add interest by featuring an image with lots of emotion. Russell used a photo of her crying daughter. (2) Give your layout a new angle by writing in the voice of your subjects.

SOURCES Cardstock: KI Memories. Font: Typo by Two Peas in a Bucket. Ribbon: May Arts. Chipboard letters: Heidi Swapp.

Good-looking stencils and a box of paints are the secret behind these sophisticated pieces of art. Lay the stencil on a sheet of watercolor paper using painter's tape to secure. Fill in the design with acrylic paints or watercolors, using a light touch to create light and dark areas for depth. Let the paint dry. Lay the design on crafts paper (use a coordinating color to give it a matted look), and display in a simple glass-clip frame.

Source: Stencils: stencilwerks.com

Avoid getting pinched on March 17 by declaring yourself "Irish Today." Paint a metal-edge vellum gift tag (available at crafts stores) green; let dry. String letter beads onto lengths of thin wire to spell "Irish Today." Lay the strings of beads on the tag to decide placement for holes; punch holes on both sides of each word. Thread the wire ends through the holes. Glue a metal pin to the back of the tag; tie wire ends to the pin.

Gather scraps of felt to make a fun no-sew leprechaun for St. Patrick's Day.