Kids Shamrock Garland - Using Egg Cartons

This Kids Shamrock Garland was devised the other day when I needed to come up with a quick art project for my 3yr old. He loves to paint, and we’ve been doing a lot of painting on paper, so I was looking to change up the paper for a different material. Cue in our beloved egg carton. I had a few egg cups trimmed that I had prepped for another project and as I picked them up I instantly saw a shamrock shape. Problem solved! This would be a great project for him to go to town on the painting and easy enough for me to glue together in a shamrock shape after. It was also a perfect opportunity to talk to him about shades of colors, and for him to practice painting 3D objects. Needless to say he had a blast and can now see his work displayed beautifully as a garland every time he enters his room.

Some Facts About St. Patrick:

Before we get into egg cartons and paint I wanted to share a few facts about St. Patrick, the man who is behind the holiday.

St. Patrick wasn’t Irish. He was actually British.
He was a slave. When he was 16 he was kidnapped by Irish pirates who took him to Ireland and sold him as a slave. There his job was to tend sheep.
At age 22, he managed to escape Ireland and found his way to a monastery in England where he spent 12 years growing closer to God.
When he was introducing Christianity to Ireland St. Patrick used the shamrock to teach the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and how three things, the Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit could be separate entities, yet one in the same.
Saint Patrick was born with the name “Maewyn Succat” but took on the name Patrick after becoming a priest.
The original color associated with St. Patrick is actually blue not green. He is shown wearing blue vestments in several artworks. It wasn’t until later that green became associated with Ireland most likely due to the beautiful green country side.
March 17th is when Patrick died. Because Saint Patrick is a saint of the Catholic Church we celebrate the day he entered into heaven rather than the day of his birth.
Bonus: Your odds of finding a 4 leafed clover is 1 in 10,000!

Kids Shamrock Garland Supplies:

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Egg Carton
Paint and paintbrush
Golden Pipe cleaner or ribbon to hang
Scissors
Hot Glue Gun & Glue Sticks

Make It – Kids Shamrock Garland:

STEP 1. Cut and trim your egg carton. There are 3 cups per shamrock and you’ll want to trim each cup so that it’s smooth around the edges. Be sure to keep the trimmings, because we’ll use these for the stems.

STEP 2. Find and trim some stems. Have a look through your trimmings and choose or cut 1 stem per shamrock.

STEP 3. Paint everything green! Make sure to cover your painting surface, we rolled out a paper bag to cover ours. Once your painting surface is covered don your smock, and pour some green paint onto your pallet. This is a great opportunity to talk about different shades of green if you have them. Then paint those egg cartons as green as can be, especially the insides.

STEP 4. Hot glue 3 egg carton pieces together, then the stem.

STEP 5. Hot glue on some sparkly pipe cleaner or ribbon to the back of your shamrocks and hang. We stuck ours on the kids room door with some washi tape.

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