Guest Post by Lidia Mele
At our house, celebrations typically take place around the dinner table. Whether we celebrate a person, a holiday like St. Patrick’s Day or special occasion, in addition to delicious food, our table gets set for the occasion with fun and extra special touches. The special touches usually involve the children by incorporating festive arts and crafts or DIY projects. The dining table is where our bonding time, family meetings take place and where a lot of our family memories are made.
This weekend, we set the table to celebrate our Irish heritage (not mine) but my husband who is ½ Irish and our two children who are ¼ Irish. The saying “Everyone is a little bit Irish”, applies to our family. Our Saint Patrick’s Day table is decorated with a lucky green theme and fun accents.
Accents:
There is nothing luckier than a four leaf clover. On a white paper tablecloth, the kids traced a four leaf clover from a small ceramic dish. Then they filled it by brushing on green paint. It was a great and fun way to involve them! My daughter came with me to pick up the paint, unfortunately, the green was sold out. Lucky for me, she reminded me that blue and yellow make green!
Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow:
My son hand drew a pot and the gold coins and gold caramel candy was strategically placed to look as if bursting out of the pot. The children created a rainbow of candy by using the beautiful colors of skittles. My daughter and her friend carefully and strategically assembled and color coded the candy. Of course, eating a few in the process was a must 🙂 .
Flower/Plant accents:
I used a small leaf clover plant at each place setting. My daughter was fascinated by these being “real shamrocks”. Fresh flowers are important in our home. You can almost always find a vase filled with fresh flowers on our table. For St. Patrick’s day I bought beautiful white carnations and filled it in with the fascinating Green Trick plant, it is not quite a flower but pretty and interesting nonetheless!
Leprechauns comments (aka the kid’s comments):
“We worked very hard on the table and we had so much fun doing this”
“I liked making the rainbow out of skittles”
Supplies:
Paper table cloth: Party City (thinking back a canvas tablecloth would have been great to be able to use it year after year)
Paint: Target
Napkins: Party City
Ceramic shamrock dish: Dollar Store (bought several years ago)
Green Plates set of 4: Target
Shamrock plant & flowers (white carnations & Green Trick): Shoprite
Green Beverage: Gatorate
Green Straws: World Market
Guest Post written by Lidia Mele, a mother of two, living in New Jersey. Lidia was born in Guatemala but has lived in New Jersey for 29 years. Lidia loves crafts and DIY projects. She loves to capture her projects, inspirations and ideas with pictures. Lidia married the love of her life, a tall and handsome witty 1/2 Italian, 1/2 Irish fella. She’s a blogger waiting to come out of her cocoon.
