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Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I just wanted to share a quick craft with you that can bring a little extra green to your holiday.
All you need is three different colors of 12″ by 12″ card stock, string for hanging (I like bakers twine), paper cutter, stapler, and glue gun.
Start by cutting the paper into strips in the measurements below. One piece of card stock in each color will be enough for one shamrock. (You will need one extra strip of the dark green for the stem, though).
So, in total, you will want seven strips of dark green, six strips of light green, and six strips of white.
For each leaf of the shamrock, you will lay out your pieces as shown above. Then pick them up, left to right, and stack the pieces on top of each other (as shown below).
Then put a quick staple (or two) at the very edge of the paper strips, being careful to go through all six layers.
Then turn the paper strips outward, meeting together at the bottom, to form a heart. Add a staple or two at the bottom of the heart, again being careful to go through all six layers.
Repeat three times. (For one of the leaves, you will want to add your string for hanging in between the two dark green strips of paper before stapling.)
Once you have three leaf shapes, lay them out on the table, putting the edges together to form a T. Add a thin ribbon of hot glue where they join. I also like to add a small dot of glue where the leaves of the shamrock touch each other. (See the staples above? That is where you will be attaching the clover stem, so don’t worry about those staples showing or the ugly hot glue.)
For the stem of the clover, just fold a quick triangle (it doesn’t have to be perfect) and then fold back a tab on each side for some hot glue. Hot glue the tabs over the staples on the outermost part of the base where the clover leaves come together.
And there you have it, a paper shamrock!