Hanging Leprechaun

My 5-year-old grandson wanted us to make our own good luck leprechaun to hang on our front door. And this is the simple one we made together.

Approximate Time: 30 minutes (counting cutting time for felt pieces)

Supplies:

• felt fabric squares (18 cents each, sold at Wal-Mart or craft stores)
• reused black TV dinner tray
• scissors
• Elmer's glue or hot glue
• googly eyes
• buttons
• gold jingle bells
• paint pen
• cardboard cereal box
• printed sky and rainbow from art program (or you can just color or paint the scene onto the box first with markers or crayons)

Instructions:

1. Print out a scene to go by.
2. Freehand cut out the leprechaun's felt pieces in layers, so it is has a 3D effect. Just layer those onto of each other and glue together. You can cut out your pattern pieces from your printed picture and use those as your pattern to cut out your felt pieces. My grandson had fun laying on the pieces as we looked at our printed version to create our Leprechaun. We used Elmers glue because it was safer for him than hot glue, which takes longer to dry, but you can use hot glue for faster results with the adults doing the gluing.
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3. For your sky, you can do as I did and just print one with a rainbow from your art program and just glue it on behind the leprechaun or draw it on the inside cereal box using markers or crayons or even paints.
4. Cut your cereal box in half leaving the sides tapered as you move down the sides near the bottom leaving the bottom edge revealed so he can sit inside the box and let his feet hang.
5. We used a black TV dinner tray for his hat and the lucky pot in which he holds his gold. We used gold jingle bells inside hot glued together, the pot was glued on too and I used a gold paint pen to write "Good Luck" on his pot.
6. Hole punch the top center of the cereal box to hang on a nail.

Ours will go on our front door so when open and closed, you hear the jingle of his lucky gold in his pot to greet everyone who enters a Happy Saint Patty's Day!

By Julie from TN