Locked Up Leprechaun!

Thought of a cute, VERY EASY, craft to do as a center piece or decoration for St. Patty's Day.  In our house, we do several traditions for St. Patty's Day.  The Leprechaun builds his house in our yard one day.  The next day he leaves gold coins everywhere on the ground, but he tricks you with mischief and you find that the gold coins are really not gold, but chocolate coins!  He also does mischief all over the house all week.  Furniture is upside down, toys are in strange places, things are moved around.  We also have the green eggs and ham on that day...well veggie ham.  :)

So to go along with all the whimsy of St. Patty's Day...I thought what a perfect idea to "Catch the Leprechaun!"  We will lock him up!  Maybe he will disappear from his glass dungeon on St. Patty's day.  :)

Here is what you will need (I found everything at Michaels except the key):

Moss (I bought a bag with a variety of mosses, but you can do whatever.
Glass apocrathy jars or candy jar with a lid
Plastic gold coins
A little leprechaun figue
Shamrocks (I bought some already on metal sticks)
Ribbon of your choice
Vintage Key or skeleton key
Burlap ( I found a small green roll of Burlap).


1. Arrange the moss in the bottom of the jar.  I would not glue it down, in case you want to use the jar again for something else.

          2. Cut the wire sticked shamrocks to make them separate as they come in a bunch.  Or if you found shamrocks without sticks, you can add toothpicks to them or small dowels.  Stick them into the moss.  The moss is really spongey, so mine stood in the moss pretty well.

 3. Place your little leprechaun figurine wherever you see fit.  I put mine in the middle.  Once I put him in, I had to arrange the shamrocks around a bit.








4. Drop the gold coins around the leprechaun. I didn't use all the coins that came in the bag, but you can do what you want.

5. Now for the finishing touches.  Tie a ribbon around the top.   Cut out a shamrock out of the burlap and poke a hole through it to attach the key through the hole with a ribbon, or I used jute.  If you are not to good at drawing, you can go here: http://bestclipartblog.com/27-shamrock-clip-art.html/shamrock-clip-art-2 and print out the shamrock clipart and use it as a template. 

HAPPY ST. PATTY'S DAY!  

MAY DE LUCK OF DE IRISH BE WIT YA!!