looking back: easy st. patrick's day garland

This project originally appeared on March 7, 2012 and was edited for today's post. It is a great way to keep your little one busy for awhile while including them in the holiday decorating! If you stuck inside with piles of snow right now, this a great activity!

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The other day I was cleaning the bathroom and trying to decide what to do with my little dove when I was done. Well, he decided for me by walking into the room and climbing into the bathtub. Okay then, another bathtub painting party it is! This time I taped a couple of pieces of parchment paper up on the tiles and gave him the yellow, blue, and green paint.

After he was done I hung them up in the kitchen to dry/admire for a couple of days while I decided what exactly I wanted to do with them. Then an oh-so-rare flash of brilliance happened and I pulled a piece of green vellum and two different green papers out of my scrapbooking supplies. With the lighter shade of green scrapbook paper I let my son color all over it with every shade of green crayons and colored pencils that we had. It was quite the masterpiece. Then, using my Fiskar's circle cutter I cut several 3" and 4" circles out of all the papers and when I was done I was left with this:

More importantly though, I was also left with these:

I laid them out in a random order as far as colors, but kept the pattern as 3 small circles, 1 big circle. Then I punched two holes in each one (not hard, but a little time consuming), strung them up on string I already had and viola! A cute, free, St. Patrick's day garland that my little dove helped me make. :)

I really love the way the parchment paper circles look with the paint, almost like a marbling effect. I think that this would also be a cool project if you're a teacher or work at a day care. I know that teachers tend to spend a lot of their own money on things for their classes, and what a great way to decorate the classroom for little or no money, and the kids would be so proud of their hard work!