Basic Dough Recipe:

• 2 cups of flour
• 1 cup of salt
• 1 cup cold water

Remaining Materials:

• Rolling pin
• Leprechaun cookie cutters
• Paste food coloring - green, red black and white.
• Parafin
• Craft glue
• Fishing line
• Custard cups
• Paper clips and wire cutters
• Waxed paper

Preparing The Dough:

1. Combine flour and salt in a bowl.

2. Add water a little at a time, and stir into four mixture until it is like pie dough.

3. Knead dough until it is thoroughly mixed and has a medium-stiff, smooth consistency.

4. To add color to the dough, take small portions of dough and mix in small drops of coloring paste. Do this until you arrive at the desired shade.

5. You want green dough, red dough, white dough, and black/brown dough.

Modeling The Dough:

1. Spread waxed paper across your work surface. Sprinkle a small amount of flour onto the waxed paper.

2. With a rolling pin, roll the green dough to 1.5cm (1/2 in.) thickness.

3. Use the leprechaun cookie cutter dipped in flour to press out leprechaun shapes.

4. Roll the black/brown dough to 1.5cm (1/2 in.) thickness. Carve out eyes, belt buckles, and hat shapes from the black dough to decorate the leprechaun.

5. Roll the red and white doughs out, as well. Carve smiling mouths, rosy cheeks using the red dough.

6. Roll the white, and or flesh-colored dough out to create a round face, hands, etc., for your leprechaun.
7. Next, combine the leprechaun shape with all of your accent shapes. Dip your fingers into water, press and smooth the shapes together slightly. The ornament is now ready for baking.

   Note:If you cannot find the desired cookie cutter shapes, draw your shapes onto cardboard. Then cut them out. To use the cardboard cookie cutters, trace around them with a knife into the dough.

Baking The Ornaments:

1. Lay the ornaments on a foil covered cookie sheet.

2. Cut a paper clip in half, so that you have U-shaped ends remaining. Insert a U-shape upside down into the top of your leprechaun. A little metal loop will remain for hanging your ornament.
3. Bake your leprechauns for 1-2 hours at 163 degrees C (325 degrees F).
4. When the leprechauns are done baking, remove from the oven and cool them on a wire rack.

Finishing The Leprechauns:

1. Place cold parrafin wax in a heat-safe bowl. Next, place the bowl with wax into a pot of boiling water. The wax should melt inside the bowl.
2. Once the wax is melted, use a slotted spoon or spatula to dip each leprechaun into the wax.

3. Transfer each leprechaun to a wire rack with newspaper placed underneath it.
4. Once the wax has cooled, the ornaments are completely finished!
   
   

• 15cm square (6in. square) construction paper - in several different colors
• Contact paper - clear vinyl adhesive paper
• Heavy clear plastic paper
• Scissors
• Yarn
• Hole punch
• Assorted unwrapped candies

Making Your Clovers:

1. Draw a four-leafed clover pattern onto the 15cm square (6in. square) sheet of construction paper.
2. Cut out the clover shape.

3. Take a 15cm square (6in. square sheet of the Contact paper - clear adhesive paper. Remove the backing and attach it to your cut-out clover.
4. Cut the excess adhesive paper away from your clover. You should be left with a shiny, plastic-coated clover.
5. Take a non-adhesive plastic sheet and trace your clover onto it. Cut out the clover shape.
6. Put the clovers together, so that the two plastic sides are touching.
7. Using your hole-punch, make holes around the edges of the clovers. Try to make sure your holes are evenly spaced all the way around.

Hint: Grip the clovers firmly to make sure that they don't slip around while you are punching your holes.

Sewing Your Clovers:

1. Next, take a length of brightly colored yarn and thread your yarn successively through each hole. This weaves the two clovers together. "Sew" all the way around the clover, leaving a space for the clover to be filled with the candy.
2. Fill the clover with candy and finish sewing the clover closed. Be sure not to over fill your clover with candy.
3. For a finishing touch, use the excess length of yarn hanging from your sewn clover, to tie into a pretty bow!

Note: You can create many different colored clovers in this way. They don't all have to be green. Pass them out as party favors to all of your guests.

• A healthy shamrock plant - or other green leafed plant.
• Hammer or rubber mallet
• Light-colored cotton fabric
• Baking soda
• Smudgeless newsprint - or other protective papers
• Sudsy water
• Scrap fabric

This is a wonderful treatment for placemats and/or napkins.

1. Spread smudge-proof newsprint over your work surface.
2. Lay a single layer of scrap fabric over the newsprint.
3. Next lay your printing fabric over the scrap fabric.
4. Carefully lay the shamrock leaves face-down onto the fabric.
5. Put your ink-free protective paper over the leaves and fabric.
6. Pound the newsprint, where you think the leaves are located.
7. To check the printing you can carefully lift a corner to see how it is progressing. Several firm hits per leave should be adequate to transfer the leaf-pattern onto the fabric. You may even want to experiment with a scrap fabric to judge how much pounding is necessary to transfer the leaf print.
8. To fix the leaf print onto the fabric, dip your finished printing into a solution of baking soda and water (2 tablespoons soda to 3 cups water).
9. Wash, dry and iron your finished fabric.