St. Patrick's Day Potluck Idea

Hey all! I was going through some old pictures on my phone and saw this one and thought I should share. A couple years ago my work department was having a St. Patrick's Day potluck with awards for the most creative Irish/St. Patty's Day themed food.

I wanted to do something quick and simple but still fun and creative. I did a general Google images search for St. Patrick's Day for some inspiration and came across an Irish flag. I had appetizer style veggie pizza on my mind and decided to do an Irish play on that.

I didn't take pictures of the process because I did this before blogging but it's pretty self-explanatory and the pic of the end result should really be all you need. I used  a roll of crescent rolls and covered a cookie sheet with it, making sure to seal the seams well and baked it according to package directions to make my crust.

I made a spread with well-softened cream cheese and a packet of ranch dressing mix and slathered it over the cooled crust. I then took some mozzarella cheese and put it in a gallon sized Ziploc bag, added a few drops of green food coloring and shook it up to evenly coat the cheese.

Using cheddar, plain mozzarella and my green colored mozzarella, I made the stripes of the Irish flag on the top of my pizza. To add just a little something special, I used a few green pepper rings and little pieces of green peppers (for stems) to make shamrocks for the top of the pizza. Here is the end result:

The final result was adorable and I ended up winning first place in my department competition!

I made this with items I had on hand but this would be great with shredded carrots, cauliflower and broccoli or shredded lettuce. Really, as long as the colors work, you can use anything! I realize this flag is supposed to have the green on the left side but didn't realize that until much later. Anyway, nobody noticed :-)

I love St. Patrick's Day and made some great projects last year. First, there was my glittery Luck O' the Irish plaque. Then, I made a fun wreath with a rainbow and shamrocks. (I still love this wreath but think I'll change it up a bit this year. I really do love the area with the shamrocks and would like to do that to the whole thing.) Finally, it wouldn't be St. Patrick's Day in my house without some Corned Beef and Cabbage!

I don't know just how much I'll be doing as far as decorating and crafts go this year. I just have too much else going on. I'll be sure to keep you updated! What do you like to do for St. Patrick's Day? Is it your favorite holiday like it is mine?

Corned Beef & Cabbage

I've said before that St. Patrick's Day is one of my favorite holidays and I stand by that. Also, corned beef and cabbage is one of my favorite meals :)  Here is how I go about making it.

Start with your corned beef brisket. What makes corned beef brisket special is that it is wet-cured in a brine (typically) spiced with mustard seeds, cloves, allspice, peppercorns and/or other pickling spices.

Put the brisket in a stockpot with included spice packet and enough water just to cover.  Bring to a boil and reduce heat, simmering for 2 1/2 - 3 hours.

When you have about 15 minutes remaining, add a quartered onion, some quartered potatoes and large carrots, sliced.

I didn't have any carrots on hand so I just skipped them. Yes, it did feel like it was lacking something but I think it was mostly color I was missing.

When potatotes and onions have been cooking for about 15 minutes, remove brisket to a warm pan, covered, and to the pot add a cabbage, quartered.

It was so tender I shredded it trying to take it out of the pot!

The potatoes and onions, half cooked in the broth from the brisket.



Allow cabbage to cook for 15-20 minutes and transfer to platter.

And there you have it - a super easy, yummy dinner...best of all? It only takes one pan!  If you're lucky and have leftovers you can make corned beef hash for breakfast the next morning...I'll show you that next :)

Do you like corned beef? 

At The End Of The Rainbow...

I've been promising a St. Patrick's Day wreath and I didn't want to close out the week without delivering. The problem was, I just couldn't decide what to do. I still wanted to do something with a rainbow but I just wasn't sure what. I was thinking that it would be fun to make a wreath into a rainbow somehow but I really didn't want to spend much money. I headed to Joann Fabrics to pick up some yarn because I really loved the texture on my Valentine's wreath. When I got there I realized that I didn't want to spend even $2.50 on each skein when I needed so little each of six different colors. I was walking around aimlessly trying to find inspiration when I saw these little spools of ribbon. The grosgrain was $1.00 per spool and the other was $0.50 each. That sealed the deal.

I grabbed a foam wreath form, two different shades of green felt and six colors of the rainbow (I don't mean to be a snob by leaving out indigo, I just didn't have room for it in my plan!).

Because I had six colors I marked off eight sections on my wreath form - six for the colors and two for the shamrocks.

I wrapped the ribbon the same way I would have my yarn, filling each section with the next color in the sequence ROY G. BiV.

I just used straight pins to secure each color in place.

I printed out a few different sizes of shamrocks to use for a pattern...

...and traced them on to my felt and cut them out.

I used straight pins to attach my shamrocks to the wreath. (I decided to wrap the last two sections with some black yarn I had on hand - just to make it look more finished.)

I used mostly green straight pins but also a few yellow and blue in places where they wouldn't be too noticeable.

For a hanger I pinned some scrap ribbon to the back. I used two pins on each end crossing over each other to make them extra secure.

And the finished product. I wasn't so thrilled with it when I just had the ribbon on but when I got the shamrocks on I started liking it a lot more. I still think I'm going to do it differently next year but for now I really am happy with the finished product!

I love the 3D effect from the shamrocks!

I was able to use a 40% off coupon on the wreath form so the total cost of this wreath (including tax) was $8.10. I've still got plenty of ribbon and felt leftover for some future use and because I didn't use any glue this can be totally taken apart if I want - perfect for some cold winter day (next year maybe?) when I'm feeling crafty but snowed in...and that happens a lot in North Dakota!

So what do you think? Do you like wreaths as much as me?  I'm off for the weekend, we're visiting family out of town. Early next week I plan to show you some fab finds from a recent thrifting excursion. Now I just need another semi-warm day to paint them up!

Luck O' the Irish

I love St. Patrick's Day. I'm part Irish and I really do like to observe the holiday. Usually I accomplish this by wearing green and cooking corned beef and cabbage (yum!) but this year I decided to keep on with the decorating for holidays theme and do at least a little something. After all, green is my favorite color :)

I started by printing my phrase in a couple different fonts and sizes.

I laid out a piece of freezer paper over my phrase...

...and traced it out on the paper side.

I ironed it to my fabric with the plastic side down. ( I used an old pillowcase. It looks like iron burned the fabric but it really didn't. I don't know why it left the imprint.)

Cutting out the letters was the toughest part of this project. I didn't think of using a sort of curly font and how annoying it would be when it was time to cut it out. See, if I had my Cricut hooked up right now I would have just used that but the office is still kind of in shambles.

Using a foam brush I spread some paint out over the letters.

When it was dried  I used a sharp blade to pull up the letters.

I did have to clean up a couple small areas but all in all I'm happy with how it turned out!

I hot glued it to a piece of cardboard cut to the right size.

And embellished it a little bit. I had my heart set on a rainbow where this little guy is but my daughter, Laura, insisted on the leprechaun.

I got these little foam stickers an the dollar section at Joann.

I set it up on my display/buffet in my dining room and added a few green touches...

Some gold coins in a pretty green pedestal bowl.

A big green vase and dollar store hurricanes with some dollar store green glass pebbles...

And I've got a nice little St. Patty's Day vignette!

I'm still working on a St. Patrick's Day wreath. I've got some supplies but I just haven't figured out yet what incarnation I want it to take on.  I also considered doing a garland but I'm kind of tired of garlands for now. I'm sure I'll end up doing one for Easter anyway :)

Do you observe St. Patty's Day? Do you decorate for it?  I would love to hear some traditions other than my own.

I've got another bedroom project I've been working on that I'll be posting within the next couple days. I'm really excited about this one and can't wait to show you!