Just in Time for St. Patrick's Day- DIY Shamrock Punch-Board

Happy Friday, friends! With tomorrow being St. Patrick's Day, I wanted to share a fun craft with you. I actually started this over the weekend, but between snow days and life's craziness, I didn't get to finish it up until last night. I might still make a tweaks to it, but overall I'm pretty proud of how it turned out, and super grateful that Matt was around to help with the initial set up, or there would be no punch-board today.

I got the idea after seeing a bunny punch-board that someone had made for Easter. I immediately wondered how we could do something similar for St. Patrick's Day, since that does come first. My mind was off and I was on a mission. If you know me at all, you know that I am not very crafty, but I really wanted to do this.

The Supplies:

Getting the supplies was easy enough. I knew I should get poster board, green paper cups, and tissue paper. Then of course prizes for the cups. I found almost everything I needed at my local Dollar Tree and brought it home ready to begin.

Problems Early On

About five minutes into the project, we ran into our first problem- the poster board was too small. Matt had helped construct a trial shamrock on the table top and we knew we needed 38 cups to make it look like an actual shamrock. 38 cups were not fitting, at all, onto the board I brought home, so he ran to our local craft supply store and grabbed an Elmer's Tri-Fold board, similar to the one D had just used for her invention convention project! After he brought it home, we ran into our second problem..... we had nothing to secure the cups to the board, since my original thought, glue, wouldn't work.

Improvising

It was late and the craft store was now closed. I pulled open every art supply door and drawer in the house. After a few minutes, we decided pipe cleaners would probably be our best bet and so, we got to work. We set the cups up on the new board, and, using the carving fork from our knife block (man, we are FANCY!), poked holes through each cup and it's place on the board.

We cut the pipe cleaners in half, removed the cups from the board, stood it up and got to work. We threaded the pipe cleaners through the cups first and then through the holes on the board. When they got through to the other side, we simply just twisted them.

Success!

The pipe cleaner worked perfectly for this job. Although, when you make your own punch-board, I would recommend brads or something similar. It'll save quite a bit of time. Also, maybe don't start the project late in the evening, in case you do need to run to the store for supplies.

The Set Up

Most of the prizes came from Dollar Tree, but we recently received some Madeleines from Donsuemor, for an upcoming post, and I couldn't resist adding a few in as prizes.

One of my favorite parts of the board are the leprechauns the girls colored in. Since the board was so plain looking, I found some free online printables. I printed 2 copies of the original picture then flipped it and printed 2 more copies.

After the girls went to bed last night, I glued them to the sides and added prizes to each cup. Then, I cut green tissue paper into squares and secured each one over a cup with a rubber band. I'm still debating if I am going to trim the excess tissue paper, since it'll probably take a while and it's not that easy to maneuver around those cups.

If you decide to make this punch board, here are the supplies you will need:

Large tri-fold display board (ours is 36"x48")

About 40 (9 oz) green paper cups
Green tissue paper
Prizes
Something to secure cups to the board (pipe cleaner DOES work, but is tedious)
Rubber bands (to secure tissue paper to cups)
(OPTIONAL) cutely colored leprechauns or other decorations to add to the side of the board if you opt not to remove the sides

Be sure to share a picture with us, if you make your own punch-board. We'd love to see how yours come out!