St Patrick's Day Party / Playdoh Play date
St. Patrick's Day is such a historically rich holiday that holds so many opportunities for community, fun celebrations, activities, and food, as well as, great opportunities for teaching & discipleship*.
It feels like a holiday that always gets skipped, though! I'm changing that in our home this year with a fun St Patty’s Day line up of activities this March.
One of my favorite things we're doing being this adorable, suppppper easy St. Patrick's Day Party / Playdoh Play date!
This was so fun to set up, took less than 4 hours, all in, to set up, and cost less than $100. Win, win, win!
We've started doing monthly micro parties for several reasons but the top ones being:
1. They're super fun!
2. They provide a great opportunity to host more intimate, smaller, gatherings (our bday parties are at 100 people some years!!)
3. They're inexpensive! It's a big difference setting a party for 6 kids vs 40. Who knew?!🤣😝
4. They are great ways to mark moments in time for our kiddos.
5. And last, I want to provide you, Dear Reader, with great content and ideas on how to host people in your home easily.
I think this party would be great for:
anyone wanting to dip their toes in party hosting
anyone with a kiddo with a March Birthday
anyone who's been wanting to get the neighborhood moms & kids or classmates over for a play date (because community!) but haven't known how to make the ask. A party invite is a great way to get people together!
anyone who's been wanting to incorporate St Patrick's Day into your celebrations
Anyone who just likes to party 🎉
For decor, I made this adorable Rainbow Balloon Garland. This one was such great quality! I've done a lot of balloon garlands in my time and this was by far the most organized and well-packaged garland which is great if you're new to the balloon garland space. There are so many great videos on YouTube to get you started if you've never made one. Grab this balloon pump, these balloons, & some fishing line to make this big-impact party backdrop. I love a balloon garland for this reason - they make a big statement with minimal effort. My favorite!
For the table, I lined it with my tried and true butcher paper then laid a green grass table runner I had from a party’s past. If you make the $24 investment and buy this grass runner, I promise you it can be used again! So many kid party themes & decor are enriched with this runner.
Over the runner, I laid this Rainbow felt ball garland, that can easily be used as decor in the kid’s room, and then decorated down the table with a few Target Dollar Spot wood decor items. So simple but made a cute impact.
The main activity for the party was a Play-Doh Sensory time. I made some homemade Play-Doh using this recipe by Jamielyn at iheartNaptime and added green food coloring and silver glitter. This Play-Doh is the best! I was so impressed. It was easy to shape and play with, super soft, and not sticky at all. It also took 5 minutes to make with stuff I already had in my pantry. E👏🏼ffort👏🏼less
I grabbed these paper rainbow placemats off Amazon to create a space for each kid. I always, always create a table setting when using tables for parties. It just somehow elevates the space while tying everything together in a cute, beautiful way. On top, I layered these genius Play-Doh trays and set a decorated mason jar at each placemat so that everyone could take home their Play-Doh and sensory items at the end of the party. For the mason jars, I simply tied one of the leprechaun toys around them with green ribbon. So easy but super cute.
To further decorate the table in a practical yet colorful way, I placed all of the sensory items in big mason jars and used them as focal points down the middle of the table.
For the sensory items I grabbed gold coins, rainbow erasers, rainbow felt balls, popsicle sticks, and little leprechaun toys.
To finish the “look” I tied green ribbon to these wooded clovers & wrote each kid’s name on them. These wooden clovers are so versatile in their uses and I'm excited to have the girls paint some next week.
Check out my reel of the party HERE!
The kids seriously had so much fun with this activity and I will say it was pretty easy for the adults, too! We've all been to those parties where you're chasing kids the whole time and I'll say that for the Play-Doh portion of this party, the parents could relax. It was great!
So, are you ready to throw your own St. Patrick's Day Party / Play-Doh Play date?! You can change it up for the season - make it just a rainbow party by leaving out the leprechauns and instead adding in another fun sensory item like a unicorn or cloud figurines.
To make it a St Patrick's Day theme and copy mine exactly, here's what you'll need with links below.
1.Rainbow Felt Balls - As a side note, unrelated to the party, these felt balls were very high quality, $15, and came in a pack of 50. I think they’d be wonderful to just keep in a basket for more sensory play.
2. Green Satin Ribbon - This ribbon was really beautiful, the perfect width, and high quality. I was super impressed with how much came on the spool (50 yds) for this price ($9).
3. Rainbow Balloon Garland - such great quality & so well organized. Each color was in it’s own bag making it super easy to sort.
5. Turf Grass Table Runner - We have used this over and over. It worked with our Safari Party, Butterfly Party, Garden Party, Farmer’s Market Party. We even used it for an Alice & Wonderland Muder Mystery Party once.
7. Rainbow Erasers - These come in a pack of 50 and were one of the kids favorite things to add to their play doh.
8. Playdoh Trays - such a good find! I love having these on hand for when the girls play with Playdoh in the afternoons. They keep things tidy and in one place.
10. Wooden Clovers - this pack comes with 60 pieces and is great for a variety of projects. Every holiday I end up getting a set like this, for Valentine’s we got these hearts, and I let the girls paint them or color them with markers and then we create ornaments with them, gift tags, napkin “rings”, buntings, etc. The possibilities are endless!
11. St. Patrick’s Day Cookie Cutters - we used these for the playdoh fun but they’d also be great as cookie cutters.
12. Rainbow Placemats - I didn’t include it above but you’re going to want to grab these Rainbow Placemats to make a big impact on your tablescape.
I'd love to hear your feedback and be sure to let me know if you host one! You can always get in touch on Instagram at @thecelebratedaily or email us at connect@thecelebratedaily.com.
*There's a lot of great church history linked to St Patrick's Day & St. Patrick. The Little Way Chapel has some great resources on that, if you're interested.