St. Patrick's Day

March 17th is one of my favorite days of the year, St. Patrick's Day.  I am a granddaughter of William and Bernice Clancy and cousin to the O'Briens.  We LOVE this holiday and all it's festivities from parades, wearing of the green, to eating corn beef and cabbage and for some even drinking  green beer!  In our family several traditions have carried on throughout  the years.

 One of the traditions our family partakes in is parades and food.  That's my mom and niece at a restaurant after a St. Patrick's Day parade, in South Carolina.    Corn beef and cabbage is definitely on the menu for this holiday!

This is my cousin from the O'Brien clan-Suzy Toronto.  She also has a very creative business called Wacky Wonderful Women.  Her business creates stationary products, mugs, coffee mugs and even Irish items.  If you're not familiar with her product line check her out!  She celebrates St. Patrick's Day full out from Christmas till this day.  I feel lucky that after losing touch with her for over twenty years we have reconnected!

This is a claddagh charm.  In Irish tradition mothers give these to their daughters to be passed on to generations.  There are also claddagh rings that are used for engagement and wedding rings.  The meaning behind this signature piece of jewlery is the hands on each sign stand for friendship, the heart in the middle represents love and the crown stands for loyalty.  My mother has four daughters so she gave each of us a charm to place on a necklace since the ring traditionally symbolizes engaged or married. I love mine!  I wear it daily as my Irish signature.

Corn beef and cabbage dinners are our yearly tradition with all the fixings such as potatoes, green beans, and capped with a brew of Irish coffee.  YUM!

My Irish table is set with green candles, leprechauns, gold charger plates and gold glasses.  I sprinkled a little green and gold shamrock confetti for a little sparkle when the candles are lit.

How do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day?  Thanks for stopping by and come by again!!

This winter I spotted a very attractive window display in a cupcake shop.  I asked the cupcake shop owner if she made the window displays and she said no someone else made them.  Hoping to find out how she made them I walked out of the shop and stared and studied how I could improvise my own decor for my classroom.

I just happened to have a stash of cotton balls and a ball of white yarn. I measured the windows in my classroom and estimated I could make eight strands of cotton balls easily.  After measuring my yarn and cutting six lengths I started stringing the cotton balls onto the yarn with the needle.

This is a close-up of the string of "snowballs" on my classroom window.  I know, I know, where's the snow in Michigan?   I put this up just before we had our snow storms in February and now the landscape is blanketed in snow that is just starting to melt!

The kids thought these were the coolest thing!  Once the snow appeared on the landscape it was a perfect backdrop to this window display.  Would do you think?  An easy and quick project that made a big impact.

Thanks for stopping by and come back again!