It's What's Not In the Bag

I am comprised of four (4) different nationalities and not one of them is Irish. However, this has never stopped me from celebrating St. Patrick's Day in one way or another. As an elementary school aged child, it was very important to me that I wore green on this holiday. For me it was a sense of belonging since everyone else in my classes, including the teacher, would be doing so. During my teenaged years, I became somewhat rebellious and went through this phase of exhibiting some major nonconformity with basically everything, including refusing to wear green on St. Patrick's Day. I suppose that was my way of celebrating - not doing the same as everybody else. Then as an adult, the holiday provided a reason for going out and partying with friends, drinking green beer and basically anything else green, or not. To me, it's similar to Mardi Gras. You don't necessarily go out and buy a gift for anybody, you just party with friends, eat traditional food (a king cake, corned beef & cabbage, etc.), and drink like a fool. I don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day in the traditional way anymore, but I will be giving this week's bag to a couple we know. I don't even think they are Irish. I wonder if they even will be wearing green. 😉

To make my bag, I got one of my good old, tried and true, small brown, paper bags and then went through my drawer of cardstock pieces and other leftover pieces of fun stuff.

In order to stabilize the bag, I cut a 3-1/4" strip of thick, forest green, corrugated cardboard and glued it all around to the bottom. Then I folded 4" of the top of the bag over to the front. This will be the area that I will be gluing on the face and hat.

The first thing I made was the hat. I measured the width of the bag, then added 2" to it for the brim part which came out to 7". On the black cardstock, I penciled in the 7" for the width and 2-3/4" for the length. I made the width of my brim only 1/4" wide, but it could have been wider. I cut it out, filleted the top corners and embellished it with a strip of sparkly gold paper for the band and flat gold paper for the buckle. Hat done, check!

I used a piece of off-white cardstock for the face and orange-brown cardstock for the beard. Once again, I cut out both pieces at 5" wide. I glued the beard to the top of the face and glued the hat on top last.

Now I needed a face, so more pieces of leftover cardstock. I was 'thisclose' to making an evil face, but I figured I would be the only one to think it was funny, so I made a cutsie one. 🤮 Before adding the face to the flap of the bag, I trimmed off the sides on the bottom so that they wouldn't stick out beyond the beard.

To complete the bag, I cut out a shamrock from sparkly green paper and glued it onto the hat. Then out of that same paper, I cut out a bowtie and glued it to the front of the bag.

Above is what the bag looks like from the side (L) and also from the back (R) with the flap open so that you can fill it.

Now I thought it would be fun to add a bag of gold-foiled coins which would be apropos for the occasion, right? There would be no baking. It would be quick and easy. And who doesn't like chocolate coins? However, I was really disappointed to see that there were bunnies on all of the foiled coins which I did not notice when I purchased them.

So, to sum it all up, I didn't use Kelly green for the hat and shirt, and then I put Easter coins in a St. Patrick's Day bag. I guess I never did lose that nonconformance aspect after all. I should have just put a Guinness in the bag and call it a day... 😁

Happy St. Easter and Erin Goes Braless!