St Patricks Day Origami Shamrock

Written and Created by PaperCraftCentral Susan

St Patricks Day Origami has to mean Shamrocks, right? That's what I thought of anyway and why I decided to make a shamrock for a card I am sending to a friend.

But it won't end there, to be sure, to be sure...

How to Make a St Patricks Day Origami Shamrock

I found a tutorial that showed me how to make my Shamrocks.

So following their tutorial steps, first I cut my Stampin' Up! Fresh Floral Designer Series Paper (or DSP, now retired) into 3' squares. I chose Lemon Lime Twist as my colour as it seemed the most like a shamrock to me at the time, but Tranquil Tide would work well too, both retired colours. These days I might choose Lemon Lime Twist or Granny Apple Green. Search your stash to find the right shamrock colour for your project. Maybe you think of them as a darker colour than I did.

This project is a great one for using up scraps of paper.

I needed two squares of Designer Series Paper per shamrock. So I made a few more.

I also needed to practice making them before I used my good DSP, so I started with copy paper by cutting out 3" (7.5cm) squares.

Next I needed to cut the squares in half to make two rectangles. So I did that, which made them 1.5" x 3" (3.8cm x 7.5cm):

Next I needed to start folding them. I folded each rectangle in half lengthwise, then folded the folded edge in like it shows on the diagram in my tutorial.

I didn't keep a copy of the diagram in the original tutorial, but I can show you how mine looked. My finished folded rectangles looked like this when I was using my scrap paper as a practice go:

Once I got the fold right with the scrap paper, I folded my leaves out of the actual DSP and that's when I started to see if I could make four leaf clovers out of them. I added four folded pieces of DSP to one shamrock. Their centres all touched like this:

I think shamrocks need a stem so I cut out some thin pieces of Old Olive cardstock, scored them twice length-ways and used my Stampin' Seal to glue them together. This way my stems had more dimension than flat cardstock strips do on their own.

You can see how I did that in the next photo as some Stampin' Seal is showing in the bottom stem. That doesn't matter in this case as I plan to flip that stem over and glue it down anyway:

I liked the look of the stems with the Shamrock, then I started wondering if everything was the right size for a card?

So I made a card.

I stamped my greeting in Versamark ink and heat embossed it in gold embossing powder. Then I ran the edges of my Basic White cardstock along the Versamark ink pad and then through some gold embossing powder, heat set it, and voila, I had edged my card stock in gold.

Then I took my Stampin' Seal and laid some down where I wanted the middle of my shamrock to be. I added the stem piece first, then fit the leaves evenly around the middle, adding more Stampin' Seal if I needed to.

I layered my Basic White on some Tranquil Tide card stock, then some Tranquil Tide DSP, then onto a Lemon Lime Twist card base. Of course, Tranquil Tide is retired but you could choose something like Pretty Peacock cardstock instead.

And to be sure! I had my card finished.

Then I started wondering how my St Patrick's Day Origami Shamrock would look on a scrapbook page....

I told you it wouldn't end with me making just a few paper shamrocks, right?

Shamrock Scrapbook Page

With just a little playing around, I could see that the shamrock was going to fit well on a 12" x 12" page.

This shamrock was made out of 3" x 3" square paper, so you could make them smaller or larger to suit your own project. Just be sure to start with a square for each petal, making them all that same size.

Shamrock on a Box

You can see that the St Patricks Day Origami shamrocks will look great on the top of a box too.

When you assemble them, you can cut a small square of cardstock to place your Stampin' Seal on. Then you will be able to place them where you want on a box lid or side. This is a 3 1/2" (9cm) square box with the same shamrock I made gracing the top.

I hope you make lots of St Patricks Day Origami Shamrocks now.

What else would you like to see made for St Patrick's Day? Let me know below. And I would love it if you would show me your own four leaf clover projects!