Rainbow Pots of Gold

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Earlier this month for Dr. Seuss's birthday I made the kids green eggs in a basket for lunch but did them in the shape of a clover to hit two holidays at once. Instead of repeating green clover eggs this morning I decided to play Leprechaun. I bought small terracotta pots for 69¢ at Hobby Lobby for the kids to paint their versions of a rainbow. We talked about the colors of a rainbow and I told them my inspiration painted the colors of a rainbow in order around the pot. However, I encouraged them to create with the colors of a rainbow as they wanted. And then I promised that on St. Patrick's Day I would fill their rainbow pots with GOLD!

All the colors of the rainbow ready. Best dollar I ever spent in the Target dollar section was for ice trays to hold different paint colors

And they're off. Princess Fierce leaned more to a linear approach in her colors. However, Thing Two was showing a love for polka dots just like on his painted jack-o-lantern.

Thing One had the colors of Percy Jackson not a rainbow on his mind but he assured me all colors would be represented along with his love of Greek mythology before he was done.

I bought an extra pot in case there was a problem but instead of setting it aside, the kids clamored for me to join them and paint. I opted for the straight rainbow lines. Boring mom.

The finished pots: mine, princess fierce, thing one and thing two.

The 10yo did not fail to use all the colors. He painted a scene from the Labors of Heracles. Here is the king hiding in a red pot when Heracles again returns from a supposed impossible task, retrieving the Cerberus from Hades.

With pots complete two weeks before St. Patrick's Day the kids were left to wonder exactly what I meant by gold. Many ideas were batted about in the days in between. They eagerly went to bed last night full of pregnant anticipation.

I set to assembling my "gold."

Rolos were an automatic.

Can't go wrong with Hershey's Nuggets either.

My kids were very fortunate their favorite white chocolate Lindor truffles are also wrapped in gold. 

On my way out of Target with gold candy I noticed Hot Wheels were on sale and they had three gold versions. You can't clearly see it in this shot but the station wagon for Thing Two's pot has two black dogs sticking their heads out the back. That boy may love dogs more than chocolate and air.

I grabbed some plastic bugs from the playroom and gave them a coat of metallic gold paint. Butterfly for Princess Fierce and beetles for the boys.

And of course you cannot have a pot of gold without a large chunk of gold, can you? I used rocks from the backyard and applied more metallic gold spray paint.

This morning the kids were delighted with their pots of gold. The rocks, cars and bugs actually trumped the chocolate. Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

It may be noted Thing Two's pot is different. The very day after they were painted his older brother accidentally knocked his pot off the shelf. It was a moment of true sibling love when the older brother hugged Thing Two and earnestly told him he wished it had been his own pot that had shattered. I should've known this would happen when I painted the extra pot. *sigh* After the tears were dried another pot was purchased and this time around he chose to go with the more traditional rainbow arrangement shown above.