My Parties: How to Style a Simply Irish St. Patrick’s Day Bar Cart Party + Free Printable

I don’t know about your kids, but my girls are officially obsessed with the Simply Southern brand. Maybe it is a local thing. If you haven’t seen it, think preppy illustrated t-shirts. The logo is a hair bow, or maybe it’s a bow tie. Anyway, it made me think: why can’t St. Patrick’s Day be preppy?

And of course, a preppy take on St. Patrick’s Day meant I could pull out my amazing and wonderful pink bar cart. I love it so much. Can you tell? (You can see the Teddy Bear Bar Cart that I styled for Valentine’s Day here.)

So, my take on the many, many, many holidays available to celebrate is to keep it simple. Because, budget. And because, you only have so much time in the day.

I did a combo of homemade treats with dressed up store-bought treats.

My only décor was the backdrop I designed on Canva, a preppy Irish bunting I made, and some grocery store flowers. Oh, and the hair bow on the pink straw = instant cake topper. I think the look is cute, while remaining achievable.

Preppy St. Patrick’s Day Party Backdrop

I’ve given you the backdrop as a free printable. Just download it and send it to print at someplace like Office Max. Have them print it poster sized (24″ x 36″) and mount it on foam core board. It costs about $34. All I had to do was to prop the backdrop on the top shelf of the bar cart and lean it against the wall.

St. Patrick’s Day Fabric Bunting

I love buntings so much, I make them for fun and offer them in my shop. But really, if you can cut or even tear fabric into 2” x 22” strips, and then tie them to a ribbon, you can make a bunting. Bonus: the bunting hid the center shelf of my bar cart, which meant one less shelf to bake for and style, so that saved me money and time.

A longer version of this bunting will be in my shop, but I only bought a little fabric, so it’s a limited edition.

Preppy St. Patrick’s Day Flowers

I think there are two main tricks to making grocery store flowers look good:

1. Pick something that looks a little unusual, like the large green spider mums. (I’ve actually used them before – in my Bright & Colorful Thanksgiving Party.)
2. Get the proportions right. You want your vase to be about one-third the total height of your arrangement and the flowers to be about twice as wide as the vase. Also, the rule of three helps: even though I only used two types of flowers, I did green in the center, with pink on either side … dividing my arrangement into thirds. And, since the flowers are two different sizes, they complement each other instead of competing. For more flower arranging tips and inspirational photos, check out this article on Tesselaar Flowers.

St. Patrick’s Day Naked Cake

In all my party years, I’ve never made a naked cake. It was high time! I just used a pink velvet box mix and put Baby B in charge of mixing it up. Canned frosting that was already tinted green made decorating the cake as easy as can be.

The cake topper is literally just a hair bow clipped on a pink straw. Easiest topper ever, and one of my favorite details from this party.

St. Patrick’s Day Desserts

I made Lucky Charms treats using Bloom Designs Online’s recipe. It’s just like Rice Krispies Treats, but you use Lucky Charms. It takes only minutes. (And, Baby B lost a baby tooth in one of these, so the tooth fairy got to visit — bonus!)

Candy is always an easy way to fill out a dessert table. Green and pink M&Ms were seasonal finds. And, you know, yum.

But by far my favorite part of this party was dressing up store-bought cookies. If you have a Publix near you, go buy the “fudge mint cookie squares” now. I’ll wait. Oh good – you’re back. Seriously, these are so good that we didn’t even buy the Girl Scout’s Thin Mints this year. They are so good, that at my physical this week, the doctor paused at my weight and then said, “And you weighed what last year?” Ahem. They are gooood.

So, I love a fancy Etsy cookie as much as the next party girl. (Try Creating Awesomenessity or Guilty Confections.) But sometimes, you lack the time and/or the budget for decorator cookies. So try my versions!

1. Dip your wafer cookie in candy melt and then in chopped Andes Mints.
2. Drizzle your wafer cookie with candy melt.
3. Dot the back of Wilton Jumbo Sprinkles with candy melt and then stick them to your cookies.
4. Dip your wafer cookie in candy melt and then sprinkle with sprinkles!

Instant designer cookies.

Here’s a look at each of the bar cart shelves.

Are you celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with your kids? What are you planning?

Vendor Credits

• Shamrock plates and platter: Home Goods
• White footed candy bowls: Tuesday Morning
• Cake stand: Pier One
• Green sugar cookies: WalMart
• Green frosting: WalMart
• Wilton candy melts: WalMart
• Pink velvet cake mix: Publix and WalMart
• Fudge mint cookie squares: Publix
• Ice Fruit Water in Kiwi: Kroger
• Lucky Charms treats recipe: Bloom Designs Online
• Wilton Jumbo Sprinkles: Jo-Ann’s