Shamrock Pretzel Pops & DIY Pots of Gold - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hi, everyone!

Tell me you’ve gotten sucked in on Pinterest and lost at least 30 minutes of your day. It happens to me all the time. I start with one idea, then I find three others I like, and then they start “suggesting” pins for you! And OF COURSE I like them all!

If you haven’t made the Pinterest plunge just yet, think about it. It’s almost like flipping through the pages of your favorite magazine—only it’s endless. And you can create boards where you keep those ideas forever and ever.

I bring Pinterest up because I was thinking about St. Patrick’s Day and wouldn’t you know I found the cutest ideas…

I took those ideas and ran and made my own versions of Shamrock Pretzel Pops and Pots of Gold!

Shamrock Pretzel Pops

Ingredients:

• 1 bag mini pretzels
• 1 bag M&Ms (pick your favorite kind—but use only the green)
• 2 rolls of Rolo candies
• Cake pop sticks
• Green and white ribbon (optional)

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a cookie sheet with parchment or wax paper.
2. Create pretzel shamrocks on your cookie sheet, using three pretzels per shamrock. Unwrap a Rolo and place it in the middle of each shamrock, where the three pretzel-bottoms meet. Bake for 4–5 minutes, or until the caramel gets soft.
3. Quickly, while the chocolates are still hot, place an M&M on the top of the Rolo and then insert the stick into the Rolo-bottom. Hold the pretzels in place and gently press down on the M&M. Let the cake pops cool for at least 1 hour before serving or standing them up.

We photographed our pops in a bowl filled with green M&Ms and wrapped Rolo candies, which you’re welcome to do. Or, you can also create pots of gold for your pops! And you can do it while the pops are cooling and hardening.

Pots of Gold

You’ll Need:

• Small terra-cotta pots
• Black acrylic spray paint
• Mod Podge
• Paintbrush
• Gold glitter
• Paper
• Pencil
• Scissors

Directions:

1. Spray-paint the terra-cotta pots and let them air dry for 15 minutes.
2. Paint the inside-top-rim of each pot with Mod Podge and then sprinkle glitter on the area. Let it dry for 10 minutes.
3. Paint and glitter the outside-top-rim. Let the pots dry for 20 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, draw a shamrock onto some thin paper. (Or, if you aren’t much of an artist, find a printable shamrock on the computer.) Cut out the shamrock to make a stencil.
5. Press the stencil flat onto the side of the pot, paint Mod Podge over the stencil, and sprinkle the area with glitter.
6. Let the pot dry for 5 minutes and then carefully peel away the stencil.

Now, if you don’t have Mod Podge at home, you can easily use Elmer’s glue, a glue stick, or even one of those glitter pens. And don’t stop with gold glitter—if you want to use green, or do a combination of colors, that works too!

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up next Tuesday. You’ve got plenty of time to make these in time for the holiday. If you're looking for a more grown-up St. Patty's Day Treat, check out my Luck of the Irish Bread Pudding!

Here’s just a fun photo before I close...Trevor loved the butterfly experience at the Philadelphia Flower Show on Friday. I’ll be sharing a new blog about that later this week, but this was definitely a highlight. We all had so much feeding and admiring those beauties!

I’ll see you TOMORROW for You’re Home with Jillat 6pm ET. Mark your calendars!

From my home to yours,
—Jill