Leprechaun Treasure Box.

Have you heard of the leprechaun treasure box tradition?

On the eve of St. Patrick's Day children are encouraged to leave out a empty "treasure box" in hopes that a leprechaun will find it.  Should your box be discovered, the leprechaun is required to fill it with treasure.  Then he hides it.

If you are lucky enough to wake up on St. Patrick's Day to discover your box is missing, you have all day to find it.  Leprechauns are known to be pretty sneaky, so this won't be easy.  If you find your box by nightfall on St. Patrick's Day, the treasure is yours.  If not, the leprechaun gets to keep it.

Our boys were very excited to try this, so we started crafting some treasure boxes right away.

You can make a treasure box out of just about anything, but it must be small enough that a leprechaun can carry it.  We found some small inexpensive wooden boxes at our local craft store and started with some green paint and glitter.  We know that leprechauns are attracted to bright and shiny things, so we painted some rainbows and added some sparkles and stickers.  If you're short on time, you could even construct a box out of paper.

We're pretty sure you don't need to make this many boxes, but we couldn't seem to stop with just one.

We are definitely counting on having a leprechaun visit us this St. Patrick's Day.  We decorated our Lair door for the occasion and plan to leave our treasure box right in front of the little door so it can't be missed.

Leprechauns leave all sorts of things for treasure:  chocolate gold coins, money, glitter, colorful stones, small toys, stickers...just about anything that will fit.

Is this a tradition that you are familiar with?  We hope you'll try it!