Crafts for Kids

Dogwood Flower Craft {To Go With the Legend of the Dogwood!}

April 17, 2012 By Lacy

We’ve been working on some Dogwood flower crafts to go along with The Legend of the Dogwood tree during this Easter season. Check out this dogwood flower cross craft!

These simple dogwood flowers were made out of cardboard egg carton cups by my 5 year old. (Note: I don’t think this craft will work with styrofoam egg cartons) Here’s how we did it:

Cut out an individual egg carton cup.

Next, cut 4 slits down the corners of the cup:

Cut off the corners:

You can stop here, OR…

You can cut little notches in each petal:

Now it’s time to paint! Start by painting them white:

Then, touch the edges with a little pink paint, and paint the little circle inside the egg carton green. Here’s one I painted:

And here are some Lydia painted:

We glued 3 popsicle sticks into a cross, and glued 6 of Lydia’s dogwood flowers into a cross:

I cut up little pieces of green pipe cleaners and glued them in the middle of my dogwood flowers. I felt like this made them more “crown of thorn” like to go along with our Legend of the Dogwood story. I placed mine in a grapevine wreath.

Don’t forget to read about the Legend of the Dogwood!

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Filed Under: Christian, Crafts for Kids, Easter, Easter Season, Legend, My Crafts 2 Comments

Palm Sunday Craft for Kids

March 27, 2012 By Lacy

We made these Palm Sunday crafts with handprint palms, and footprint donkeys. So much fun!

Supplies Needed:

Paint (preferably washable tempera paint for working with kids)
Paper (we cut white poster board into quarters)

I love handprint and footprint crafts! I like to put the paint out on a paper plate to let the kids stamp their hands in.

You can also just paint right onto their hands with a paintbrush if you find that’s easier. First, stamp a gray footprint in the middle of your paper.

A wider footprint makes for a cuter donkey head, so you might want to push the paper onto your foot to stamp some of your arch on there.

Wash off your feet. My mom was washing the kid’s feet, and I told her it was a little bonus “Holy Thursday activity”.

I had the kids fingerpaint the donkey’s features on. I would give older kids brushes and let them do more detailed work.

Paint the donkey’s eyes, nose, hair, and ears. We used red paint to add the word “Hosanna” because red is the liturgical color for Palm Sunday. Then, stamp green handprints all along the bottom for the “Palms”.

Tips for Painting a Cute Donkey:

First of all, I found that the footprint donkeys are cuter as profiles than straight on. This means you can see just one eye.
Donkey’s noses are white at the end, not black.
Donkeys have big ears, more like bunnies than horses.

To paint a cute profile donkey, follow these steps:

When making your gray footprint, be sure to push the paper onto your foot arch so his face will be wide enough.
Get some white paint, and paint a big circle of his nose white.
Paint a football shape white for his eye. Only paint 1 eye.
With your black paint, add one dot for a nostril, and one line for the mouth from the bottom of his nose.
Also with the black, outline your white football shape and paint a black dot for his eye. More advanced painters can add one white dot in the middle of the black part of his eye for a little glean.
With gray paint, add long bunny-type ears.
With black paint add his hair down his head and back around the toes, and a tuft between his ears.
When you’re finished with your donkey, add handprint palms across the bottom and a red Hosanna across the top. You’re finished!

If you’re painting the donkey straight on rather than a profile, he might look more like this:

Even Julian (age 3) and Violet (age 1) had fun with this one.

We’ve been watching The Easter Story from Hanna Barbara, which tells the story of Jesus from Palm Sunday through the Resurrection, so my kids were really excited about getting to paint the donkey and palms! I totally recommend this movie- so cute and hits all the high points of Holy Week. I was even pleased with the portrayal of the Last Supper and the wording was more similar to the new mass translation than the old one. (This movie is currently on sale for less than $4 including Prime shipping on Amazon!!! Thank you to Catholic Deals for finding this great deal!)

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Filed Under: Christian, Crafts for Kids, Holy Week, Lent, Liturgical Year, My Crafts, Palm Sunday 12 Comments

St. Joseph Novena with Free Download!

March 8, 2012 By Lacy

Here’s a novena for St. Joseph that’s fun and interactive to do with kids! The best part is, it’s free to download and print all the pieces you need!

I didn’t grow up praying novenas, and the word “novena” used to scare me- because I didn’t understand the concept, and it felt complicated. Let me let you in on a little secret. It’s not complicated. A novena is simply a prayer that you pray 9 days in a row. There’s really no way to mess that up.

Why do we pray novenas for 9 days? Well, when Jesus ascended into heaven, he asked the apostles to pray. After 9 days of prayer, the Holy Spirit descended upon them (this day is known as Pentecost) and so the novena was born.

In this printable novena to St. Joseph, I used a prayer that is said to be 1900 years old. I paired it with a beautiful painting of St. Joseph by Reni. Just print it out, cut around the outside lines, and fold in the sides. You can set this up in your home on your family altar, mantel, or another table. The prayer you’ll be praying for 9 days is right on the front for you. If you have a special intention, you can add it each day after saying the prayer.

What’s with the lilies? Well, that’s where the counting part comes in. Lilies are a popular symbol of St. Joseph because they stand for purity. He’s often pictured holding lilies. I have a page of printable lily templates included in the download so you get 9 lilies total- one for each day of your St. Joseph novena. After saying your prayer each day, lay one of the lilies in front of St. Joseph. When you have all 9 lilies in front of St. Joseph, your novena is complete!

The lilies say “St. Joseph, pray for us”. I love that!

How to Assemble Your Printable Lily Templates:

Cut them out along the outside lines, and roll them into a lily shape leaving a small hole at the bottom. Attach with glue or tape. Curl the edges of each petal out with your finger or a round pencil.

Take a short piece of yellow pipe cleaner, fold it in half, and curl the edges out slightly. Cut a green pipe cleaner in half, and then fold it in half again.

Hook the yellow and green pieces together, then twist the green stem pieces together all the way down to the end. Put the stem through the top of your paper lily, and pull until the green part sticks out of the bottom, and the yellow part is inside your lily.

Once you’ve assembled all 9 of your lilies, place them in a small vase. (And when I say small, I mean very small. A shot glass will actually work just fine). Keep your vase of lilies near-by so you can place one in front of St. Joseph each day of the novena.

Tada! That’s it! Takes all the guess work out of novenas. If you want to pray a novena to St. Joseph that ends on his feast day, you’ll want to begin your novena on March 11. St. Joseph’s feast day is March 19. This novena could also be used if you’re asking for St. Joseph’s help in selling your house. He’s known for that.

Download Your St. Joseph Novena Printables Here

When you’re finished with your novena, you can use these printables to adorn your St. Joseph’s altar.

We’re in the middle of a novena to St. Joseph for my husband right now. He has a complicated case of the shingles, and we’re praying for an intercession from St. Joseph because that’s Mark’s confirmation saint. I wanted a way to get my kids involved in this (and to keep count of the days and hold myself accountable) and this seemed like a good idea. I’m very intrigued with the idea of interactive novenas for kids. Expect to see more novena ideas for kids in the near future.

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Filed Under: 03 March, Crafts for Kids, Liturgical Year, My Printables, Novena, St. Joseph 17 Comments

How to Make an Easy Shamrock from Pipe Cleaners

March 6, 2012 By Lacy

This is a great tip for making Shamrocks from pipe cleaners!

This picture really says it all:

Just put 3 of your fingers together, and wrap the pipe cleaner around all them, 1 at a time. Pull it off the tops of your fingers, and twist the 2 ends together to hold it.

Trim the stem to your desired length. You’re finished! Even if kids need some help, use their fingers to wrap around and they totally think they made it themselves. Lydia only wanted to make them in pink and purple, which was fine with me.

You can use these however you want. You could probably tweak this technique for making shamrock rosaries, and you could also make a shamrock for your St. Patrick paper bag puppet to hold! Also, you could use these as a prop for singing the St. Patrick’s Day Trinity song!