Easter

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

The Legend of the Dogwood {A Religious Tradition for the Easter Season!}

April 15, 2012 By Lacy

Have you heard the legend of the dogwood tree? It’s a fun, religious story you can tell kids at Easter time. Since we celebrate the entire 50 days of the Easter season here, we like to include the legend of the dogwood flower! Note* I’m not saying this legend is true, I’m just saying it’s a fun Easter story that my kids love!

The Legend of the Dogwood:

In Jesus’ time, the Dogwood tree had grown to a great size, like that of an Oak tree! They used it to build the cross that Jesus was hung on. This made the Dogwood tree sad. Jesus, sensing this sadness, promised the Dogwood tree that it would never again grow large enough to build a cross. It’s branches would be narrow and crooked-not good for building at all. And now the Dogwood tree has many traits to remember this promise.

The Dogwood flower has 4 petals, shaped like a cross:

The middle of the Dogwood flower, a crown of thorns:

At the edge of each petals, a nail dent:

The nail dents are stained with the color of Jesus’ blood:

So that’s it- the Legend of the Dogwood flower! I’m going to be posting some Dogwood flower crafts and activities this week that go with the legend. In the mean time, happy Easter season!

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Filed Under: Easter, Easter Season, Legend 2 Comments

First Friday Linky!

April 9, 2012 By Lacy

As promised, the First Friday linky has been moved from Good Friday to today!

We had a spectacular Easter Sunday, and I am so glad that the Easter season has only just begun!

We used my Resurrection story napkin rings as dinner. So much fun!

We had plenty of egg hunting! When we hide the eggs, the yellow and orange ones are hidden very easily and only for children 4 and under to find. This works really well!

We’re going to be beginning our Easter countdown calendars today (They run from Easter Sunday through Pentecost, but we didn’t have time to start them yesterday.)

We’re also going to continuing our Divine Mercy Novena, and lighting our at-home Pascal Candle each night at dinner.

Here are my favorite things about this 50 day Easter season:

There was no pressure to “get it all in” before Easter day. You can still make Resurrection Rolls, Easter crafts, or fun jelly bean recipes. It’s not “over”…. it just started!
We spent so long “living” Lent and the Stations of the Cross, and now we are going to be working our way through the Stations of the Resurrection. I’m very excited about this!
We get to celebrate Easter longer than we observed Lent, and that’s awesome!!!

How did your family celebrate the Triduum? What did you do for Easter Sunday? How will you keep the Easter season going through Pentecost? Share your posts below!

You must link back to this post in order to share a link. Please do not share a link that has been shared at a previous link-up here. I reserve the right to remove links without warning or explanation. You can read all the linky rules here.

Filed Under: Easter, Link up 8 Comments

Craft a Divine Mercy Novena Counter for Kids

April 5, 2012 By Lacy

Divine Mercy Sunday is the Sunday after Easter, so if you’re looking to pray a novena with your family, you start on Good Friday. Crafting this Divine Mercy Novena counter is a great way to get children involved in the novena process.

The idea to make a novena counter like this was submitted to me by Happy Catholic Home last year. You can see her version here.

To make your own Divine Mercy Novena counter, you’ll need to start with this Divine Mercy Craft I designed. The download is free! He’s made using a toiliet paper tube, and you move him one popsicle stick over each day you say your novena prayers.

To craft your novena counter, cut up an egg carton and line up 9 cups in a row. (steps including knives and hot glue are steps for mom to complete, m’kay?) Fit together and secure with glue. I used hot glue. Take a sharp, pointy knife and poke a hole in the top of each cup. Wedge a popsicle stick into each hole. Turn over and secure the popsicle sticks with more hot glue.

I also wrote numbers 1-9 on the end of the popsicle sticks. When you have them all secured, it should look something like this:

I cut a piece of foam board to mount ours on, and glued it on kinda curved. Again, hot glue.

I placed a piece of paper in front and wrote “Divine Mercy Novena”. I didn’t glue it on because I’m thinking ahead to use this same counter for different novenas, so I wanted to keep it generic. Here’s the finished product!

Here’s the view from the top:

Find directions on how to pray the Divine Mercy Novena here.

And check out this printable Divine Mercy Novena prayer ring from Diary of a Sower with the Divine Mercy chaplet also! It’s free to print! This is the perfect pairing with this novena counter!