Saints

How to Make a St. Brigid’s Cross with Kids

January 26, 2012 By Lacy

I have wanted to try making a St. Brigid’s cross for years, but never got around to it until now. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, and we had a lot of fun! St. Brigid’s feast day is on February 1, but St. Patrick’s day is an equally great time to make this fun craft!

I decided to experiment with several materials to see what made the best cross. Here are a few I made out of colored raffia.

While the raffia crosses are adorable, the raffia was harder to work with than the pipe cleaners. Next, I tried making some crosses out of plastic string. It didn’t go well. In fact, it went so un-well that I don’t even have any pictures to share. It was a total craft fail. Therefore, I’m going to recommend using pipe cleaners for this project! (If you’d like to try your hand at making some St. Brigid’s Crosses out of raffia, I’m going to suggest learning first with pipe cleaners and then moving to the raffia.)

I also experimented with different sizes of St. Brigid’s crosses. With both the raffia and the pipe cleaners, I thought the smaller ones were easier to handle, and very cute!

So after our many experiments, I’m going to recommend making these out of pipe cleaners with kids (and quite possibly, half-length pipe cleaners.)

You need 15 pipe cleaners to make 1 full sized St. Brigid’s cross, and about half that many for a smaller one. Whatever size you decide to make, you’ll want all of your pipe cleaners to be the same length when you start. You’ll need one that’s straight, and the rest of them should be bent in half. It’s easiest to do this before you start.

How to Weave St. Brigid’s Cross: a picture tutorial

Start with 1 straight pipe cleaner. Place a folded pipe cleaner over it. Rotate it once to the left, and add another pipe cleaner. Rotate it once to the left, and add another pipe cleaner. Rotate it once to the left, and …. well, I think you’re starting to understand. It’s actually very easy once you get going! Ever time you add a pipe cleaner, you put it over all of the pieces sticking up. Then rotate and repeat.

When the cross has gotten to your desired size, cut some small sections of pipe cleaner, and twist the ends together. We made this one using the colors of the Irish flag!

My 5 year old was able to weave a St. Brigid’s cross (with a little help) and she was very proud! I’m going to recommend this craft for everyone ages 5 and up! (Lydia’s is on the left, and mine is on the right. I think it made it easier than we used the same colors as we went so I could say things like “now we need the yellow one to point up.”)

I think the smaller ones were a little easier to handle because it was easier to keep the pieces of pipe cleaner straight. Once you get the hang of it with pipe cleaners, give the raffia a try! I used about 3 strands of raffia at a time. The directions I found said to soak the raffia in warm water before beginning, but I skipped that step and it seemed to work just fine.

I strongly recommend trying your hand at these! They’re super fun to make, and so cute when they’re finished!

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Filed Under: 02 February, Crafts for Kids, Liturgical Year, My Crafts, Saints, St. Brigid, St. Patrick 8 Comments

Sacred and Immaculate Heart Rosaries- A Fun Catholic Craft!

January 23, 2012 By Lacy

This craft would be great for celebrating the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, or the feast of the Immacualte Heart of Mary. We made these in celebration of St. Valentine’s feast day. You know– National “Heart” Day.

You can either call these One Decade Rosaries, or you can call them Chaplets. Either way, they’re really fun and easy to make!

Supplies Needed:

Scissors

Pipe Cleaners

Beads

Sacred Heart Medal (optional)

Crucifix (optional) I have a pack of these crucifixes from Autom- they’re only 9 cents each! I love to let kids use them for crafts because they’re no good for regular rosaries. They’re not much more sturdy than aluminum foil.

You can get Saint medals really cheap at local Catholic Shops. If they’re out of Sacred Heart medals (because you know– it’s a popular one) then look for a Scapular Medal. He’s usually on the back of there. If you’re really lucky, you’ll find medals that have the Sacred heart of Jesus on the front and the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the back.

If you only have one medal, no problem! Check out this post to see how to make a mold and craft as many as you need! This is a lot of fun for kids of all ages. Lydia used a crucifix that she molded herself for the end of her rosary.

To make this craft, take your pipe cleaner and add 10 of your beads. Twist the pipe cleaner closed, and snip off a section at the end. Put your Sacred Heart medal along with your “Our Father” bead, then twist the extra piece of pipe cleaner on to make a cross shape for the end. This will also hold your last bead on. If I were going to make these with a whole class, I’d probably go with a version kinda like this:

We used red for the Sacred heart, and pink for the Immaculate heart. The orange and yellow beads around the Sacred heart chaplet symbolize fire, and the white beads around the Immaculate heart symbolize the white roses that surround Out Lady’s heart. You can also twist on pieces of orange and yellow pipe cleaner to the top of the heart to add flames.

Sacred Heart Chaplet

Immaculate Heart Chaplet

I really liked the addition of some heart-shaped beads. Lydia (of course) used pretty much exclusively the heart shaped ones.

When it’s finished, it’s pretty easy to shape the pipe cleaner into a heart. Pair with some Valentines, or a Sacred Heart holy card. Now isn’t that a great craft for Catholics on St. Valentine’s Day?

Related Posts:

Sacred and Immaculate Heart “Play-Doh Cookies”- these are so much fun to make, and totally edible!
Tie Dye Sacred and Immaculate Heart Shirts- One of my favorite projects!
Make a Sacred Heart Wreath
Sacred and Immaculate Heart Ideas for Kids
Sacred and Immaculate Hearts- Crafts, Food, Printables, and More!

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Filed Under: 02 February, 07 July, 08 August, Crafts for Kids, Immaculate Heart of Mary, Liturgical Year, Mary, My Crafts, Rosary, Sacred Heart of Jesus, Saints 11 Comments

Choose a Patron Saint for the New Year

December 28, 2011 By Lacy

A few years ago online (I wish I could remember where) I read about a Catholic family’s New Year’s tradition to choose a new patron saint for their family each year. I thought this was a great idea!

Choose a saint that you feel would be a good fit for your family- something relative to you. We chose St. Anthony because my family is hopelessly disorganized, and we constantly loose things. I thought the patron saint of lost objects would be fitting for us.

I like to put a statue of our family’s patron saint by the door in our home. Keeping the statue there reminds me daily of our patron saint of the year.

Here are some ideas for celebrating the yearly patron saint of your family:

Put a statue of that saint in your home.
Give your children holy cards or inexpensive saint medals of the saint.
Do research and learn about your saint over the year.
Celebrate your saint’s feast day.
Make crafts and do activities with your children relating to your saint and his or her patronage. (Search in my navigation bar for ideas under “saints”).
Do a quick google search to see if your saint has a prayer you can say together on New Year’s day, and put up somewhere in your home. Include this prayer in your bedtime prayer routine for the year.

Just so you know, buying Catholic stuff for your home doesn’t have to break the bank. I like to check out Catholic Deals for money saving ideas, but I’ve also found some good deals around town.

Looking for affordable saint statues? I have routinely found saint statues that stand a foot high at Ross for somewhere around $9 each, which is a great deal! And no, they’re not plastic. They’re not usually labeled, so you need to know who you’re looking at. It’s hit or miss, but worth checking out for sure! If they’re damaged at all, ask for a discount- they’ll always give it to you.

If you’re lucky enough to have a local Catholic shop, every Catholic store I’ve ever been in has a set of these drawers with cheap saint medals inside. They’re about 0.50 cents each. These are great for kids, and excellent for crafting!

Some of my favorite things about having a new patron saint of our family each year:

We are exposed to more saints and learn about a new one each year.
Rather than choosing a New Year’s resolution, we can choose a saint with a positive aspect that we can work towards emulating for the year.
We have more saints that we feel “close” to, and are special to us. The number grows each year.
It gives us a new angle to work on ourselves spiritually, taking our new patron saint on as a spiritual inspiration.
It gives us a reason to celebrate a new saint feast day each year, and learn about the traditions that go along with that saint.

Here’s Julian proudly sporting his St. Anthony medal from last year. He loves it!

PS. Just wanted to make sure you all remember that New Year’s Day is indeed a holy day of obligation, so going to mass should be a part of your New Year’s tradition. What other traditions does your family have for celebrating the New Year’s?

Filed Under: 01 January, New Year's, Saints, Tradition 12 Comments

Craft an All Saint’s Day Treat Bucket

October 27, 2011 By Lacy

At my house, I work really hard to make being Catholic fun, and I like to make the fun of All Saints’ Day rival the fun of Halloween!!! Are you with me?! To even the playing field, I think celebrating All Saints’ Day should include candy. Whether you’re going to an All Saints’ Day party where candy will be used as prizes or if you’re going trick-or-treating dressed as your favorite religious hero, you’ll need a way to carry the goodies you collect.

This year, I decided rather than using the pumpkin shaped buckets you see everywhere, we would decorate our very own All Saints’ Day candy buckets! I mean, if you can make it Catholic, why not? You could use any bucket, bag, or container, but we used sand pails because we had them on hand.

I started by writing messages on them with fabric paint. I wrote things like “Happy All Saints’ Day”, “Pray for Us”, and “Our Heavenly Family”. One bucket that has all pictures of Mary says “Queen of the Saints”. I also thought about writing “When the Saints Go Marching In”, but forgot to. I let the messages dry overnight.

Next, you’ll need to get some saint stickers, or print some images from the internet. I printed out these adorable saint images from Happy Saints!

These are some of the Happy Saints I cut out with scalloped scissors

to use as cupcake toppers for Lydia’s CCD class this Sunday.

These pictures are so cute! Happy Saints is a great site dedicated to creating cute pictures of the saints to get kids more excited about their faith! There’s actually a Happy Saints store where you can get these images on things like bags, t-shirts, coffee mugs, and you can even get stickers for crafting. You should keep this store in mind for future presents- the next time I’m a Godmother, my new Godchild will be getting a patron saint onesie as a present for sure!

We cut out the circles, and mod-podged them onto the buckets. If you don’t have any mod-podge, you can just water down a little white glue. (One part white glue, one part water. Do NOT use washable glue.) Paint the Mod Podge on the bucket where you want the picture, and stick it on.

Once you have all of your images where you want them, take the Mod Podge and paint over the entire outside of the bucket. Yes, even Mod Podge right over your words.

For this one, I used Marian stickers that I got at the Dollar Tree. Even though they stuck by themselves, I still Mod Podged over the top to hold them on better and give the bucket a finished look. Plus, the Mod Podge helps keep the fabric paint on there, too.

My favorite part- on some of the buckets I used glow in the dark fabric paint. Check it out!

I found the glow in the dark paint with the rest of the fabric paint, and I’m glad I saw it because I wouldn’t have known to look for it! My kids are really excited about their buckets, and they love the glow in the dark paint.

Here’s some more pictures of the final product: