St. Patrick

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

Religious Shamrock Craft for St. Patrick’s Day

March 16, 2011 By Lacy

Catholic ABC’s Week: 24
Letter of the week: T
Theme: Trinity
Saint of the Week: St. Therese
Craft: Trinity Shamrock Craft

This week we are learning about the letter “T”, and what better time to learn about the Trinity than for St. Patrick’s Day?! I just love when the whole world is celebrating Catholic feast days!

For this craft, all you need is green fun foam, plastic craft string, and stickers. I actually got a whole package of shamrock shaped fun foam from the Dollar Tree- 8 of them for $1, and half of them were already glittery! (Although the stickers won’t stick to the glittery ones). The plastic string is also available at most Dollar Trees, and certainly at craft stores. If you can’t get shamrock shaped foam ready to go, you can cut them out yourself- just do a google search for a shamrock template. You can also print shamrock lacing cards for free from Chalk in My Pocket.

Once you have your shamrock, just punch holes around it with a regular hole puncher.

Give your kids some plastic string and let them lace their shamrock. You could also use yarn if you put some tape on the end or have a plastic needle for them to use. Lacing is good for their hand eye coordination and motor skills. It’s also a lot of fun!

Once their shamrock is laced, have them add symbols of the Trinity. We used a heart to symbolize God the Father, a cross for God the Son, and a Dove for God the Holy Spirit. (The heart symbol was totally inspired by Karen’s Adventures in Mommyland!) I actually got all the stickers from AC Moore- it was a package of stickers for Vacation Bible School. The whole book of them was $1.

These were easy to make and came out pretty cute!

This craft is another good match for my St. Patrick Trinity Song for kids! We also read our Catholic Children’s Treasure Box Book 17, which is about the Trinity. Have you even heard of the Treasure Box Books? I need to type up a whole post about these books to I can rave on and on about how adorable they are!

Grab Bag Ideas for the Letter T: (be sure to check out the Classroom Scriptfor directions on using the grab bag.) Truck, Train, Tiger, Table (from a doll house), Tennis ball, Triangle, Tank, Tap shoe, Tape, Tea bag, Tea cup, Tie, Tissue, Tongue (from Mr. Potato Head), Tools, Toothbrush or Toothpaste, Top, Tractor, Turkey, Turtle, Tu-tu, Twisty tie, T-rex. (Avoid words that start with “Th” for new learners).

For More Resources, check out the Catholic Toolbox lesson plans for the Letter Tt. (Her Tt lesson is on the the Ten Commandments.)

Catholic ABC’s runs here at Catholic Icing every Wednesday with the new letter of the week. You can find the details of the program here.

Filed Under: 03 March, Catholic ABC's, Crafts for Kids, Liturgical Year, My Crafts, St. Patrick, Trinity 1 Comment

Childrens Song for St. Patrick’s Day

March 15, 2011 By Lacy

As some of ya’ll already know, my 5 year old daughter loves to craft! But my 2 year old son… not so much, actually. However, I have found that he seems to respond really well to music! I’ve been trying to work more music into our activities, so we made up a little song for St. Patrick that goes with our Saint Patrick puppets.

So, I tried to figure out a way to sing a children’s song with a paper bag puppet on my hand in a you tube video without looking ridiculous, and basically determined there was no way around looking ridiculous… so I just went with it!

Lyrics to St. Patrick’s Day Song: a song about the trinity for kids.
(Tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)
St. Patrick shows to you and me a shamrock for the trinity.
The Father and His only Son plus the Holy Spirit are 3 in 1…
St. Patrick shows to you and me a shamrock for the trinity.

This really was a fun song to sing with our puppets, and kids eat stuff like this up with a spoon! Happy almost St. Patrick’s day everyone!

Filed Under: 03 March, Liturgical Year, My Videos, Songs, St. Patrick 10 Comments

Saint Patrick Puppet Craft {And a Linky!}

March 11, 2011 By Lacy

Ya’ll know I’ve been obsessed with making paper bag saint puppets, so today I bring you Saint Patrick!

The one above is made with just a lunch sized paper bag, paper, glue, and googly eyes. I drew on the crosses with a marker. Here’s a picture of the pieces before they went together:

His beard is shaped like a heart.

I folded the paper in half and cut it out like this:

I also folded my paper to cut out my shamrock:

Then I assembled him like so with school glue:

Before I glued my pieces together, I let my daughter use the pieces I cut out to trace her own pieces so she could draw and cut them out herself. She just turned 5 last month, and she made this whole puppet by herself! I am so proud!

I love how she glued the staff way up on his hand like he’s balancing it! For her shamrock, she traced our shamrock shaped cookie cutter and cut it out. I tried to get her to use cotton balls for his beard, but Vee from Paper Dali has a St. Patrick coloring sheet where his beard is black, and well…. Vee is a lot smarter than Mommy. Lol!

Here’s mine with a cotton ball beard:

The one above has a pipe cleaner staff, and the doily shamrocks I got at Michael’s. I love them! Wa also used some gold glitter glue to put the crosses on our shamrocks. Remember while you’re doing this to explain to the kids how St. Patrick taught about the trinity using a shamrock.

I decided they were so cute that I wanted to display them on the mantle in our dining room! So I just opened up the paper bags and slipped them onto liquor bottles.

The cute banner came from the Dollar Tree.

I hope you enjoy this Catholic St. Patrick’s Day craft- I know we did! These puppets are just too much fun to make with kids! Now I want to see what you’ve been doing to celebrate the feast of St. Patrick! If you have a post to share about St. Patrick’s Day, please link it below!