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. You can find all of my All Saints’ Day resources for kids here.
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.
Also, you should totally check out my All Saints’ Day food labels! This is the perfect All Saints’ Day party printable as it turns everyday kid snacks into symbols of the Saints, making celebrating a breeze for mom!
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 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, and 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.
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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 is a set of All Saints’ Day Treat Buckets that I made in 2021 as part of the Catholic Icing Monthly Membership. The printables for this have been expanded to include 36 different saints, and they are now available on Real Life at Home.
Lacy, do you remember how long you let the Modg-Podged buckets dry? Did you send them right home with the kids or did you keep them over until the next meeting? We’re doing this craft for one of our October “Catholic ABCs” classes (since we did you other “S” is for “Saints” craft last year)! Thanks!
It depends on how thick you paint it on, but if you want to send them home same day I’d do them at the beginning of class. I don’t think it should take more than an hour. So excited that the book has been out long enough that you did the other craft “last year”. 😉
We made these this past Sunday in religious education. They were adorable! Thanks for the great ideas. I am a fairly new Catholic and brand new kindergarten RE teacher so your web site is so helpful! Keep the great ideas coming. 🙂
Dear Lacy:
Thank you so much for sharing your gifts with all of us. I hope to use this Saints’ Day activity with my 3rd grade CCD class this year!
On another note, my husband and I took our family to the 2013 Catholic Camporee sponsored by the Dioceses of Charleston & Savannah. And while at the religious station, I saw one of your books. I started talking to one of the ladies about how I love your Web site and all of your great ideas. She said, “Well, here is her mom.” So, cool! I got to meet your mom and tell her how grateful I am for finding your Web site and thanked her for such a wonderful daughter 🙂
God bless!
Stella
That’s so cool! I was originally going to go with her, but it didn’t work out. Maybe when my kids get a little older. 🙂
Is it really $6 to print each saint? They look adorable.
The Happy Saints guy has it set up differently now than he used to. I just pulled the images from his site, which he said he was fine with.
Great ideas! I love all the fun things you can do with the happy saints! Unfortunately, you can’t seem to pull from the website anymore- everything is marked and it’s spendy to buy them all 🙁