Got Sharpies?

 That's all you need to make these lovely eggs. :)

And if you have some colored crafting floss and yarn...

You can make these awesome eggs...

Fun- huh? You run the floss through some "stiffy glue" and wrap it around a blown up water balloon (we used a pump- blowing in a water balloon is totally not cool!). Let it dry. We must have used a lot of glue as ours needed to dry overnight. Pop the balloon and you have a floss egg. Pretty cute! 

This post gives credit where due and shows pictures of my crafters making their eggs:

http://tribeof11.blogspot.com/2012/03/homeschool-mothers-journalmarch-12-16.html

And this sweet butterfly...

We made this with directions from this Valentine's craft- 

http://spoonful.com/crafts/sticky-hands-warm-hearts

You can also see the above link for how this worked for us.

Happy Crafting.  

Christ with me, Christ within me...

St. Patrick "Breastplate" Prayer. 

Mark in 2008 with his St. Patrick's Breastplate! 

Christ with me, Christ within me, 

Christ behind me, Christ before me, 

Christ beside me, Christ to win me, 

Christ to comfort and restore me, 

Christ beneath me, Christ above me, 

Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,

Christ in the hearts of all that love me, 

Christ in the mouth of friend and stranger.

See the whole prayer here. 

Slightly different words. 

Credit for this craft to goes to one of the many wonderful homeschooling moms that I know. When I find out which one (or remember), I will give credit where it is due! 

Christmas Card Fun!

Taking a break from my scheduled blogging hiatus to bring you this Christmas card update...  actually, I promised my lovely daughter that I would share some pics to show what I am talking about. So, for you Shauna. ;)

I have always wanted a Christmas card system. I love the cards that we receive and think saving them in an album is a great idea.

My first attempt at Christmas card album, from years ago, is the small red book in the front. One photo or card is featured on each page. I managed to fit two years in this book- I think they discontinued the album.

page from the small red album

Next attempt- years later. I thought I would fit two year's worth of cards in this album, but never got around to the doing a second year.

my second go around with Christmas card albums

 Now, thank you very much Pinterest!!

 Three years bundled in one evening.

And plopped in a basket that I plan on adding to next year!!

And, if I come across Christmas cards from years gone by (that I have saved somewhere!), I have undated covers printed and ready to go. 


Not bad for an evening's work! :)

The printable covers and instructions for these card books are from here @ eighteen25 blog.

Update: Shauna had as much fun making hers as I did- and even had a cute twist on the idea.

Spring Crafts...

I know it is summer!

 These painted suncatchers are from Oriental Trading Co. I confess that they are still hanging in our window 'cause they look so dang cute. I might take them down this week.

 Another one from a kit from the Oriental Trading Company.

And, the Divine Mercy printable from Catholic Icing. To make this more interesting to the boys, I got out the watercolor pencils and the watercolor paints. Paul used the paints but thought that the pencils would have worked better for this project- the detail was difficult with a brush. It seemed to me that the pencils did work well.

Rycycled Paper Bows

These bows are seriously fun!! Craft, Christmas, and religious catalogs make great bows- so does scrap wrapping paper.

I first posted to about them here. There is a link to a step-by-step tutorial as well as our take on the craft.

Two Feast Days

September 14th- The Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross
and
September 15th- The Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary

You can listen to a brief explanation of these feast days by clicking on the feast day name.

We did a craft for each of these days as well as reading about each feast day in our Saint of the Day book. My "go-to" craft source is our Seton Art 1- it is a first grade book (my boys are a bit older than that), but it has a nice simple craft for many of our feast days throughout the year.

While the crafts in this book are simple, they are not childish, so even my older two boys don't balk at helping out. The purpose of these crafts is for us to spend some time together creating while learning about some of the treasures of our faith.

Our two projects:

The boys worked together to make these two crafts.

The cross for the Sept. 14 feast day.

Our Lady of Sorrows mobile- the pictures don't do it justice. Mary is at on top with 7 hearts hanging from a ribbon below- each heart has one of the sorrows printed on it. The bottom oval has the title "The Seven Sorrows of Our Lady".

Even if you missed the Sept. 15th feast day, it is not too late to honor "Our Lady of Sorrows". The month of September is dedicated to this devotion. You can read more about it at About (dot) com and find some more cool craft ideas at Catholic Icing.

THE FEAST OF THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS

Michelle (my daughter) started making these craft bags for me last summer. In each bag is a copy of the instructions from Seton Art 1, the pattern needed for the project and most of the materials needed for three boys to each complete the project. Scissors, glue and crayons and other materials that are not included are highlighted on the instruction sheet and added when we do the project. Today we pulled out our "Sacred Heart" craft.

The Pattern

Materials for one craft.

James gluing his project together.

Paul's completed project- James gave his away to Grandma before I took a picture!

"We show our devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by honoring the symbol of His Heart of Flesh."

*

Great books to have on hand for all feast days and saints celebrations are Father Lovisik's small volumes. We have this one about the Promises of the Sacred Heart.

*

This explanation of the symbol of the Sacred Heart comes from Fr. Lovisik's book:

The flames that come forth from His Heart remind us of the His burning love for us and His desire that we love Him in return. The crown of thorns around His Heart reminds us of sacrifice to make up for sin.

Craft for The Feast of Corpus Christi

I love simple and easy, and I love making use of resources that I have on hand. This project covers all of those. We have the Seton Art 1 for Young Catholics that has crafts for many of our feast days (a few for each month), so we pulled it out today and made good use of it. First the boys colored a tabernacle. It was a basic house shape with a cross on the top and angels at the sides. Even my 12yo colored one.

I often hear from people that their boys "hate" to color. My boys are mostly okay with it. They love to create, so they are usually agreeable to the process. They do like to use fine tip felt markers for outlining- it gives the project more of a finished look.

Sharpie Markers + White Plastic Eggs = Super Cute Craft

My friend brought over sharpie markers and white plastic eggs for the kids to color. It is so simple, yet the kids had a great time coloring them.

These are the eggs that my kids colored- they are adorable, but I wish I had pics of all the eggs colored. Each child had his/her own twist on coloring the eggs- one young lady made hers like a basket with chicks in it, another made the face of Jesus... they were all so creative!!

St. Patick's Day At Our House

We love St. Patrick's Day around here- my grandmother, Mary Agnes Sweeney, was Irish and fiercely proud of it. She loved to tell about her big Irish Catholic family and their antics. I just wish I had been old enough to understand how valuable it would have to been really listen and remember the stories that she shared.

Life has been cr-aaaa-zy around here, so there has been little time to prep for any big celebrations. We did set out our decorations, read a few books, and make a few projects

(St. Patrick Spoon Saints were made last week). James, who was home alone with me

today, made this just for fun mobile to help liven up the decor. :)

In his school box- all the fixins. The weird goopy stuff to the left is glitter glue- James would have preferred to use the sprinkle kind (it is more fun), but all we had on hand was an old bottle of gold glitter glue- it all glopped out of the bottle, so I scooped it up with a shell that was sitting on the shelf- so, note to self- buy new glitter. . .
James hard at work on his mobile. He could have done the cutting- he actually loves to cut, but I don't think he would have finished it in one day if I did not pre cut the pieces. The project, printed from The Knack, is labeled for ages 9-12. After completing the project with James (6yo), I think it is the assembly that bumps the age range up- if a child has mom or an older sibling to help, age 4 and up would work.

The completed project hanging in the kitchen over the table.

A cute project from last year, ordered from the Oriental Trading Company.

Our St. Patrick's Day books.
And, our table. My daughter suggested putting green Easter grass in the vase (super cute, I thought!)- I looked for a week for some, but no one had green Easter grass!! Go figure. Next year...

Our Day with Christmas in Sweden

While making our preparations, I took some time to explain to the kids about St. Lucy (who was from Italy) and about how the people of Sweden celebrate her feast day (see previous post for online sources with this info.).

The nearest thing I could find to an explanation as to why the people of Sweden put so much emphasis on a saint from Italy was one line from an online article that said that the Swedish people believe her intercession saved them from famine. Possibly they asked St. Lucy to pray for them because she is believed to have brought food to persecuted Christians who were in hiding.

So, our day began with information and preparations:

My head chefs created our alternative to St. Lucy bread. (cinnamon rolls) Julia works on the crown for St. Lucy. Paul is busy cutting stars for the Star Boy hat. When the props were complete, we did our own reenactment of St. Lucia Day. Our oldest (and only) girl dressed as St. Lucia while the boys took turns being the Star Boy (and all 5 of them wanted a turn- should have just made more hats!). St. Lucia processed in to wake the rest of the "sleeping" family with a plate of hot rolls (we kept the hot drinks in the kitchen for safety purposes ;))The "sleeping family" got a little wild after the first few reenactments... Beautiful Julia with her crown.

After our procession, we took hot drinks and "St. Lucy Bread" out on the back porch. The kids ate while I read to them and we talked about Sweden and its Christmas customs. The kids all were interested in the fact that straw is an important decoration in Sweden- it reminds them that Jesus was born in a stable. Also, the goat is pretty important with the Swedish people. A straw goat (a large one) stands by the Christmas tree and is suppose to protect the people from bad things.

After a lunch break (we watched our movie on Sweden while we ate), the kids colored their St. Lucia paper dolls and started to work on their paper doll set from Paper Dali (see previous post).

Mark coloring his St. Lucia (free from the Paper Dali blog) .Julia, Christian and Kyle work on decorating a tree with Swedish Christmas ornaments (part of the paper doll set purchased from Paper Dali).

A note to add that I found an additional bit of information confirming the importance of the above mentioned "Christmas Goat". In Jane Yolen's "HARK! A Christmas Sampler" there is a short paragraph stating that in Scandinavian Christmas celebrations goats play a large roll. Naughty children need to be on the look out or they may be butted by the Yule ram. To remind children to be good, Swedish parents put a straw goat among the Christmas candles. In Norway, food is left out for the Julebukk (as he is called there) -- if the dish is empty the next day, it means good luck, and if the dish is filled with grain, it means a good crop. Denmark's Yule ram is more of a hobbyhorse that is covered with goatskin and has a ram's head made of paper or wood.

This post lists all the resources we used.