Holy Week Palm Sunday Centerpiece Craft

I love Palm Sunday!  It begins the holiest week of the year, and starts with us celebrating Jesus' welcome into Jerusalem, where the people cheered, waved palms, and laid their coats at Jesus' feet.   I'm always left thinking how the people in that crowd couldn't have known how difficult and sad the days ahead would be, or that the real rejoicing and celebrating was a week later, when Jesus gave us new life on that first Easter.

Here is an easy way for your kids to make a palm branch centerpiece for Palm Sunday.  Thank you so much to our Religious Ed. Coordinator, Janet, who suggested this! We made this after our family Mass this past weekend, and it appealed to a wide variety of ages, as well as being simple enough for the very little ones.  I just eyeballed the sizes of tissue paper, it does not need to be exact.  This is what you'll need:

• Paper towel tube, cut in half (not pictured)
• Green tissue paper, cut into 12 3X3" squares
• Green tissue paper, cut into 1 6X6" squares
• Glue stick or craft glue

 Run a line of glue or liberally apply the glue stick in a line halfway down the length of the tube.

Scrunch up a 3X3" piece of tissue paper, and stick it to the side of the tube, close to the top.  Repeat this, going halfway down the tube.  You should have room for 3 rows.  Make another column, right next to the already completed one.  This will add some fullness to your branch.

Leave a space (it will be the stem part of the branch) and then add 2 more columns, right next to each other.

To finish the centerpiece, put some glue around the top inside of the tube.  Take the 6X6" piece of tissue paper and stuff it into the tube.  Push it gently against the sides so that it sticks to the glue.  You can always use another piece if you'd like it to be fuller.

Display the centerpiece on your table for Palm Sunday!  (This is the demo I made.)

Happy Palm Sunday!
Carolyn

Easy Craft for St. Joseph's Day

St. Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, has a feast day on March 19th.  Here's a quick and easy carpenter's square that reminds us of Joseph's work and how he took care of his family.  Here's what you will need:

• 6 popsicle sticks
• craft glue
• scissors
• glitter (optional
• marker (optional)    
• ruler (optional)      

 

 Place a line of glue on one side of a popsicle stick.

Place 2 popsicle sticks on top of the first so that each is covering half the width of the stick, and leaving the bottom stick 1/4th of the length uncovered.








This is a view from the back.

Having the sticks right side up (with the two side-by-side sticks on top) add some glue to the uncovered part of the bottom stick.

Place two more sticks on the bottom anchor stick (where the glue is) at a right angle, perpendicular, to the top sticks.  You may have to wiggle it around to get both to stick.







Here's what it should look like.

 Turn the square over.  Take your last popsicle stick and cut off about 1/3rd of the end.  Take the longer part, and add a bead of glue the length of one side.  Attach it in the middle of the two bottom sticks, to hold them in place.

This is the square all assembled from the back.  You could stop here and have a very rustic finish, with just the wooden sticks showing, or you could keep going.

Take a marker (smaller, thin markers and pens will bleed less, but I wanted a metallic marker, so it's really just your preference) and mark off one inch or centimeter increments, on the straight, inner sides of the square, using a ruler as your guide. 

 Here's how it looks.  Again, you could stop here, or...

 Add a line of glue to the outer popsicle sticks, and spread the glue out with your fingers.

 Add some glitter on top of the glue.  This is best done on a piece of paper, so that once it dries, you can shake off the extra glitter, form a funnel with the paper, and return the glitter to its tube.  You could also just use glitter glue.

 Allow to dry well (half an hour to an hour.)

Here it is!  A carpenter's square in honor of St. Joseph!  Take the opportunity to discuss with your children that St. Joseph was a carpenter, and that's how he would have supported Mary and Jesus.  You can hang these up with a tack or nail, or hot glue some ribbon to the back and hang it up that way.  You can also use these to dress up a St. Joseph's day altar.  For more information on that tradition, search for 'St. Joseph's Altar tradition' on your favorite search engine.  There are many great sites that have pictures of  altars, along with the history, recipes and symbols.

Happy St. Joseph's Day!
Carolyn

A St. Patrick's Day Chromatography Shamrock

Need a last minute idea for St. Patrick's Day?  This shamrock might be just the thing!  Legend has it that St. Patrick used the shamrock to teach the Irish people about the Holy Trinity.  Whether or not that's true, the shamrock does illustrate our belief in God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three-in-one, the Holy Trinity.  A huge thank you to my friend, Heidi, who gave me this idea when she suggested chromatography for our kids' science fair!

This craft works well for all kids up through elementary school, because it incorporates science as well as being a craft.  Our Meteorologist loved this and he's nine.  Here's what you need for supplies:

• Coffee Filter
• Washable markers (they bleed better)
• A small cup of water
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Hole Punch
• Ribbon or String
• My printable
• Glue stick

Spread the coffee filter out and color your design onto the center portion.  Using two or three colors will allow the colors to blend and mix, giving pretty designs.  Darker colors work best and will spread well.  My favorite St. Patrick's day colors for shamrocks are green, blue and purple. 

Once you have your filter colored, fold it into a cone, like this:

Next comes the really fun part!  Chromatography is the separation of parts of a mixture.  This is done by putting the mixture (the marker colors) in a solution, in this case a cup of water.  Put the tip of the cone into the water, being careful to put in only the tip.  If you soak the filter, the colors won't have time to separate.  Once the separation slows down, you can put the filter in a little farther.  This will cause the colors to bleed up the length of the cone, like this:

 Make sure you have a tray ready to dry the filters.  Kids love this part and you will have very wet filters before they are done!  I left ours in a cone shape for about an hour, and then opened them up to dry completely.  A blow dryer set on low works very well if you are in a hurry.

This is what ours looked like when opened up:

After they dry, fold the filters in half and cut out the shape of a half shamrock, so that when you open it up, you have a complete shamrock.  Make sure that it has three leaves!  I drew mine lightly with pencil, but you could just cut it.  I traced half the width of the stem, one leaf, and half the width of the other leaf, and cut it out.  This is just like folding paper and cutting out a half heart shape.

I then added my printable poem with a glue stick.  You can print out a sheet with copies of the poem on it here.   Just cut out as many copies as you need and glue it on.  I was liberal with the glue as well, which the Superhero Princess appreciated!

Finally, you can hole punch the top of the filter (just be gentle as they can rip easily) and add a ribbon to hang it up.  You could also mount it on paper, or just put it up on a cork board or the fridge.

Remind your children that we believe in three persons in one God, just as the shamrock is three leaves, but one flower.  Enjoy, and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

God bless you and your family,

Carolyn