Artwork for the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross

I remember seeing this artwork somewhere out in the internet world in the past, but I was reminded of it when Kimberly was smearing oil pastels yesterday while doing an art page.

On a sheet of heavy paper we drew and then cut out a cross.

We then got out of oil pastels....one of our favorite art resources right now.

On the edges of the cut out cross, use the oil pastels to color the edges of the cross, alternating colors.  The thicker and darker you color the better.

Gracie working on her cross.

Luke's coloring is complete.

Next, place  the cross on a piece of heavy paper,

Hold the cross in place and smudge the oil pastel onto the heavy paper.



Continue until you have completed the whole outside of the cross.
Remove the paper cross and admire your work.

Our final results...they all turned out beautiful!!

In honor of the Feast of the Exaltation on the Cross

may we present our beautiful cross suncatchers.
Based on the pattern we found on Kaboose crafts.
All the easy directions to this craft can be found at this great site.

Suncatcher Crosses

This is a very simple craft if you do it properly---I will explain.

I made a blue cross yesterday-(which you will see below)- following this procedure. I cut a cross out of paper as a pattern. I placed an open laminating sheet over the cross and then placed torn tissue paper over the cross in the colors I wanted. Above is Mark beginning his cross.

I then ran the laminating sheet and tissue paper through the laminator. I just used the white sheet of paper as a guide to hold up the flimsy tissue paper and laminate. Yesterday it worked fine.

Today it sucked up the laminating sheet and tissue paper and nothing came out. The whole sheet was squished up inside the laminator. OH NO!
I called on my handy dandy 16 year old to try to make my laminator workable again.
He succeeded and here you can see the beautiful cross he removed from the inside of the laminator. I think the tissue is just to thin to put through the laminator--I won't try it this way again.

For Gracie's cross I taped the paper cross onto the table. I placed a piece of clear contact paper-sticky side up over the cross and Grace placed torn tissue paper over the cross.

I then put another clear contact sheet over the first-sealing the cross. I traced the outline of the cross on the contact paper so I knew where to cut.

I cut it out inside the tracings so they wouldn't be seen.

They are just beatiful hanging on our back door--it was a perfect craft for Good Friday.

Check out all the crafts at this weeks Friday's Showcase of Crafts at Ramblings of a Crazy Woman.