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!!

Miracle of the sun spinner

This week we read about Our Lady of Fatima.

Today, October 13, is the anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun witnessed by 70,000 people.

Catholic Icing had this neat craft to commemorate the day.

All that you need is a circle of foam board, markers, and string or embroidery floss.
Simple color your "sun" on both sides of the circle.
Attached the string and make your "sun" dance.
All the information to make these is on the Catholic Icing site. (I wouldn't want to claim this is my own---because I would have never thought of anything like this)

Gracie making her "sun" spin....it takes a while to get the hang of it, but eventually, even the little kids were able to spin their suns.

Our Lady of Sorrows

The Seven Sorrows
The Prophecy of Simeon over the Infant Jesus. (Lk 2:34)
The Flight into Egypt of the Holy Family. (Mt 2:13)
The Loss of the Child Jesus for three days. (Lk2:43)
The Meeting of Jesus and Mary along the way of the cross. (Lk 23:26)
The Crucifixion, where Mary stands at the foot of the cross. (Jn 19:25)
The Descent from the cross, where Mary receives the dead body of Jesus in her arms. (Mt 27:57)
The Burial of Jesus. (Jn 19:40)

Today, September 15th is dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows.
It is a day to remember Our Blessed Mother's many sufferings.
Catholic Icing had many ideas to help children think about this day.
We made bookmarks, so that whenever we are reading, we can be reminded to pray for Mary's help us when we deal with our own small sufferings. The idea comes from Our Domestic Church.

The beads are Mary's tears....

Our Lady of Sorrow, Pray for us!!

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.

The Feast of the Triumph of the Cross

"Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me" .... ~~Mark 8:34

Mark, contemplating a relic of the True Cross at Holy Cross Adademy.

For links to coloring pages and activities for the day go here. HT: Lisa

Religious Images-into-Christmas Ornaments

I have had this idea for combining Advent feast day images and Christmas decorations for quite a while and I am very excited at how they turned out. Of course, they are still very child friendly in their preparation-as it should be-when you live with so many children

I made a simple frame out of fun foam. I cut out two of these, and also printed two copies of the pictures I wanted to use. Today we made Juan Diego and the image of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.

I also wanted to make sure to include a review for this new product I discovered at the store yesterday. Elmer's Shimmer and Shine art glaze. It has little confetti mixed into it and brushes on smoothly. We give it 2 thumbs up.

I didn't take pictures of the production of these, but they are pretty straight forward. I made these two so that they have the same picture on each side, but I won't do this again, it is not needed, I will just cover the back with a solid piece of foam. I also haven't added something to hang them with yet. I am going to use pretty ribbon, and using a needle will add this to the top for hanging.

The embellishments are just the glitter glue and stickers. You can't get any easier that that. Of course, there are many things you could add, like lace, small silk flowers and ribbon, but I wanted the kids to be able to do the decorating themselves, so stickers are what we used.

I have the pictures printed out for Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Lucy. We will make these on their feast days. I also plan to do one of a picture of the Nativity, and maybe other Advent figures like John the Baptist and the Angel Gabriel--OK, this might continue to grow and grow.....

The Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary

Today we honor Our Blessed Mother on her Feast of the Rosary. This past weekend Mark and Grace made these beautiful shrines for Mary at their children's group, Friends of Jesus and Mary.
We have been very neglectful in our rosary making recently, but today we made a few to remind Mary how much we love her and to ask her to watch over us.
The little kids are experts at rosary making now, especially since I found these spacers at Lewis & Company. This is my favorite site from which to buy rosary parts. Thanks to Jennifer, who shared this information over at the 4Real site, we made this lovely rose out of beautiful autumn maple leaves. We didn't have any wire to "finish off" the rose, so we used scotch tape--hence, the child's hand holding the rose, hiding the tape.

Last year we made a lapbook for Mary--you can revisit it here.

I hope Our Blessed Mother is happy with our efforts to honor her today.

Feast of the Archangels

Today was celebrated the Feast of the Archangels, Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel. Our activities centered mainly around St. Michael, especially because we have been learning about him in our religion lessons.

We have been learning about St. Michael's defeat of the devils, and how he threw them out of heaven and down into hell. Because of this feat, we made a devil's food cake (which St. Michael will fight later in the post)

I made a printout of the Prayer to St. Michael so that the younger kids can begin to memorize it. Daddy put it up on our "religious education" wall. Everything we post on this wall seems to be learned very quickly. It is the dining room wall, behind the table, where it can always be seen.

This afternoon, I found a printout for these very cute angels. It was a last minute thing that the kids really love. They have been playing archangel puppets ever since. The next time I make them though, I will NOT print and color the side that contains the directions-whoops!

Charlotte, over at Waltzing Matilda, has been providing us with many beautiful coloring pages of saints. She graciously has given her permission to print these pictures and use them for private, family use. You can find this, plus many other saint printables, on the sidebar of Charlotte's blog.We used the St. Michael coloring page to decorate our devil's food cake. Here is the saint getting ready to slay the serpent. (along with help from Kim and Luke's angels)

Everyone took turns stabbing the cake, thus, slaying the devil.
A very important part of of feast day celebrations-YUMMY!

Saint Francis-Pray For Us

We tried to keep St. Francis in our thoughts today on this his feast day.
During lunch I read The Good Man of Assisi.
The kids did pick out an unusual assortment of animals for St. Francis to pose with. Next, we headed outdoors to admire God's beauty.

We found God's beauty up high in the trees,

on the ground,

and in the fields.

We looked for God's tiny creatures,




and instead of squishing this big ugly spider that was in the kitchen, in honor of St. Francis's love of all living things, I caught it and let it go free outdoors.



Finally, we learned that the Christmas tradition of a displaying a Nativity scene was started by St. Francis. When we learned this, Gracie headed into the craft books and found this Nativity to cut out and proudly display.