Orthodox Christian Crafts for Pascha and other times

 With Holy Week approaching here are ways to help our littles.  Looking for a fun craft to add to your church school lesson or perhaps a Lenten retreat or just someway to reinforce the lessons of the season at home? You are not going to believe this post! I gathered my favorite Orthodox crafts, all one place, to make it easier to pick.

  Whoo hoo, let the fun begin!!

If you like what you see and wish to pin it, please be courteous and take from the source post, give credit to these incredible people who inspire us. Photo heavy post after the jump.

Sunday School Teacher Gifts-Free Printable

It's that time again.

The time of year to express our gratitude to all those who work so tirelessly for the benefit of others.

Last year, these are the little tokens offered to our Church School to express the sentiment.

Here's how I made them.

Joyous Feast-Pascha Moments and Updates

A beautiful joyous feast to all.  

From Holy Saturday at Midnight until this upcoming Sunday, is one day! 

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen!

Check out these cool Pascha Chocolates!

Actually found these while we were heading to the awesome Metropolis of Boston Retreat Center for the National Presbytera Retreat. It was a fantastic time and the facilities are so beautiful and staff are very engaging and attentive.
Next retreat is in October in Texas, mark your calendars!!!
Can't wait to see all my Sister-Presbyteres, it truly is a sisterhood.

We stopped at this grocery in Concord that turned out to be divine. 

I found these, they made me giggle. I've been wanting to share them for a long time.

Here are some of our beautiful flowers from our Kouvouklion.

They are still aromatic.

I made this wreath on Holy Friday, after helping with the flowers for the Kouvouklion.

This year we weren't able to get bay leaves and these gorgeous lemon branches came instead.

These were left over and so before heading to the Apokothelisis service (the Un-Nailing), 

I was able to tie this together. Not as structured, sort of whimsical?

Too big? What do you think?

The World Weeps

Icon from The Life of Christ in Icons Board Book by Marina Paliak 2011

Here are one of the adorable crafts from our Lenten Retreat.

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20 Orthodox Crafts for Lent and Other Times

With Holy Week approaching here are ways to help our littles.  Looking for a fun craft to add to your church school lesson or perhaps a Lenten retreat or just someway to reinforce the lessons of the season at home? You are not going to believe this post! I gathered my favorite Orthodox crafts, all one place, to make it easier to pick.

  Whoo hoo, let the fun begin!!

If you like what you see and wish to pin it, please be courteous and take from the source post, give credit to these incredible people who inspire us. Photo heavy post after the jump.

Raise your Cross

Cross projects are always fun and can be easy or complex.  

This one is very satisfying and easy for little hands.  

I wish I could show you the ear to ear grins.  Once completed these look beautiful in the windows.  Make them with your children at home or at church school. Ours stayed up in the window for the longest time, I think until we moved?

Supplies needed are construction paper, scissors or exacto knife, tissue paper and clear contact paper.
Pair this with a lesson about the Cross and singing the hymn together.  

Here and Now

Hello there...I'm back.

Well- truly I never left, I've been writing posts several times a day (in my head) and they are really good ones. You the kind that make you giggle as you read them. I'm giggling at least.  The challenge is finding time to put down. The break was necessary and good.

Thank you for checking in, here is a little preview of what has been happening and what is ahead.

What have I done with my window boxes for the season?

It looks gorge and cost less than $5.

We had our annual St Nick Party, loads of fun!

21 Favorite Ideas to Decorate Easter Eggs

40 Days-40 Lenten Recipes (and more)

So with Easter/Pascha approaching, a girl's thoughts turn to... the eggs of course.
It can't be recipes and food all the time.

I started thinking about all the gorgeous egg tutorials I've seen on Pinterest.

So I thought I'd share some of my favorites and some history I learned, along the way.

Enjoy and then let's get cracking!

Sorry couldn't resist.

Lenten Spring Mantle Decor

40 Days-40 Days of Lenten Recipes (and Crafts)

Need to share and send a shout out to two of my favorite blogs!

First let me thank Christina for the sweet Lamb chatterboxes. I made a few of them and put them in a basket in our church narthex for the kids to take home as a family activity. They were snatched up pretty quickly and enjoyed!  If you haven't seen these, so adorable and a great way to open some sweet discussions with the little people.

Now I wish to thank Kristi from I Should Be Mopping the Floor for posting a free Printable.

 It is so pretty and exactly what I wanted for our Lenten Mantle. 

You can see it below. 

Instead of framing it, although it would look very nice this way, I decided to do something else.

I took the 8x10 and had it blown up to 12x16, it didn't cost much as I had a coupon etc... 

Anyway, once I brought it home, used the old modpodge then a little white paint to blend in the edges. The white paper it was on was significantly bluer than my canvas. Go figure?

When I initially put it up it looked lovely but I felt it was still missing something. I played around with the vases and other things on the mantle. Then, I figured out what was missing for me. So, I added the yellow flowers to match the wall color and bring in the daffodils. I tried to match Kristi's pretty flower design. What do you think?

Too much? or Good Match?

Kristi, I just LOVE it!

Thanks!

Here's the full mantle view.

I can't wait for the Forsythia to be in bloom, maybe should get daisies next?

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I Should Be Mopping the Floor

New spin-Old game

40 Days-40 Days of Lenten Recipes (and Games!)

There are times when you have some waiting to do with the little people in your life and sometimes that waiting is hard to do.  Whether you are trying to cut down on screen time or just have something more interactive to do together, sometimes it's the old games that are the best!

I remember playing hangman with family and friends for hours growing up. It is a great game, involves executive functioning and language and some fun visual spatial skills. As a little game, it has it all.

The problem is hanging the man.  The origins of the game seem to point to Victorian times? All the same, not a visual wishing to perpetuate.  A friend of mine came up with this alternative at church camp this summer and I LOVE IT!

The alternative is ...ta, ta, taaaan!

Build a church.  

Here are some of the fun we had, sorry for the poor pictures, you get the idea.

Do you have any old games you have modified? 

Would love to hear about them, as always looking for something fun!

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Chic on a Shoestring Decorating

I Should be Mopping the Floor

Coastal Charm

Savvy Southern Style
I Gotta Create
BoogieboardCottage

Icon Letter Craft

40 Days-40 Days of Lenten Recipes (and Crafts!)

Now for something a bit different, being that it is the Sunday of Orthodoxy. I had hoped in this 40 days series to not only have recipes, but also craft ideas. This is a special craft to us and one of our favorites.  

An Icon Letter!

This idea came to me while looking at all the wonderful family photo letters people have made on Pinterest. It popped into my head and I ran with it. We have made these for baptisms for some special little ones. But as I think about it, it would make a great craft for church school and retreats. It can be a wonderful way to learn about icons and each child's Saint. 

The process requires downloading pictures of your icons and printing them out. We used regular printer paper and it worked just fine. I made duplicates on my processing page and made them different sizes.  Then print them out, cut them out and go to town with the mod podge.  We do both sides and once it's all dry, glue a small hanger bracket to the back. It is a fun activity, where we spend some time together and have some nice talks about the Saints and Icons too! 

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Fun Church Kids Game

Recently, I was asked to help keep our church kids group engaged for a short period of time.  

I thought about how to engage them that would be fun but informative.  

Also, wanted to help them expend some energy, as if you have ever been to Orthodox liturgy, 

the children have had to be patient for a long time.  

This time period was right after church school and so I thought of this game.  

It is reminiscent of the beach ball or balloons that used to be passed at our high school football games.

Yes, I went to a very fun high school. 

Do they still do this?

Anyway, I got a punch ball balloon from the dollar store and decided to write different  questions 

from easy to more challenging due to the age range of the children.

Some of the questions were just for fun, like "What's Father's name?"
This was my favorite question. Hee hee hee.

I tossed it to the first child and when they caught it,

they read the question in front of them and answered it.

If they were too young to read, I read it for them.

After they answered, 

they would throw it back into the air, 

then tap it towards someone else.

The kids had a blast.

I definitely will use this one again.

It was fun.

What do you all think?

What kind of games do you play?

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Jennifer Rizzo

igottacreate

Accepting God's Will

Today is March 25th.

Today, we celebrate our Sweet Theotokos in a special way.

Today we celebrate that she said, "YES"

‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ 

Luke 1:24-38

This takes on special emphasis, 

as it is an important example of how to live our lives.

Accept God's Will.

This month our church school has been collecting to support missions.

There are so many ways to be involved in supporting missions, whether it is becoming an Ambassador of the Faith yourself,  or supporting the works of clergy and communities which are growing.

Our children are determined on filling their boxes.

Anyone loitering at coffee hour,

Beware.

Today,

discover the

Orthodox Christian Mission Center

 'For nothing will be impossible with God.’

Luke 1:24-38 

Next week a surprise is being shared.

Check back 

and

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Make your own water bottle labels.

Well if you are wondering how I've been doing on my projects and where I've been, 

I'm here, 

nose to the craft mat.  

We have had some great fun and celebration, esp in planning one our infamous birthday parties.  We have picked the theme this year to be....drumroll please......ANGRY BIRDS.

So after some great ideas from other parties with similar themes, we decided what to do, which included food, decorations, goody bags and of course a Giant Slingshot with Lifesize Game outside.

I'll show you how we did it all.
Let's start with the water bottle labels!

First, using my document maker I made two sizes of rectangles measuring 8.4in x1.32in for the standard tall bottle and 7.88in x 1.79in for the shorter kid-size water bottles.

I designed my labels and added some clipart.
I then printed 4 labels to each piece of paper and then cut them out.



Once cut, I stretched my clear packing tape across the paper label on my cutting mat (it's easier to remove from the mat versus the table, trust me)



Then it's time to attach to the bottle.
Carefully find the ridges and encircle the bottle and press down.



Ta-da!

You can make these for any occasion, or holiday.  

Recently made some for our church youth group get-together.

Some effort, not costly, big impact.

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If you can please visit this post, thanks.