Palm Sunday Handprint Craft and Some Easter Resources

Today was Palm Sunday, if you're a Christian who follows the Gregorian calendar.

After Liturgy in the Byzantine Church, we get anointed with holy oil, and then we get palms and pussy willow branches.

Why do we also get pussy willow branches on Palm Sunday?

Well, in the Bible, it's traditionally palm branches that were used as the people celebrated Jesus's entry into Jerusalem. But, in Eastern Europe - and in Southeast Pennsylvania and South Jersey, where most of our parishoners come from - different branches are in season this time of year. We use the pussy willow branches because they're usually the first branches to bloom in the springtime, and because they're what our ancestors used.

I help teach the little kids' Sunday School class at my church, and, of course, our craft today was all about Palm Sunday. I love the ideas over at Catholic Icing, and decided to use Lacey's adorable Palm Sunday hand and footprint craft (found HERE). Lo and behold, I introduced the project and realized that several of the children were uncomfortable with the idea of the sensory experience of cold, wet, sticky, paint on their toes! I'm dealing with mixed ages and abilities and really should have thought of that.

So, I ended up altering the project a bit on the fly...

You need:

Construction paper in GREEN and WHITE

GRAY tempera paint (washable!!!!)

Foam Paintbrush

Crayola Crayons

Glue Sticks

Scissors

(all these supplies were in my Sunday School classroom, or in the shared supply closet)

(This is my example that I brought home.)

First, I ditched the green paint, because it cut down on paint cleanup and because we were running low. Instead, the kids traced their own hands onto green construction paper. Some cut their handprints out on their own, some got help with that step. Everybody was able to use gluesticks to glue their palm-handprints to the bottom of their sheet of paper.

We wrote out "Hosanna!" in PURPLE crayon, because it's our traditional color for Saturdays and Sundays during Great Lent. (And because it was several kids' favorite color!)  Our Byzantine liturgical colors are slightly different, so, where Catholic Icing used RED, because it is the traditional Latin-Rite color for Palm Sunday, we could have used GREEN.

I solved the footprint issue by using a donkey handprint idea from another of Catholic Icing's great projects. I was admittedly winging it, so mine's a bit of a wonky donkey, but you can find out how to make a proper donkey on Lacey's site HERE. It is part of a larger fun-with-handprints printable project she offers that provides a craft for EVERY day of Holy Week, with the end product being a nice little book that kids can make themselves, and then keep. 

More Ideas:

If you're looking for more religious-minded ideas for Pascha/the Easter season, check out the long list of creative projects at

Catholic Icing's Religious Easter Ideas for Kids. 

Don't forget to check out her cute peg dolls while you're there!

Catholic Toolbox has a stack of Easter ideas for little kids HERE.

If you're looking for printables that incorporate our Byzantine greeting of "Christ is Risen!," check out the beautiful, multi-lingual cards shared on this lovely Orthodox blog, "Many Mercies," HERE.

Find a "Christ is Risen" coloring page HERE.

I've found that even the little kids are often fascinated by the ikons that we use in the Byzantine church to remind us of holy people or events. The imagery often ties into the songs we sing, which, in turn, help us remember the Bible stories about the events we're celebrating  Our Orthodox friends have compiled a resource of coloring-page images of various ikons on their Department of Christian Education website. Images including ikons of both the Entry into Jerusalem and the Resurrection can be found in their FEASTS category.

First Finished Project of the Challenge!

I finished a doll skirt today!
Well, full disclosure, I still need to tie off and weave in a few loose ends. But, all the crocheting is done.
This skirt was made both as a gift and to test a pattern I wrote a while back and never published. I am so thrilled that this skirt gets to be the first of my official project queue to be completed, since it was inspired by my wonderful, creative, nieces (and their American Girl dolls). Now, to edit that pattern.

Here's a peek at my original design:

Check back for a picture of today's finished project, as well as a link to my pattern, in my Ravelry and Etsy shops!

Hello!

Hello, my name is Katherine, and I'm a craft addict.

I'm a yarn addict. 

I'm a fabric addict.

I'm (apparently) a recovering sticker addict.

After quite the snowstorm this past Wednesday night, which was so massive I even got to share the experience with my cousins over 1,000 miles away in Louisiana, I found myself with two unexpected days off. Since my husband has been on spring break from grad school this past week, it seemed like we'd have the opportunity to just cook together and relax a bit. Except, not so much, because I decided that Thursday morning would be a fantastic time to begin to organize ALL THE THINGS.

So, I've been cleaning and organizing during my lovely, snow-induced 4-day weekend, and it would appear that, amid the mess in our dining room and my sewing room, I have managed to accrue a ridiculous amount of craft supplies, including 6 file boxes of yarn. 

Yes, that's right.

6

BOXES

FULL

of 

yarn.

Not little boxes - Banker's boxes.

And another full Sterilite bin of yarn. 

And, I think, 7 bins, of fabric.

And a hundred or so odd skeins of embroidery floss. 

And hundreds of sheets of stickers.

How did this happen, you ask? 

Well, I've never met a ball of yarn I didn't like, a cute fabric I didn't want to "hold onto until I can think of a project for this," an object I couldn't repurpose, or a project I could remember to finish. This past year has been kind of eventful, so I dropped the ball on organizing the place.

Also, I'm pretty much the resident "craft lady" to everyone at my church and to all my friends. You know the one - the one EVERYONE thinks of if they have ANY spare art or craft supplies. ANY.

Half a knitted blanket? (I crochet.) Check.

A half-sewn shirt cut from a pattern leftover from the '70s? Check.

A box of wire unraveled from a hundred spiral notebooks?

Unwanted dolls to repair?

Mom's old teacher sticker collection?

Every button Grandma ever collected?

Check, check, check, annnnnd...

 Check.

Okay, the vintage sticker collection belonged to my own mother, and it (and my childhood sticker album) were one of the things I held onto after I lost her a few years ago while I was in college. And the things I'm given are largely very useful (like extra crochet hooks!), though some might sound silly at first mention, but you get the point.

Now, I didn't mean to turn my lovely 4-day weekend home with my husband into an organizing frenzy, I promise. 

We'd been having a bit of a Harry Potter marathon in the evenings, while he did some reading for class, some research, or sent e-mails for the journal he works for at school. I, meanwhile, have been working on crocheting some gifts for family members. I thought I had a few more brand-new balls of kitchen cotton yarn in my stash that I could use up. I definitely found those. And an entire file box FULL of cotton yarn. (Must remember to LABEL boxes on our room-divider shelving unit.)

It was probably when I counted the 40th ball of the same brand of cotton yarn into the now-organized box that I realized it was time for a challenge. 

It's pretty plain that I've been neglecting the abundance of supplies I already have, in favor of running to the store to buy whatever yarn or other supplies I need for my latest project. 

It's time to place a moratorium on shopping for a little while. 

This blog is going to be about just that. 

While I may send my husband to our local Michael's from time to time (specifically, they have a tag punch I've had my eye on, and I have a gift card to use up), and there is some fabric I am already planning on buying for those gifts for family members - and I will mention if a project involves a new purchase - I want this blog to chronicle projects made in a massive attempt to de-stash my house.

I want this project to last a year, but I think it best to commit to smaller periods at a time. 

So begins my first month of my big home de-stash.

Let's see how this goes.