Easy Party Food Ideas for All Saints' Day- Downloadable Labels Included!

In an effort to make some easy snacks for our All Saints' Day party, I've been brainstorming ways to make every day food into cute Saint food. I did this a few years ago by attaching holy cards to bowls of food, such as a St. Francis holy card (Patron saint of animals) on a bowl of animal crackers.

This year I decided to take that a step further by making these free printable saint labels! Here are the ones I made:

"St. Isidore's Pumpkin Patch"- St. Isidore the Farmer is the 

perfect saint to use for bringing in pumpkins! I used pumpkin shaped 

candy corns, but any pumpkin treat could go with this label.

"Saintly Halos"- I paired this tag with Funyuns, but a healthier

alternative would be to serve some pretty pineapple rings.

"St. Francis' Friends"- aka, animal crackers. This would also be
cute served with Puppy Chow which is Y-U-M-M-Y!

"St. Nicholas Treats"- I kept this one generic on purpose.

That way you can either serve candy canes, or chocolate coins.

"St. Bernadette's Firewood"- Use with pretzel sticks or pretzel rods.
St. Bernadette was out collecting firewood the first time Our Lady
of Lourdes appeared to her. It would be cute to put them in a basket.

"Tonsure Treats"- This haircut is most well known on the
Franciscans. Think St. Francis of Assisi and St. Anthony. Pair this
label with mini chocolate doughnuts, or a chocolate bunt cake.

"St. James' Fish- Fresh from the Sea of Galilee!"
The Typo is now fixed on the downloadable version. Yay!
Pair this label with these easy fish in net snacks, or simply

use this label with Goldfish Crackers or Swedish Gummy Fish.

"Saintly Stigmata Sandwiches"- Make strawberry jelly
sandwiches. Cut them out with a hand-shaped cookie cutter,
and make a hole in the top so the jelly shows through.

"St. Cecilia's Musical Keys"- Just lay out cookies like piano keys. I
used small wafer cookies and squares of chocolate Hershey bars. If
you use larger wafer cookies, I would suggest mini Kit-Kat bars for
the black keys. By the way, this is the second use 
I've found for this plate my husband said I would never use. ;-)

"St. Ambrose's Honey-Tongued Treats"- I paired this with 

Bit-O-Honey candies, but you could also use honey buns,

honey comb cereal, or anything honey or bee related.

"Dr. Gianna's Saintly Soda"- These are for Dr. Pepper!

Ya'll knew Saint Gianna was a Doctor, right? You can print a
label for a 2 liter bottle, or individual labels for the small 7.5 ounce
cans by visiting my post about Saintly Soda.

I wasn't able to take pictures of everything, but here are a few
more ideas that come with free printable labels:

"Saint Juan Diego's Salsa Guadalupe!"- I was torn between this 

or Guadalupe Guacamole... but I don't like guacamole. 

"Mother Teresa Chips"- This label is supposed to go with blue
corn chips. Couldn't decide if these were too much of a stretch or not,
but the label is there if you want it.

"St. Gabriel's Trumpets"- a label for bugles.

Might I suggest chocolate peanut butter bugles? Yum!

"St. Therese's Little Flowers"- Use flower shaped butter cookies.
I really was going to take a picture of this, but my grocery store
was all out. How weird is that?

Now you're ready to download the labels and bring some cute food to an All Saints' Day Party! If you're throwing an All Saints' Day party, you can ask those who come to sign up to bring the foods in this post, then have the labels ready when they get to your house.

Print the labels onto card-stock, cut them out, and fold in half on the line. They can stand on your platters or tables like place cards.

Saintly Food Download 1

Saintly Food Download 2

Saintly Food Download 3

Saintly Food Download 4

You can't imagine the amount of ideas I've had running through my head for this post, and as I grocery shopped today. The rest of my ideas will have to wait until next year! 

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How to Make a San Juan Diego Costume

When it was time to pick saints for All Saints' Day costumes, there was no doubt who my 3 year old wanted to be- Saint Juan Diego!

He absolutely adores the movie Juan Diego, Messenger of Guadalupe. I don't love all of the CCC movies, but this is one of my favorites! It's so sweet, I like the animator they used for this movie, and it actually made me cry the first time I watched it. You can buy the movie here, or you can rent it from Pius media.

The real challenge to being San Juan Diego for All Saints' Day is creating a tilma with an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on it. You can make a simple tilma from paper bags, or you can get more complicated with it. I was thinking about printing an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on iron transfer paper, and ironing it onto a make-shift tilma. Ultimately, I decided to paint it on myself!

Here's what you need to paint your own tilma:

• Black Fabric Paint
• Images of Our Lady of Guadalupe (I printed mine from Paper Dali- Vee has some great Our Lady of Guadalupe coloring pages)
• Stiff fabric of some kind (I bought tan upholstery fabric on clearance at Joanne's Fabrics)
• Assorted colors of acrylic craft paints. I used Apple Barrel Paints. (See a great explanation of the colors and symbols of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Paper Dali)
• Scissors

I started by folding the fabric in half, and cutting a head hole in the top. Trim your timla to be the size you need for your particular child.

Next, I printed the Our Lady of Guadalupe coloring page the right size I needed for my tilma.

To transfer the image, darken the back of the print-out with the side of a pencil.

Tape the picture onto the fabric in place, and trace (with plenty of pressure) over all the lines.

This will impress a faint pencil drawing on the fabric. I had trouble getting a good picture of this.

Trace over your pencil impression to darken it.

Now you're ready for the fun part! Go around all of your pencil lines with black fabric paint.

Let your outline dry overnight.

Once your outline is dry, paint the sections in with acrylic craft paint. I used the cheap Apple Barrel paints.

I had fun painting this in! I did a little bit of shading, but you wouldn't have to. Don't let this project scare you- if you can paint inside of lines you can do this! The last thing I painted on was the stars on Mary's veil.

I took a strip of leftover fabric one one of the tilma shoulders to make it look more like the tilma from the movie.

Have your child wear some neutral colored pants and a shirt. Put the tilma over their head. Paint on a little mustache and goatee with some face paint, and add a sombrero-type-cowboy-hat. 

Julian is so proud of his costume! He keeps telling everyone that he's going to be "San Diego" for All Saints' Day... he's just forgetting the little "Juan" part in the middle. ;-)

Related Posts:

All Saints' Day Costume Ideas for Boys

All Saints' Day Costume Ideas for Girls

How to Make a Nun Costume

Juan Diego Craft and Fun Food Ideas

How to Make a Mother Teresa Costume

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Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe Crafts and Feast Day Ideas

The feast of San Juan Diego is December 9, and the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is December 12. Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to San Juan Diego many times. She gave him roses as a miracle when there were none in bloom and he carried them in his tilma. When he opened his tilma, Our Lady of Guadalupe's image was left behind! Such a great story for kids! Now here are some ways you can celebrate these upcoming feast days with your kids.

How cute are these Sombrero Cookies from Family Fun?

Paper Dali has a Printable Our Lady of Guadalupe, 

and a Juan Diego Paper Doll - tilma included! ;-)

Click here to print yours!

Famila Catolica made liturgical folders with the printables

from Paper Dali and has printables of her own in Spanish!

(What a great time to throw in some Spanish!)

Find this great Juan Diego coloring page for free

from Relevant Radio.

Our Little Catholic Corner made this craft for the

Assumption, but she says it would make a great

Craft for Our Lady of Guadalupe and I think she's right!

Request paper bags the next time you shop in preparation

for paper bag tilmas! Find directions from Domestic Church.

The picture is from Bountiful Blessings. They also made cookies!

I LOVE this Juan Diego movie from CCC.
We will be watching it on his feast day!

Don't miss my post on Our Lady of Guadalupe from last year. Also, Homeschool Goodies is having an Our Lady of Guadalupe Link Up starting on St. Nicholas Day. I'll be linking! Happy celebrating everyone!

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Catholic Vacation Bible School- Growing With the Saints

I wanted to feature some Catholic Vacation bible school programs. I know that many protestant VBS programs offer Catholic counterparts, but I'm going to focus on VBS packages actually created by Catholics.  The first one I'm looking at is "Growing with the Saints". I've never seen or participated this program myself, but here's what one of my readers had to say:

"I am the DRE for our parish and have used these programs for 4 years now. Totally Catholic, featured saints, authentic doctrine...I highly recommend them."- Sara (she also says they have now partnered with "Christ Kid's Music" and improved the quality of their music).

Ok, now I'm going to point you in the direction of some extra free resources to help you out with crafts, snacks, and more to match their themes! :-)

Available "Growing with the Saints" VBS Packages:

St. Patrick and the Holy Trinity- "The children will set sail with Saint Patrick, the first Bishop missionary, and travel with him on his quest to spread Christianity to the dangerous and ungodly country of Ireland. They will experience first hand the all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful Holy Trinity who guides and protects Patrick at every turn."

Check out all of my St. Patrick posts here!

You'll find trinity shamrock crafts, St. Patrick spoon dolls,

and St. Patrick games! You'll also find St. Patrick coloring

sheets, and other printables like a St. Patrick paper doll.

Also, find of shamrock snacks and treats! Lots to see :-)

Find this Sign of the Cross coloring page over

at the Catholic Toolbox. (Just scroll down)

Assorted Saints and the Virtues of Faith- "Discover the mystery and the timeless virtues of faith, hope,  love with St. Nicholas, San Juan Diego, St. Brigid, St. Martin de Porres, and Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha."

Find St. Nicholas activities for kids!

You'll find crafts, snacks, printables, and more.

Find a free printable Juan Diego paper doll

over at Paper Dali.

Or, craft Juan Diego's tilma with Domestic Church.

Make a St. Brigid's Cross with Family Fun.

For St. Martin de Porres, try any of these 

Mice snacks or crafts from Family Fun!

For Blessed Kateri, try crafting these 

beaded indian rings from That Artist Woman.

Parade Around the Our Father- "Meet St. Joseph of Cupertino, the one and only flying friar! Learn the meaning of the perfect prayer on earth given to us by Jesus, the perfect teacher! Meet our master of Ceremonies, Henry the Hippo who will direct you to fun skits, exciting Bible stories, and amazing music!"

Check out this some amazing "Lord's Prayer" resources

on the Catholic Toolbox! Find a printable puzzle, crossword,

and this Lord's Prayer game! Also, craft and snack ideas.

Also at the Catholic Toolbox, she has a post on the rosary

where you can find an "Our Father" coloring sheet, printable

mini-book, and lots of other great stuff!

For snack, you might try making an edible rosary!

Parachute with the Angels - "God is your pilot- destination heaven! Check in with Saint Catherine Laboure, pick up your flightplan, and meet your Co-Pilot; Your very own Guardian Angel!"

For St. Catherine Laboure, print this coloring page

of her with the miraculous medal.

Check out these Angel crafts to pair with the
Parachute with the Angels package.

Click Here for generic Catholic Vacation Bible School Crafts.

If you have any experience with "Growing with the Saints", please leave your feedback in the comments! :-)
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