Christ the King Craft

Catholic ABC's Week: 16
Letter of the week: K
Theme: King (Jesus is King or Christ the King)
Saint of the Week: Blessed Kateri
Craft: Jesus is King

I knew I wanted to make "K" week about Jesus being king, but coming up with a craft was harder than I thought it would be! I wanted it to be a clearly religious king craft. There are already so many secular king crafts out there, so there's no need to waist my time re-creating the wheel, are you with me? Lol!

Materials Needed to Complete This Craft:

• Fun Foam (or substitute construction paper or card stock)
• Decorations for crown (Examples: glitter glue, stick on jewels, markers, stickers, etc. We used glitter glue)
• Hot Glue (grown up use only)
• Popsicle sticks
• School Glue
• Styrofoam Balls (or substitute pool noodles)

Start by cutting the foam or paper into a crown shape. You can cut a regular, flat crown shape, but if you curve the shape a little the crown will have a cuter shape when the craft is complete. Older kids should be able to do their own cutting.

Let the kids decorate the crowns however they like. I lightly drew a "K" on my daughter's crown and let her trace over it with glitter glue. She did a pretty good job! Mostly I let her free style it because she loves to be creative!

You need 2 popsicle sticks to make the cross. Shorten one of them with some scissors, and let the kids glue them together and decorate the crosses as well.

When your decorations dry, it's time to put it all together! Carefully saw a styrofoam ball in half with a sharp kitchen knife. Use your cool glue gun to attach the foam around the base of the ball. Then your kids can stick their cross in the middle of the crown!

If you're looking for a cheaper option, I found that a slice of pool noodle worked just as well as the styrofoam. The only difference is that you'll have to make a small slit with a sharp knife for inserting the cross- it won't work to just stick it straight in. You can get pool noodles for a dollar and get enough to make probably 75 of these, so the pool noodle option is infinitely cheaper. I can get sryrofoam balls at my Dollar Tree, but they are a pricey craft supply at special craft stores- up to several dollars each! Here's one we did with a pool noodle slice: 

FYI- you can also get packages of these for $1 at the Dollar Tree:

Thanks to everyone on Catholic Icing's facebook wall who bounced ideas with me about how to make these crosses stand up! You guys are a great crowd and I love talking to all of you!

Grab Bag Ideas for the Letter K: (be sure to check out the Classroom Scriptfor directions on using the grab bag.) Kitten, Koala bear, Kangaroo, Ketchup packet, Knot, King, Key. (Avoid anything starting with "Kn" that doesn't make the classic "K" sound. That's confusing for kids.)

For More Resources, check out the Catholic Toolbox lesson plans for the Letter K. (Her K lesson is on King Solomon.)

Catholic ABC's runs here at Catholic Icing every Wednesday with the new letter of the week. You can get the details of this program by checking out the Classroom Script.

I'm very pleased with the results of this craft, and Lydia (my 4 year old) absolutely loved it!

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Celebrating St. Lucy's Feast Day for Beginners

On St. Lucy day (also know as St. Lucia Day) is just around the corner on December 13! On this day, it's a big tradition for the oldest girl in the family to dress in a white garment with a red sash (symbolizing martyrdom) with a St. Lucy crown on her head. She wakes up early and brings her family members sweet rolls (or 'Lucia buns') to their bed. Traditionally, this would be saffron bread (find the recipe here) but other sweet breads can be substituted.

My daughter is only 4, so we staged her bringing some rolls upstairs to my 2 year old (pretending to be asleep in bed). Lydia wore her flower girl dress from a wedding last Summer, and I tied a red ribbon around her waist. It's traditional to wear a red sash, but we didn't have one.  

We all know I'm not a cook, so in place of the saffron bread, we made out-of-the-can cinnamon rolls. It seems that an "S" shape is traditional, so I re-shaped the cinnamon rolls. A lot of St. Lucy bread seems to be garnished with dried cranberries, dates, or almonds- I was going to use raisins, but we were out.

It is said that St. Lucy wore a wreath on her head with candles in it to light the way as she brought food to the poor. We made our St. Lucy crown from construction paper- I didn't want real fire on Lydia's head. Lol! I cut strips from green paper and taped them in a loop the size of her head. We taped on white rectangles for the candles, and I twisted pieces of yellow tissue paper for the "flames". I had some extra greenery leftover from our advent wreath craft, so I hot-glued some leaves on. We made the whole crown while our bread was baking.

It's also traditional to make your sweet bread in the shape of a braided wreath and put candles in it. Again, I braided straight-from-the-can cinnamon rolls and formed them into a circle.

After baking, I drizzled it with the icing and inserted white birthday candles. Yay for easy St. Lucy bread! (I made this wreath and the two sweet rolls all from just one can of cinnamon rolls.)

After lighting the candles, I wasn't sure what we were supposed to do. Since St. Lucy is the patroness of the blind, we said a prayer for St. Lucy to open the eyes of the spiritually blind. Then we sang "Happy St. Lucy Day to You..." and blew out the candles. This seemed like the logical thing to do to me! ;-)

More St. Lucy Resources:

Paper Dali has a free printable

St. Lucy Paper Doll. So cute!

I would love to have a children's book about this 

day, like Lucia, Saint of Light. I've read great 

Catholic reviews about this book!

This is such a great way to have fun with your kids and teach them about St. Lucy! We're going to make celebrating St. Lucy day an annual tradition at our home!

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Mary Art Project for Kids

My preschooler crafted Mary, Queen of Heaven, as a handprint project- and I'm very happy with the results! :-)  This would be a perfect craft for a May crowning, or just a fun art project for Catholic kids anytime! 

Completed Project

Start by having your child stamp his or her foot, hand, and fingers.

(There are 12 "star" fingerprints around Mary)

Read more about Mary's stars

I would suggest letting this dry before moving on.

1. *tip* When stamping your hand, you might not want to paint all the way up the fingers. I didn't.
2. Paint Mary's blue veil around her face.
3. Trace around the outside of Mary's crown with gold glitter glue, and add dotted jewels with red glitter glue.
4. Paint on Mary's face.

I then let my daughter decorate the stars with glitter glue. Older kids can draw asterisk shapes on top of the fingerprints with the glitter glue.

Here are some of my 4 year old's completed Mary trading cards. She is so proud of these- I'm not sure what she's going to think of mailing them away!

 The Feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary is coming up on May 31. Happy Catholic Crafting!
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Mary Kids Activities

I bumped my own post for today to run some things that readers submitted. You guys are too great with the stuff that you do and send me! Thanks for sharing with all of us! :-)

St. Brigid's Academy shares an entire
May Crowning Lesson with us!

{{squeel in delight!}} This includes opening songs, how to make Mary crowns for little girls (with free printables), instructions for making may baskets with doilies with a special Marian activity, Mary and rosary coloring sheets, this amazing printable Mary statue and more. Click over to see it all!

Family at the Foot of the Cross submitted these beautiful Mary prayer cards that are free to print from Catholic Modesty. I also love this May Magnificat Poem that Tiffany shares.  

And finally, Highland Dove has the most incredible list of Mary links that I have ever seen in one place, along with a bunch of pictures of Mary May baskets. Click over to see tons of fabulous stuff! 

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May Crowning Ideas for the Home

May is the month of Mary. It is a tradition in the Catholic church to crown Mary with flowers during the month of May. It can be done at any time during the month, but May 1 (also known as "May Day") is a very popular day for it ;-) You can use real flowers, or make a crown from fake flowers. Here are some ideas if you're looking to have a May crowning at home!

Here's a tutorial on making a crown from fake flowers

on One Hour Craft. Blue roses would be a great choice of flower!

 Find a great tutorial on making a crown from real flowers

on Project Wedding.

I love this idea for a May Crowning Snack! I found this 

over on Praying for Grace.

Collect what you need to make your own crown for Mary at 

The Dollar Tree with Family at the Foot of the Cross.

Under Her Starry Mantel shares how to make this May Crown.

Find a lot of beautiful May Crowning Ideas at

Under Her Starry Mantel.

Find a beautiful Home May Crowning on Wildflowers and Marbles.

Don't miss all these amazing May Crowing Resources

from The Catholic Toolbox! :-)

Lots of May Crowning Ideas over on Waltzing Matilda 

including this Mary punch :-)

Find a May Day Craft over on Cottage Blessings.

Find an interactive rosary activity to include in your May Crowning

over on Hang on Baby Jesus This is Gonna Get Bumpy.

And last but not least, check out these amazing cupcakes!
There are no directions about making them, but I thought they'd
be magnificent at a May Crowning! If any of you make them or
figure it out, let us know how to do it ourselves :-)
*Updated to say- Kate left us some directions in the comments!*

Another option is to bring flowers to a Mary statue at your church. This can be a really fun thing to do with the kids, especially if you pick the flowers yourselves first! :-)

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Activities for Families Throughout Lent

Here are some things that I've seen you guys do to help keep your families on track for lent!

Here you will find directions on how to make a salt dough crown of thorns with toothpicks. Every time your child makes a sacrifice, he or she removes a toothpick from the crown!Karen Edmisten posted about their Sacrifice beans- for every sacrifice your child makes, he or she places a bean in the jar. Find the details and other ideas for lent here.

Pondered in my Heart made a Mercyful Cross, the idea being that you cover the cross by the end of lent with flowers representing sacrifices and works of mercy. Get the details here.


Our Domestic Church made this really cool yule tide Lenten log to count down the weeks of lent similar to an advent wreath. Go to her site to read all the symbolism behind it.

Jessica at Shower of Roses shares her Jesse tree turned Jesus tree. She goes through week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4, week 5, week 6, and week 7. For each day she shows a close up of the ornament, a bible reading, and shares a link to a coordinating coloring page.
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