I would much rather have you stop by and pick these up!

Especially all of you who left such lovely comments on all the previous posts about this project! But since you can't (sigh), I thought I would try to share our Madonna and Child craft idea with anyone who was interested in trying it in time for the Blessed Mother's birthday.

I remember a lovely blog that, sadly, is gone from the blog world where one could find a treasure trove of creativity and inspiration. The authoress of that blog was so incredibly generous with her time and talents. She offered so much to her readers & friends; some of it in the form of .pdf downloads that could be used over and over again. While that blog can no longer be seen, the lovely hostess has a that promises to rival the old one. So in the spirit of generosity exemplified by Katherine and many others in the blog world, I made asked my husband to figure out how to do it and then show me. : )

Since Blogger won't let me imbed the files, I have to go through a third party. It is a free service and there is no limit on the files you download but there are ads on the page that change every time you visit and I have no control over what is advertised. You will also have the option to skip the ad they try to show you once you have clicked "download". Just so you know!

For the Madonna and Child craft inspired by Rumer Godden's Kitchen Madonna, here are the cut outs for the hands and heads.

Then I used these templates printed on heavy card stock to cut out clothes from scrapbook paper. Baby Jesus's tunic and robe were the toughest for the kids to figure out since they don't really fit together, more like overlap.

Pick out a background paper. We attached ours to self adhesive foam board cut into 8x10 sizes but the first one I tested out was just glued onto a piece of cardboard. I don't think it would matter what you chose for a backing just be warned that thin paper tends to buckle with too much glue but the adhesive on the foam board isn't very sticky.

Glue the halos first, then the clothing, then the body parts. Decorate your Madonnas with all the spangly, sparkly things you have. We used sequins, acrylic jewels and beads. Trapezoid shapes cut from gold doilies made excellent crowns or a whole doily makes a very lacy looking halo.

A word about glue:
Alene's Fast Grab Tacky glue is like cold hot glue (does that even make sense?) but might be difficult for small hands. It is very thick. Some of the kids resorted to glue sticks and plain old Elmers by the end of the meeting.

AND...

Just for fun:
Here is the coloring page I made based on Tomie de Paola's illustrations for St. Pascual and the Kitchen Angels. We cut these out and glued them onto two crafts sticks (tongue depressors) that were hot glued together in the shape of an X. (This might be better to do for the Feast of the Guardian Angels.)

Have a fun and safe Labor Day!