Cottage Blessings

Spoons for All Saints

Is it possible that a year has passed since the spoon saints made their appearance? It seems only yesterday we were creating our first procession for the mantelpiece!

Saints of the Season

St. Faustina, step by step

More Spoon Saints

Our Procession Grows

Oh, what spoons these mortals be!

Divine Mercy Sunday

Please click here for instructions on making a St. Faustina Spoon Doll.

Have a Blessed Feast day!

St. Patrick's Day in Louisiana

is celebrated with spoon saints this year!

I wish I could express to you how much good it does my heart to see these St. Patrick spoon dolls, created by thoughtful Cottage Blessings reader Jean Boyer and her wonderful 6th grade CCD class!

And wouldn't I love a slice of this clever and elegant Celtic Cross cake, also created by Jean for the incredibly lucky children in her class!

Jean, may God bless you, not only for taking the time to share these images, but also for all you do to bring our precious Faith to a new generation!

Spoon Saints in Your Homes

Dear Friends,

If any of you have worked on spoon saints with your children this month, would you please let me know? [You may email me at agunther@optNOSPAMonline.net, removing the "NOSPAM" from the email address, or leave a link in the comments section.] I have been so impressed with what everyone has done with their children, and it would be such a joy to compile a post showcasing all of them. If you do not have a blog, digital photos would be extremely welcome.

Thank you so much!

"Oh, what spoons these mortals be!"

[Please take a look at Saints of the Season for the original post in this series.]

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As Theresa and I painstakingly crafted our St. Faustina spoon dolls last Friday, Marie (6) sat at the table in a flurry of activity. I was not paying much attention to her, although I had the nagging suspicion she might be using up too many spoons.

In the time it took us to make our two little St. Faustinas, Marie came up with--gasp--the entire cast of A Midsummer Night's Dream! [Marie also gets the credit for all of these photographs.]

This next photo shows, from left to right, Nick Bottom with removable donkey's head, Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius, Helena, and Puck. Oberon makes a partial appearance at the far right:

Here is Bottom's acting troupe, ready to perform "The Love and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe." She even remembered to have one actor (right, within the group) to play "The Wall" and another dressed as the lovely Thisbe:

Proud Titania flits past with her retinue of pixies, Cobweb, Peaseblossom, Moth, and Mustardseed. I love that Titania's wings are larger and fashioned from tissue to give her a regal bearing. She lavishes affection on her cherished changeling boy:

Oberon, upon seeing that boy, looks suitably miffed. Here he glares alongside Puck. We failed to photograph his other attendants, but Marie portayed them with bats' wings, the perfect rivals for Titania's dainty sprites:

Listening to little Marie rattle off these cast members like old friends, I couldn't help offering my frequent fervent prayer. Thank Heaven for these happy, heartening times!

Our procession grows

I wish I could express to you how it gladdens my heart to see this procession of saints take shape upon the mantel!

Marie (6) created St. Francis and St. Padre Pio:

Agnes (12) added her patrons, St. Jude and St. Agnes:

Here is Margaret's (9) partially completed Blessed Mother, inspired by Our Lady of Guadalupe:

Margaret also tried her hand at fashioning her own version of St. Francis and his friend, St. Clare:

I love St. Clare's monstrance and the brown embroidery floss cords Margaret fastened to their waists:

Here is Marie's (6) representation of St. Philomena, shown here with an anchor and palm leaf:

And these are our St. Kateri Tekakwithas, created by Theresa (11) and Margaret (9). Theresa added feet to hers, accounting for the height difference. Margaret was disappointed that the face of her doll became smudged. I reminded her that St. Kateri had smallpox, so her face would have had scarring. When she died, the scars disappeared and she was found radiant, earning her the nickname, "Lily of the Mohawks."

More Spoon Saints

My children have gone bananas making spoon saints this week, drawing inspiration from our enormous collection of Holy Cards.

Here is a small sampling:

Theresa (11) made her favorite saint, St. Gianna Molla. If you look carefully, you will note that she is holding her newborn baby in her arms:

This is Margaret's (9) rendering of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, wearing royal robes and carrying bread and roses in a basket over her arm. Yellow embroidery floss forms the curls cascading down her back.

Here was the lineup of saints on our mantelpiece several days ago. It has more than doubled since then, with seven or eight more great saints added. I will post pictures as soon as I have them!

St. Faustina by Marie, age 6

When the girls and I craft together, we usually run with a common idea, but our finished products are always different. This is six-year-old Marie's version of the St. Faustina doll. In person, her headpiece is three dimensional.

St. Faustina, step by step

The girls and I spent a quiet half hour crafting more saints' dolls, each of us using our own imaginations to portray a favorite saint. Theresa and I both worked on St. Faustina to celebrate her feast. Drawing inspiration from a portrait on a holycard, I began by cutting out a simple habit in two pieces:


St. Faustina's gorgeous veil begged for a more three dimensional treatment. By folding a strip of cardstock into thirds and snipping the front in two places before folding it, the base of her veil began to take shape.

The photo above shows the white base before I turned it around and glued it to the "forehead" of the spoon in the photo below. Two neat triangular folds on either side captured the look of St. Faustina's headpiece:

A strip of dark cardstock folded in three places, draped over the top of the head and snipped and folded in the back supplied her veil. I am using my thumb in the picture below to hold down the first rear fold as the glue dries:

In the end the back should look something like the photo below. One more piece of dark cardstock covering the back of her skirt would make the doll reversible.
Here is the finished product. (Placing the doll in front of a Divine Mercy image seemed like a perfect finishing touch):

Speaking of finishing touches, I decided to have some fun by writing on the pages inside St. Faustina's little book:

If all that paper folding for St. Faustina's veil is too complicated for your young ones, consider eleven-year-old Theresa's simplified, but no less attractive and recognizable, version:

Rear view:

St. Faustina, pray for us!

Good St. Francis

The talented and enthusiastic children of our Immaculate Heart of Mary Homeschooling group honored our dear Saint Francis in a memorable way. Remember those charming but bare houses, clustered round St. Francis like a tiny European village by the side of a mountain? Well here they are awash in the vibrant colors of childhood:

I hope I won't sound like too much of a name dropper, but there happens to be a lovely young lady from the Bonny Blue House on the right in this next photo and the sweet niece of the Castle of the Immaculate on the left:

The children were only too happy to let me snap photos highlighting their craftsmanship. Each Franciscan birdhouse featured a darling bird perched in front:

and our dear St. Francis in the back. I explained to the children that this adornment turned the birdhouses into roadside shrines, reminiscent of the ones gracing so many roads in Europe:

Here are a few samples:



A pair of best friends made these twin birdhouses:

But those weren't the cutest twins at the party, not by a long shot. These two darlings were:

And their mother, my pal Mary Ellen, looks slim and fabulous already! Having seven children certainly agrees with her.

As if this weren't enough, in keeping with our St. Francis and the animals theme, the wonderful MacBeth Derham arrived toting a large bag of fat acorns to entertain and edify the children with her amazing Squirrel Project:
I know St. Francis would be pleased!

St. Faustina

I will post more details on this St. Faustina spoon doll later. Happy Feast, everyone!

Saints of the Season

As the vibrant greens of summer give way to glints of gold, the Church has blessed us with a bounty of saints' day celebrations, each one flickering like a candle in a long procession marching ever onward toward the great feast of All Hallows on November 1. This week alone, we rejoiced with the Archangels, St. Padre Pio, St. Therese of Lisieux, the Guardian Angels, and now St. Francis of Assisi. In the coming days and weeks, we will pray to Our Lady of the Rosary and give thanks for the lives of St. Faustina, St. Gerard Majella, and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, to name but a few.

As with all works of the Spirit, the timing of these feasts is no accident. October's flood of festivities calls the saints to our minds and hearts each and every day, inviting us to pause and ponder these great souls as the perfect preparation for All Saint's Day.

Our crafts can help us to get ready as well. This unassuming little bag of wooden ice cream spoons is just waiting to sing the praises of the heavenly court:

A few odds and ends are all that is needed--markers and some scrapbooking paper, although construction paper would work just as well:

The great thing about saints' crafts is that it is easy to make almost any saint recognizable just by including certain symbols. St. Therese wears the habit of a Carmelite and carries the crucifix adorned by roses:

Good St. Francis appears in a friar's robe with a beard and tonsure and bearing the wounds of the stigmata. Of course, a sweet little bird alights on his shoulder, a reminder of Francis' affinity toward animals and his famous "Sermon to the Birds":

A collection of these small and simple saints would make a pleasing and kid-friendly display for the Feast of All Saints. Just imagine what your children could create if they collected these for a year!

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And as long as we are discussing Saint Francis, I thought you might like to see the statue and craft awaiting our homeschooling group for tomorrow's feast--Franciscan miniature birdhouses. Hopefully, I will have photos of the finished product to share with you soon.

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It is amusing to note, by the way, that the spoons come in packs of sixty, exactly enough for a complete set of "Sixty Saints for Boys" or "Sixty Saints for Girls." There are no coincidences. : )