Free Saint Pope John Paul II Printable Triptych

Excited about tomorrow's feast day of Saint Pope John Paul II? (Say YES!)

To celebrate this hugely popular pope-now-saint, I created a Saint Pope John Paul II tripych (a fancy word for three-panel painting) craft activity.

Want to put yours together for the Saint JP2 feast day? It's easy-peasy.

You'll need my favorite tools for a crafting project:

• Markers and colored pencils
• Childproof scissors (because I'm a scissors amateur)
• A glue stick
• Manila folder (because card stock is spendy)

1. Download and print the free Saint Pope John Paul II triptych printable

Super-important: Make sure your printer settings are "landscape mode" and "fit to printable area." If you don't, you end up with a mini triptych.

2. Cut out the printable along the dark outer line

3. Color with your favorite markers, colored pencils, drawing pens, etc.

4. Add doodles, squiggles, and whatever you'd like to make it extra-special

5. Glue to the manila folder (or card stock)

6. Cut out the tripytch again and the fold the outside panels towards the middle like so:

7. Decorate the outside panels, then place your beautiful work of art in a thoughtful spot

A photo posted by Vee Jarski (@paper_dali) on Oct 21, 2015 at 4:15pm PDT

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Hope you had fun making your own Saint John Paul II triptych! If you do use it, feel free to share pics of your work. If you're on Instagram, use the hashtag #paperdali or tag me (I'm @paper_dali), so I can see your triptych.

xo
Vee

Easily Embroidered Spring Cards / Tarjetas Bordadas

I enjoy sending cards to my girlfriends, but the ones at the store rarely say what I want to say: "Hey, you, I'm glad we're buds, and I spent some time thinking about you and praying for a joy-filled life for you and your loved ones. Blessings to you. And chocolate. And buttery popcorn. And a hug." But no card says that.

So, I end up just making a card and hoping that the time invested says all that. :)

Making an embroidered card is shockingly simple ... however, due to the paper-y aspect, it does take time and patience and a light touch.

1. Cut out a bit of paper the size of a notecard. (Note: Really, make sure it fits into an envelope. This sounds obvious, but it's not. Ask me how I know this is important. Hee.)
2. Draw a picture of what you would like to embroider on the card.
3. Use a sewing needle and thread to just sew along your penciled lines. (Note: Don't use an embroidery needle. It makes the holes too big and you end up tearing the card to bits. Ask me how I know this is important, too.)
4. Be very patient.

A good variation is to lightly go over the penciled mark with a pin, making little pinpricks into it, so when you "sew" the picture, you already have a little opening in it.

St. Joseph's Day Celebration / Celebrando el Dia de San Jose

On this lovely Friday, Evann is hosting the first annual St. Joseph's Altar Blog Fest today. (For any non-Catholic visitors, this altar is not for the worship of St. Joseph, but it is a visible dedication to him. The objects and pictures to remind us of him and to ask for him to pray for us to our Lord. We only worship God.♥ )

In honor of Saint Joseph, we set up a little altar for him during March. The upper shelf of our small bookshelf provided a perfect place to put items that remind us of this quiet, strong and faithful example:
I'll go over a few of our special items, if you please ... The San Damiano cross is above the altar, for it is the Lord who reigns supreme. And because it is Lent, there is a purple cloth around him. And because it was on sale and the only purple I could find, the cloth has polka-dots. I have since come up with the idea of the white symbolizing purity and the red symbolizing his most precious blood ... It works.

Beneath the San Damiano cross is a drawing that I made specifically for Saint Joseph's Day. The Holy Family is gathered together having a little something to eat, and a young Jesus is talking to them about marvelous things.
One of my gifts to you on this special day is a printable of my drawing. You can download the PDF of it, if you'd like. Here's a close up of it:

And below it is our little altar. The shoe box craft comes courtesy of Evann. The printable pictures and explanations of them can be found at the St. Joseph's Altar blog. We also have a vase of lilies from our backyard, a children's Bible, and a St. Joseph soft doll.


Here's a close-up of the soft doll. He's a bit rumpled, probably from tossing and turning from all those crazy dreams.

And because I had a little wooden peg, felt and a hot glue gun, I made a small Saint Joseph peg doll to add to the altar. He was easy and fun to make, and I am quite happy with how he looks.

As my second little gift to you, here's a quick tutorial on making the peg doll above:

St. Joseph Doll

Materials:
green felt
brown felt
white felt
beige felt
toothpick
paint
black yarn

1. Paint the face as you would like. Do this first, so as it dries, you can work on the following steps.
2. Cut a half-circle of green felt.
3. Cut a strip of brown felt.
4. Cut two small triangles of green.
5. Cut two beige circles.
6. Warm up the glue gun.
7. Put dots of hot glue on the wooden body of the doll. Quickly, drape the green cloth over it and make sure it covers the body.
8. Put dots of glue on the brown strip then drape it diagonally over the green. (See picture above.)
9. Put a drop of glue on the wide part of the green triangle. (The green is the sleeve. The beige circle is the hand.)
10. Do the same for the other green sleeve and beige hand.
11. Put a drop of glue on the top of the green sleeves and press them against the body.
12. Take a strand of yarn, put glue on it, then drape it under St. Joseph's face to form a beard. (I didn't put it on his face because, in case I made a mistake, I didn't want to have glue bits all over it.)
13. Cut black pieces of yarn in the same length, enough to be hair.
14. Put glue on the wooden head then press the black yarn on it. Be careful not to burn yourself!
15. Trim the "hair" at the length you'd like.
16. To make the lily, just cut a small half-circle of white felt. Glue one edge of the circle to the top of the toothpick. Swirl it around until it looks like a lily. Then put a drop of glue on the toothpick and press it against St. Joseph.

And then, you're done.