Martinmas Lantern Walk

This was our very first year celebrating Martinmas and had a lot of fun creating special lanterns for our lantern walk :)

We started by heading outdoors during a break in the rain showers we've been having and collected red japanese maple leaves, deep purple leaves from a smoke tree, yellow leaves from some of the phlox in the yard and then started to paper mache our balloons with a drippy mix of flour and water for the glue and strips of crepe paper :)

The first layer was just paper mache and then we placed our leaves on top in patterns and just randomly and then covered them with one more layer of paper mache to help them stay in place without worrying that they would start to lift or fall off. I don't have any photos of us actually doing the paper mache because I was right in there with the kids slopping paste and paper on my own balloon *grin*.

We left them to dry overnight by the fire and in the morning the balloons had started shrinking and were pulling away from the sides of the paper...

leaving us with great big giant bowls that I punched 4 holes into around the top and then tied strings onto them for hanging :)

The children wore their cloaks pretending to be like St. Martin in his cape when he came upon the freezing man outside the city gates and then we headed out into the darkness. I retold them them story of Martin and the poor man that I used from Melisa's blog and we sang the following song from out of my Autumn Wynstone Press booklet :)

The sunlight fast is dwindling,
My little lamp needs kindling.
Its beam shines far in darkest night,
Dear Lantern, guard me with your light.

We had so much fun walking with our lanterns glowing in the dark. Although I think next time we might do it a little earlier as when it gets dark around here it is pitch black and there isn't a street light in sight for a great many miles. I had to keep myself from thinking of bears and other wild animals that love to lurk in the dark around here LOL.

I just love how they glow so brightly showing the silhouettes of their leaves through the paper mache. We've brought them into our family room and hung them by the window so that we can enjoy them in the evenings with the flicker of candle light dancing from within them :)

I hope you had a lovely Martinmas day to and I would love to see photos of your lanterns if you shared some on your blogs!

Hugs,
Rosina

Earth Hour ~ Luminary Jars

With earth hour happening this Saturday, March 27th at 8:30pm I thought that it would be fun to do something special with the kids as we get ready to join the rest of the globe by shutting off our lights for one hour :)

So we decided that the perfect way to celebrate would be to make luminary jars with an earth hour theme :) We brainstormed and came up with a couple of perfect ideas. An earth inside a heart because we need to show our love for the earth, a light bulb with the earth inside to symbolize the purpose of earth hour by turning out the lights and a plain jar that we completely blacked out with paint and only the words 'earth hour' unpainted so that when we light it on Saturday the name will glow brightly in the dark :)



This is such an easy craft and who doesn't just love to finger paint with glue?!

Armed with colored tissue and crepe paper, empty glass jars with their labels removed and a big bottle of white glue we got started. I would recommend getting each child to pick out what colors they're going to use and tear them into chunks before starting to glue to minimize the amount of paper that may get stuck to their fingers *grin*. After that let them go hog wild! LOL.

This has to be the easiest craft and perfect for all ages. Even the littlest hands can slap paper onto glue :) My four year old created this lovely red luminary and he was so enthused that he even glued and papered the underside of his glass jar *grin*.

We've set them aside to let them fully dry and are now anxiously awaiting Saturday evening so that we can light little candles inside the jars and watch them glow in the dark :)

You've still got time to make some to! Have fun and don't forget to turn off the lights :)

~ Rosina