This Palm Sunday craft may be used during a procession in the church but it also is an excellent method for creating a palm branch prop for a play. Although it is simple the project has much better results when completed by older students, fifth grade and up. You will need eight sheets of green construction paper in all to complete a palm similar to this one. However, you can use this method with any number of sheets if you should desire to alter the size of the project. Fold the paper in an accordion fashion and then snip off the tips of the fonds in a curved-like fashion as seen in the far left hand photo above. The center photo shows how your accordion folds should look. You will then need to glue the edges of sets of four papers together to form a continuous sheet of palm leaves.
Left, I then bound both sets of palm leaves together with masking tape over the end of an old yard stick, one palm half on either side of my yard stick/ruler. Center, I added more tacky white glue to the edges of the palm leaves on the stick for strength. Right, I covered my tape with a small strip of paper, thereby giving the palm a clean look.
After leaving the palm branch to dray, I then glued the two accordion folded palms together down the center of my project and then wrapped the trunk of my branch with brown twine and white tacky glue to hide the writing on the old yard stick. On the far right you can see the completed palm branch.
As you can see by the photos, you may open the palm all the way into a circular shape and pin it down to the trunk of it's branch with a clamp of some sort. This gives the palm a very aesthetically pleasing appearance. However, I suggest that you only clamp this into place, not glue it permanently. This is because the palms store better when they are flat and closed at the top. Clamping them temporarily while on display will allow you to use them time and time again in future parades.
"This little bag for holding money or jewels is most useful to any woman blessed with such desirable possessions, and one as pretty as this would appeal to any woman of fastidious tastes as the daintiest and most useful of all simple presents to be made by the clever fingers of an artistic friend."
This antique needlepoint pattern of violets in a basket appeared in the Washington Times, Sunday, April 17, 1904.
Three lovely designs of cross stitch flowers in baskets.
"No. 718 is a design for embroidering baskets of flowers in cross
stitch style. The large basket is five and one-quarter inches in height
by five and three-quarters in width; the smaller baskets are four and
one-half inches in height by four and one-quarter in width. Transfers
for one large and two small baskets are given here.
In the pattern, all the stitches are crosses but, in the above
illustration, some are made single and some fancy as a suggestion for
color. The single stitches in the smaller design represent the baskets,
the crossed stitches leaves and the fancy stitches flowers, with a few
single stitches at the center for darker coloring. In the larger design,
the single stitches represent the basket, the crossed stitches the
leaves and bow knots and the fancy stitches flowers. As the flowers are
conventionalized, any preferred colors can be used.
The window pane method is perhaps the simplest and is particularly
successful when the material is thin such as batiste, lawn, or
handkerchief linen, the best plan is to pin the sheet of paper and the
material together an hold them up against the window pane and with a
sharp pencil trace the design on the fabric, or else lay the material on
the pattern on top of a table or other hard surface, and carefully
trace the design with a well pointed pencil. The design may also be
transferred to heavy material by using a piece of transfer or carbon
paper, to be placed between the pattern and cloth, using a sharp pointed
pencil to secure a clean line."
The Easter bunny picture above was made by the use of a series of stencils. The rabbits and the dandelions (taraxacum) where drawn by one method and the clover by another. In order to make the soft appearance of the fuzzy animals and the dandelions, I gently rubbed the side of my colors over the top of each stencil. The effect resulted in a feathery appearance. Next, I traced around the clover and colored in the shapes left behind, resulting in harder brighter lines and shapes.
Teachers in this lesson may then discuss with young students the differences between design elements that are sometimes difficult to communicate in a drawing only. The rabbits look soft; the clover looks smooth. The fur and seeds look fuzzy, the clover looks bright and so on . . . Tactile ideas are easier to communicate through a fabric assignment but sometimes this is not affordable. Visual textures may be easier to believe when associated with objects that are obviously associated with textures small students enjoy in both their toys and in small animals that they are fond of.
Teachers will need to make stencils in advance for the assignment. These should look similar to the black silhouettes that I have pictured below.
The following article is from the Ogden Standard, Ogden City, Utah. It was published on March 23, 1918.
War Time Favors Include Plenty of Easter Chicks
Like good old Santa Claus, the Easter rabbit and the Easter chick admit a Teutonic origin, but one is sure that they --like the beloved folk of fairy lore ---have abandoned the land of their birth for a kindlier environment and will never more return.
At any rate children, the world over, will never let them go back. They are world-traditions now and may claim no special country. They belong to the realm of childhood and if grown-ups choose to get pleasure out of them, it is a vicarious pleasure at best and not to be compared with childhood's ecstasy. Watch any little boy or girl in front of a confectioner's window where enchanting bunnies and downy Easter chicks are displayed and you will have no doubt of the matter.
Poultry and ears of corn have a pertinent Hoover suggestion.
The rabbit poppin' out of the hat seems to say: "What Next?"
There seems to be just as many rabbits and chicks as ever this year, white rabbits and gray rabbits and pretty brown and white fellows with pink bows standing up behind their pink-lined ears. The white cats are are fascinating too and are only less downy and soft then the baby chicks --some of them live chicks that scurry about in lively fashion. The little people love these bunnies and chicks mush better than the ambitious Easter favors, ribbon decked and candy filled, which please grown-up sister; and the modern child with an Easter brim-full of joy in bunny and chick gifts, misses not at all the excitement of making Easter eggs that little folks of a generation ago found so thrilling and so satisfying.
The very prettiest Easter
favors adhere to tradition
and present chicks, birds
and bunnies in spring-
like environment.
Scraps of colored prints and calico used to be hoarded long before Easter time in preparation for the egg-coloring fun. The eggs were tied up in the gay colored cloths and boiled until hard. Then with their parti-colored shells and edible, hard-boiled interiors, they were piled on the breakfast table Easter morning. This is not one of the good old economical fashions to be bemoaned in later, more extravagant times; for dairy eggs served in such profusion, no matter how their shells were disguised with printed calico, would be a very very extravagant breakfast dish just now, and would doubtless cost more then a supply of bunnies and feathered chicks to go all 'round.
Quite appropriate and Hoover-ish for this war-time Easter are favors representing one of the excellent vegetables recommended in a conservation diet. Corn is also a patriotic food, since it saves wheat flour; and an attractive Easter favor of this year --respresenting an ear of corn and a feathered chick is pictured. Beside is is a cunning white Easter bunny with pinks ears, popping out of a top hat in suggestive magican manner. But it you lift the bunny out of the hat, you will find a store of candy.
For a table center at Easter season is the pretty dove cote "Jack Horner." The tissue-wrapped gifts are hidden in the dove cote and each dove, perching on a bracket before a crepe paper covered window, has attached to his feet a long ribbon. When the doves are jostled from their perches their weight drags the gift tied to the other end of the ribbon through the crepe paper pasted across the window. The dove cote is one of the interesting crepe paper novelties, of which there are many new sorts this year. Pasteboard covered with crepe paper was used for the little house and the standard is of wood also covered with crepe paper, leaves and vines of crepe paper clamor over the dove cote and in the paper grass at its foot nestle two natural looking barnyard friends, a rabbit and a rooster. Another Hoover suggestion you see; for the injunction now is to eat roast, fried and fricasseed rooster in preference to hens which must be saved and coaxed to lay eggs for the Allies.
Still another crepe paper novelty is pictured in the aeroplane which is quite a gem of its kind. Even the propeller is evident in this nicely balanced craft which is equipped with a formidable amount of ammunition in the way of "bombs" each "bomb" an Easter egg filled with candy. the intrepid pilot sits at the wheel, clad in a saucy uniform of checked silk gingham. Who would ever guess that the long, low rakish body of his craft is filled to the brim with gifts, each attached to a ribbon? When you seize one of the booms--the aeroplane being suspended from the chandelier over the supper table-- you pull the gift attached to your particular ribbon through the crepe paper cover of the aeroplane's body.
The Easter aircraft drop eggs instead of bombs:
The gallant pilot wears a uniform
of saucy checked gingham.
Very naturally, there is a war-time flavor in many of this year's Easter Novelties. Besides aeroplanes and observation planes, there are various sorts of artillery, even the cumbersome British tank being represented in a structure of pasteboard and crepe paper. And there are fighting men too. There are the useful favors too--practical gifts that may be tied up in tissue and white or daffodil ribbon and tucked into Easter Jack Horners. Of course, there is a war-time flavor to these also. The boy back home from camp for the Easter week-end will receive a sowing kit or some leather-bound contrivance for photographs, writing materials or the like: or his favor may be a pair of woolen socks, knitted by friendly feminine hands. Field glasses are valuable gifts and no soldier or sailor objects to receiving a well-used pair, in such demand are these glasses just now. For feminine guests there are jeweled service flags, photograph frames, lockets that will hold a picture of the special hero at the front, and of course, all sorts of knitting belongings--reticules, needle cases, bracelet wool holders and so on.
More Related Content About Vintage & Antique Easter Figurines, 1910-1918:
Cantoria (singing gallery) by Luca della Robbia, from the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo. Photographed in 2009.
Longfellow said, "Ah, what would the world be to us if the children were no more?" for in their hearts "are the birds and the sunshine." in their thoughts "the brooklet's flow." In Florence there stands in the museum one of the best sermons in stone the world has ever enjoyed. "Frozen music" indeed are these exquisite "Singing Children" of Della Robbia.
Just of the Via Propose, in Florence, that city called most appropriately the Lily of the Arno," is a narrow street wherein is located the Bargello. This building is veritable casket enclosing priceless treasures: a very sermon in stone, this mass of carving, this play of light and sunshine over the old columns and courts. Standing here since before the memory of man, history tells us it was erected for the chief magistrate of Florence and was renovated in 1373.
Pass through the court of the stairway and loggia where Dante walked. Here we come to the superb Hall of the Judges, and find that for which we seek--the "Singing Children" of Luca Della Robbia. These exquisite carvings were executed for the organ loft of the cathedral. The choristers now rest in this magnificent hall. The figures of these animated children are an interesting study, separately or in groups. The merry faces; the dancing bodies; the eager fingers holding the choir books or instruments of music; the parted lips singing praises to the Lord.
Serene in the rapturous throng,
Unmoved by the rush of the song,
With eyes unimpassioned and slow,
Among the dead angels, the deathless
(Children) stand listening breathless
To sounds that ascend from below--
From the spirits on earth that adore,
From the souls that entreat and implore
In the fervor and passion of prayer;
From the hearts that are broken with
losses,
And weary with dragging the crosses
Too heavy for mortals to bear.
The creator of these exquisite carvings was Luca Della Robbia, born in 1388 in Florence. The world rolls on leaving behind a wide track of history. Here in the peaceful city, the quietly flowing river, the beautiful Arno, rolls murmuringly by this treasure-house on this narrow street, this home of the "Singing Children." Within, near the blue arch of heaven, the singing and dancing and playing girls and boys lift up their silent timbrels, as they have been doing during these centuries, as if in Easter rejoicing.
The world rolls on, up the slopes of progression, and the world of art fills with pictures of beautiful children, good to look upon. Madonnas and the Christ child, playing children and singing children, mirthful children and sorrowful children. Truly what would this world be without children!
