A Cross for Coloring Easter Morning

Description of Coloring Page: a Christian cross by kathy grimm, shapes, patterns, spirals, swirls, hearts etc...

• "Raise Up The Cross!" from Color The Bible
• And Another Cross from Crayon Palace 
• Color sharing flowers with an Easter friend...
  

Don't forget to drag the png. or jpg into a Word Document and enlarge the image as much as possible before printing it folks. If you have a question about this coloring page, just type into the comment box located directly below this post and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.

The Wonderful Cross Medley by Taryn Harbridge

The poor and anxious, plod their dreary ways...

       "Poor, anxious, over thoughtful man ! He plods his dreary way - bowed down with earthly care - borrowing sorrow from the days to come - forgetful of the Heavenly Provider.

       Sweet flowers! Do you breathe of hope to his dim faith - whisper to his sinking heart of Him who so clothes the grass of the fields from day to day. Wherefore taketh he thought for the morrow? His Father knoweth his need. He will provide out of His own rich fullness. He will lift the shadow of care that smothers him like a pall. Oh! that he would but consider the Lilies!

       Has all pleasure faded out of your life? Do the clouds of disappointment shroud your sky? It is  better for you to die than to live, think you? Nay - consider the Lilies, with which God so clothes the grass of the fields. Life is not all a barren waste. Ah! through blinding tears, you can see no loveliness; but it is there - all around you still. Let your gracious Father wipe the tears away, that you may see clearly. He waits to be gracious - to do all you need - to comfort you, exceeding abundantly above all you can ask or think, for His own good pleasure. He giveth not according to desert; He measureth not His gifts by desire; out of His own rich fullness in Christ the Lord, He bestoweth to the full measure of the need, heaped up and running over - He giveth without measure, to the sons of His love in Jesus. If His face be hid for a moment, His kindness is everlasting. Ah! would you but consider the Lilies, and turn to Him for comfort and consolation!" A. Buchanan.

 "Consider the lilies...

Our Burial Places Sacred.

       How we linger around the cold remains of a friend till absolutely driven from it! How we care for it, as for some precious gem not always to be trodden in the dust! How reverently we commit it to the keeping of its mother earth; bidding it good night as if in attendance on the councils of royalty!

       How sacred is the spot where he lies! How often do we retire not alone to weep but to hold sweet communion with the departed, and say, "We shall meet again." - Rev. McClelland, D. D.

Craft a Bird In a Nest Box

The Nesting Bird's Box by kathy grimm as seen from above.

       Although the assembly of this little box may be a bit challenging in at first, most of you will get the gist of it after a few seconds of trial and error. 

       Just imagine how different my box might look if I were to use paper or paint to decorate it? I loved the soft, tactile surface of this box. And the neutral brown shades gave it a bit of a modern twist in the finish, I think. It makes for an unusual Easter surprise!

Supply List:

• small empty, clean carton with a screw top spout
• paper or plastic bowl
• cardstock or cardboard
• masking tape
• white school glue
• plastic or styrofoam eggs
• yarn for nest, eggs and bird
• feathers
• scissors
• tissue paper 
• Sculpey clay (just a small amount)
• hot glue

Step-by-Step Directions:

1. Clean with warm warm water and soap a screw top spouted cream carton. Then cut the top off including a generous piece of cardboard surrounding it. (see photo below)
2. Cover the bowl's surface with masking tape on all sides.
3. Take the paper or plastic bowl and turn it upside down on a piece of cardboard and draw around the edge to estimate the circumference of it's opening. Cut around this circle leaving about a half inch in excess from the drawn circle. 
4. Remove the plastic lid from the carton piece and trace around it on top of the cardstock where ever you plan to have the box open. If your making a nest similar to mine, put it roughly in the middle.
5. Punch a whole in the center of this smaller outline with the tip of your scissors and cut the small whole out. Make sure that the lid top fits neatly through the hole.
6. Cover the top with masking tape. Cut out the hole shape if you cover this with the tape.
7. Now push the lid opening and it's attached backing through one side of the container's lid. (see photograph below)
8. Tape this secure and flip it over to screw on the plastic lid top.
9. Notch around the half inch cut so that the edge may be turned under  or up slightly and then squeeze glue around this edge and nestle it on to the top of the bowl. Mask the top edge firmly to the bowl top. Let this form dry.
10. Use glue and making tape to position and secure the plastic egg shells around the inside of the nest.
11. Now unscrew the lid from the top of the box. Crush the tissue into the shape of a small baby bird and glue this to the lid's top. Be careful not to get tape, glue or paper on the inside of the lid so that it will continue to screw on and off of it's lip properly. 
12. Mask this tiny bird with the tape.
13. Sculpt a bit of clay into a open beak for the bird. Fit it onto the small bird's head to make sure that it looks the way you want before baking it into it's permanent shape.
14. After baking this according to directions, let cool and then hot glue it to your baby bird.
15. Now use the white school glue to cover your nest with yarns of your own choosing. This will need to be done in stages, the bottom first and so on...  Let the glued surfaces dry between stages over several days. (see detailed photos below)
16. Include a secret letter and perhaps a bit of money inside your bird's nest box to give as a special gift for Easter or a child's birthday.

Left, "Clean with warm warm water and soap a screw top spouted cream carton. Then cut the top off including
 a generous piece of cardboard surrounding it." Right, you can see that I have cut a whole measuring the
 same size of the lid into the top of the cardboard "nest."

Left and Center, "Now push the lid opening and it's attached backing through one side of the container's lid.
Right, the opening of my Nest Box is neat, clean, and ready for decorating.

Left, "Now unscrew the lid from the top of the box. Crush the tissue into the shape of a small baby bird and glue
 this to the lid's top. Be careful not to get tape, glue or paper on the inside of the lid so that it will continue to screw
 on and off of it's lip properly." Right, "Use glue and making tape to position and secure the plastic egg shells around
the inside of the nest."

       Above is the top of the screw top lid covered with furry brown yarn, a Sculpey beak and real feathers, made to look like a baby bird. I went for a simpler look and opted to leave the beak unpainted this time. In the photographs below you can see the yarn covered box from different points of view as well as a close up shot of the box with the led unscrewed.

More Bird Crafts:

• Crayon Resist Parrots by Children
• How to draw a peacock, an ostrich and a blue jay, step-by-step
• Audubon's Legacy Lesson
• Free Jigsaw Transfer of A Parrot

Easter-Tide by Mary Lowe Dickinson

Easter-Tide

"Life for us is in His dying!"

So our humbled souls keep crying;

While the Lenten tears fall faster

At the grave that shrouds the Master,

Till within that gloomy garden

Shines His presence and His pardon -

Glimpse of Easter glory giving -

Then, "Our life is in His living!"

While He, patient, waits the voicing

Of our triumph and rejoicing;

Filled with our own hearts' devices,

Still we bring our burial spices.

Yet the Love whose taking hallows

Our poor gifts of myrrh and aloes,

Rainbows e'en our tears, and raises

Broken, trembling prayers to praises.

Watcher where His grave glooms darken,

Lift thy shadowed soul, and harken!

Hear the strong, triumphant singing

Of the risen Christ, loud ringing

In glad anthems from the portals

Of the home of the Immortals!

" Sealed no longer death's dark prison -

Christ, the Conqueror, is risen!"

Tarry not to place thy finger

In the wounds where nail-prints linger;

Leave the linen clothes that bound Him;

Sing, with Mary, "I have found Him!"

Be thy mighty love the token

That for thee His heart was broken.

Whom the living Christ hath shriven.

Knows, e'en here, the peace of Heaven.

Death in Christ is dawning gladness;

Life in Christ is robbed of sadness;

Faith in Christ that will not falter

Crowns with Easter bloom His altar,

Decks His shrine in sweetness vernal,

Lives with Christ the life eternal.

Tells in song and chime and story,

All a risen Savior's glory.

An Easter Song

An Easter Song

by Susan Coolidge

A song of sunshine through the rain,

Of spring across the snow,

A balm to heal the hurts of pain,

A peace surpassing woe.

Lift up your heads, ye sorrowing ones,

And be ye glad of heart.

For Calvary and Easter Day,

Earth's saddest day and gladdest day.

Were just one day apart!

With shudder of despair and loss

The world's deep heart was wrung.

As lifted high upon his cross

The Lord of Glory hung,

When rocks were rent, ghostly forms

Stole forth in street and mart;

But Calvary and Easter day.

Earth's blackest day and whitest day,

Were just one day apart!

No hint or whisper stirred the air

To tell what joy should be;

The sad disciples, grieving there.

Nor help nor hope could see.

Yet all the while the glad, near sun

Made ready its swift dart,

And Calvary and Easter Day,

The darkest day and brightest day,

Were just one day apart!

Oh, when the strife of tongues is loud,

And the heart of hope beats low.

When the prophets prophesy of ill.

And the mourners come and go,

In this sure thought let us abide.

And keep and stay our heart,

That Calvary and Easter Day

Earth's heaviest day and happiest day.

Were but one day apart!

While It Is Yet Still Dark...

       Amid the confusion of the early records which tell about the great event which Easter celebrates one thing stands out very clear. No human eye saw the resurrection of Jesus or watched the inscrutable process. The Christian witnesses bore testimony only to the accomplished fact. The change from death to life culminated in the obscurity of the tomb. " While it was yet dark," there came, according to the most philosophical of the Gospels, anxious watchers who found the transformation already complete and the tomb empty. The darkness which shrouded the event is paralleled by the confusion and uncertainty of the conflicting testimony that has reached us. In fact the whole course of Christian beginnings lies shrouded in the mystery of indefiniteness and the shadows of the unknown.

       But all great beginnings are thus conditioned and surrounded. Man becomes conscious of the result long after the causes have apparently ceased to operate. He sees the product after the early stages of the process have receded into the dim past. Only the scantiest remains mark the pathway of early developments, and the highest intelligence is necessary to descry the scraps of evidence and by comparison and imagination reconstruct the methods and movements of these living forces.

       Nestled in the darkness of mother earth the seed takes on the new life which is first observed springing in vigor from the soil. Out of the mothering womb of time has come forth the human race through its various stages, progressing through barbarism, primitive civilization, and the historic era.

"Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark..."
Empty Tomb drawing from Christian Clip Art Review.

       Since man began to think upon the past he has evolved unnumbered theories of his beginning, and still to the most instructed the early stages in each onward course of development must be approached through a twilight that ends in darkness. The rude beginnings of his culture are buried beneath the rubbish heaps of time. The institutions of religion, home and government we know only in their higher forms. Language, art and thought can be studied in their monuments alone. The keenest and most critical investigations have only partially revealed the successive steps of Hebraism and the founding of Christianity. Those centuries in which directive forces were forming the incipient movements which have culminated in what we call western civilization are often termed the Dark Ages. On the whole we must conclude that the great forces operating in society and in life conceal their most significant phases, those phases which carry the greatest import for the future, from the contemporary eyes of men. We cannot " look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not." While it is yet dark the great movements of the future are being planned and the first steps toward the realization of the plans are being taken.

       Around us at this Easter time the darkness and confusion of human affairs are almost beyond parallel. A crisis in history has, no doubt, been reached. We seem to see not only the disruption of international and national life, but the clashing ideals of races, the spread and deepening of hatred and strife, the failure of human capacity for organization to hold in check the elemental passions and aspirations of mankind, and even the breakdown of Christianity itself.

       Nevertheless, the seeds of a new and grander future have doubtless been already sown. The ways of nature and human development lead us to expect that this is so. Life is positive, death is negative. The breakup and sloughing off of the old and outworn may appear as the darkness of dissolution, but the stirrings of a new life to result in a higher order are scarcely to be apprehended until the growth directed by the Unseen Mind has brought some reorganization out of the old chaos." Out of the cradle endlessly rocking " come the strength and wisdom that shape and advance the world's destinies. The patient, brooding spirit of man, inspired by hope and faith in the Divine Order, will yet bring to power and dominion the living principles of international brotherhood and service now obscured in the bitterness and darkness of war and racial strife. Future generations will surely say: "While it was yet dark" we discerned the birth throes of a new world order. by Charles E. Hesselgrave

• From The Village Church -  Racial Reconciliation - Matt Chandler, Racial Reconciliation - Anthony Moore,  Racial Reconciliation - Beau Hughes

I loved them so,

That when the Elder Shepherd of the fold

Came, covered with the storm, and pale and cold,

And begged for one of my sweet lambs to hold.

I bad Him go.

He claimed the pet-

A little fondling thing, that to my breast

Clung always, either in quiet or unrest-

I thought of all my lambs I loved him best,

And yet- and yet-

I laid him down

In those white, shrouded arms, with bitter tears;

For some voice told me that, in after years,

He should know naught of passion, grief or fears,

As I had known.