Sandpaper Printed Ramadan Pillowcase

I wanted for the boys to have something special that was theirs though out Ramadan. I had pinned this craft awhile ago and felt that it would work.

The instructions are from AlphaMom.com.

MATERIALS

1. Sandpaper (I taped two for one pillowcase), pillowcase in light colours, design – any words needs to be in mirror image, crayons, newspaper, iron.

STEPS

2. Tape two pieces of sandpaper with some tape on the smooth side. Using a printed image for guide, trace Ramadan greeting onto the sandpaper.

At this point I let Ilyaas (7) and Zakariyya (5) design their own pictures. Ibraheem (11) did his own thing.

3. Once you are happy with the design. Place some newpaper into your pillow case so that the crayon does not bleed through. Place the crayon coloured sandpaper face down onto the pillowcase and iron.

These are our designer Ramadan pillowcases.

 

 

Tin Punch Lantern (Fanoos)

This was a craft inspired by the art of tin punch. This is a kid friendly version for Ramadan.

Materials

1. Pie tin, design to punch that fits into pie tin, paper piercer (or push pin), sticky tape and a battery operated candle

Steps

2. Cut out the design to fit into the pie tin and tape it down.

3. Pierce holes following the design, space out holes evenly. Remember to protect your work surface.

4. Tape the battery operated candle to the inside of the pie tin.

5. Add any other decoration to the other side of the pie tin. In our case we added some star stickers and pipe cleaners around the rim. This way it will look nice during the day as well.

These were made by Ilyaas & Zakariyya

This was pirced by me and I placed a large battery operated candle behind it.

 

6. Hang up and enjoy your lantern (fanoos).

NOTE:

This craft is designed for the pie tin to be hung or placed up againts a wall or other flat surface. The light from the candle will fill up the space between the tin and the wall and illuminate the punched design. It will not work as well if you are planning to just randomly hang it up without enclosing the back of the tin.

 

 

Ramadan Lego Word Art

This was put together by the little Lego fans in our home.

 

Ramadan Calendar 2014/1435H

Ramadan Mubarak!

Alhamdulillah, I finally made some time to share the crafts we have done so far this Ramadan.

This is our Ramadan countdown calendar for this year. It is sits on a cabinet in our main living area.

It is just a branch of a tree that I decorated with some stars and glass lantern.

The treats and little gifts are wrapped in napkins with star motifs on them. I hung the smaller packets on the branch and placed the larger ones in a star shaped basket.

The Ramadan word art was made by Ibraheem last year. I mounted it onto a frame to make it look more complete. The instructions for the word art can be found here.

 

 

Laser Cut Frame Ramadan Decoration

This was another project by Ibraheem (10). It is quite straight forward.

Materials

1. Die cut wooden frames (available here in Canada from Michaels) or any other frame.

2. Paint to decorate the frame. We used acrylic paint.

3. Coloring sheet printed onto a transparency sheet.

NOTE: We used transparency sheet as we were going to hand this by our front door and it will be exposed to the elements.

4. Permanent markers to colour in.

Steps

1. Colour and decorate frame. Embellishments would be great too.

2. Colour the coloring sheet using markers.

3. Attach coloring sheet to the back of frame with some transparent sticky tape. Hang up, enjoy.

This piece generated a lot of conversations with people who showed up at our door through out Ramadan. Courier guys, people collecting donation, neighbours. We chose this particular coloring sheet as it showed the phases of the moon in a month. It is from Education.com.

Also to give you some idea of dimensions, our frame had an opening of 14×10 inch. It had to be large as it was by our front door. The colouring sheet is letter size. I was able to attach it horizontally across the frame that hung vertically. Due to being on a transparency, it gave the image a sort of floating feel.

 

Pie Tin Moon Phases Display for Ramadan

This was our moon phases display for last Ramadan. It also served as a sort of count down to Eid.

I used some disposal aluminium pie tins that I usually save for painting projects. Great way to reuse. We added on to the display as the month went by.

To use the pie tin you first have to crush them. The boys had a blast doing this of course.

From this point forward an adult should be handling the crushed pie tin. Using a kitchen scissors, cut the tin into the appropriate moon phase shape. The edges will be sharp. I chose and empty wall to display and kept them high so that my youngest will not be able to touch the tins.

We also would look out for the moon and snapped pictures of the different phases. This was the clearest shot we took. A waxing gibbous moon.

 

I downloaded the entire moon phase calendar for Calgary for the whole of Ramadan and added it to the display. This can be found at http://www.almanac.com under Moon & Astronomy for most cities around the world. This helped the children check the phase of the moon for every day. This was helpful as we did not get to see the actual moon everyday.

Below is our display almost to the end of Ramadan.

 

Click here to see the movie strip moon phases craft we did years ago. I do need to rewrite this!

 

Upcycled Jar Ramadan Lantern

This was an upcycling project.

I used an old juice dispenser. Any sort of jar will work for this project. First I had to clean the jar thoroughly. We decorated the jar with tissue paper shapes. I slathered Modge Podge onto to small sections and the kids stuck tissue paper shapes onto the outside of the jar.

I then inserted the string light through the tap opening (a regular jar will have the light crawling out of it). I spaced out the lights around the interior of the jar with the help of some stick tape. Lastly I printed Ramadhan Mubarak greeting onto overhead projector sheet and attached it to the jar. Plug in and enjoy.

Note:

You can completely omit the tissue paper part. However an empty jar sitting on a table top with string lights in it will look weird during the day. This step will make it pretty for the day as well.

 

 

DATES JAR ~ A Paint Resist Craft ~

The next few post will Insha-Allah be on crafts we made last Ramadhan and never got to share here.

This is a painted jar that we made to keep dates during Ramadhan. It was convenient, practical and pretty to pass around the table.

 

Things you will need . . .

A clear jar. I chose to use acrylic as it was going to be handled by children.

Stickers to decorate the jar. Preferably vinyl sticker so that they do not absorb the paint.

Paint that will cover clear surface and paint applicators.

STEPS:

Decorate the outside of the jar with stickers. We chose to place the word DATES.

Apply paint on all sides of the jar covering the stickers. Depending on yor paint you might have to apply several coats.

Leave to dry overnight. Carefully peel off stickers.

I decorated the lid as well with some paper and the dua for breaking fast.

 

Ramadan Calendar 2013/1434H – Skyline

Ramadan Mubarak to all!

Insha-Allah this is our Ramadan calendar for this year. This was made for Ilyaas (6) and Zakariyya (4). Ilyaas Insha-Allah will be attempting to fast for the first time this year. This is their first ever calendar. Ibraheem (10) opted not to have one, reluctantly though.

This calendar is filled with goodies for both the boys. The numbered package for each day consist two sets of treat for each day.

This is how I put the calendar together.

STEP 1 – Goodies { the building }

Goodies for the calendar

There are about 15 packets that has various toys and crafts items. The idea behind it is so as to the boys have little activities they can do during the day, escpecially since it’s summer holiday over here. I also had a few hygiene items; toothbrushes and shampoo. I used recycled containers to hold the various items.

The other 15 packets consists of edible items – candies and Malaysian jellos. These were filled into tofu dessert containers. I have made an entire Ramadan Calendar using tofu dessert containers in the past.

These treats were then wrapped in plain white paper. I drew windows and doors on each packet.

STEP 2 – The background

Recycled boxes with wrapping paper for background

I used some sides of boxes that I had saved. I used whatever wrapping paper I had. The bottom bit was kitchen aluminium foil, I ran out of suitable wrapping paper.

STEP 3 – Creating the skyline

Attempting to make a skyline

I arranged the 30 packets across to make a skyline. I wanted the masjid to be the centre. I also distributed the goodies and candies evenly.

Once happy with the skyline, attach the packets onto the board.

STEP 4 – Adding calendar numbers and some decorative details

CALENDAR NUMBERS – I got my calendar numbers from here. I placed the numbers with the idea that the masjid pieces will the the last ones to go.

STARS – I added some foam stars for the sky.

Mismatched coloured foam letters painted to match

GREETING – These were foam letters. I had mismatched colours. I painted them to match the background.

Moon phases wheel

MOON PHASES – The moon cycle wheel was from here.

WINDOWS & DOORS – I opted to paint the window and door details at this point.

MASJID -The dome details were from cut out foam.

PALM TREES – These were made using pipe cleaners. You can get the instructions here.

I placed the calendar on a hutch in our living room. The weight of everything and the fact that the background is cardboard does not make it very suitable for hanging. I found out the hard way trying to put it up on a wall :(.

If you want to hang it up, I would suggest using a sturdier material for the background. And maybe super gluing the buildings.

 

Eid Decoration

Our Eid decoration this year was displayed around our fireplace mantel. This was our first Eid in this house and the fireplace in the family room was just the right place for all the decoration to go on . . . I might have started a new Eid ritual for our family 🙂

Decoration for Eid over the fireplace mantel

Below are the details of the different decorations we had put up.

Lego Mosque

Ibraheem (8) made this mosque out of Lego blocks to be put on the mantel.

Eid Topiary

This started out as our good deed tree for this Ramadhan. The instructions for this project is here. The end result was a pretty topiary to be displayed on Eid day. The children we proud of themselves that the tree got filled up with flowers.

Eid topiary

Eid Wreath

This started off as an advent calendar for Ilyaas(4) and Zakariyya (2). The instructions for this is here. After 60 Hershey Kisses, 25 more cloth peg and some painted wooden letters to spell out Eid Mubarak, and Masha-Allah we had an Eid wreath.

Children adding more pegs to the charger plate

We added more peg just to give a more filled up look. I think spacing out the pegs will work too. In total we had 85 pegs.

Eid wreath made of cloth pegs and charger plate

Eid Popsicle Stick Stars

Making popsicle stick stars

This is a great project that Ilyaas(4) and Ibraheem (8) worked on. We used short popsicle sticks for this project. And the way I explained it to Ilyaas (4) was that he had to make letter “V”s.  Every time he made five “V”s, Ibraheem (8) helped him stick them all to form a star. We used tacky glue for this as the regular white glue just was not drying up quick enough for a preschooler to lift the stars and toss them around!

We then smeared glitter glue on the stars and decorated them with some stick on jewels. I also used a crescent moon wooden shape to add a little more Eid detail to the stars.

Eid popsicle stick stars