Ramadan Decorations, part two

Phew, these past two days have been nuts over here. I mean really, it's so hot we can hardly get out and either we get cabin fever, ironically in the desert, or the kids overdose on TV time. I'm trying to get them more involved in other things like these crafts, reading stories working on their second language, practicing the piano. But being in the house all day is just one big bummer-palooza. I'll take them out tomorrow for a nice meltdown and hopefully they will be happy back at home again haha. So back to my post. I left off with some Ramadan crafts. I had cut out some shapes from clay while my kids were asleep, which was an awesome idea because one: when they tried to cut shapes out they were discouraged quickly and two: when they wanted to move on to painting, my pieces were dry and ready.   This post has a ton of pics; enjoy!

The three colors I gave the kids to use were apple barrel in pumpkin orange,americana in turquoise blue, and apple barrel in bright yellow.

 The shapes dried perfectly by morning and were ready to paint. I made two big crescents and stars for my two older boys and a bunch of little ones for fun. There was left over clay that I ended up using to make two mosques, three "z's" in different font styles for each of the boys, and the last bit of clay was getting too dry so I rolled them up into ball shaped pendents. You can find those in later pics.

The kids had fun making pretend mustaches and beards. Boys will be boys haha! 

I laid down paper to protect the already damaged table, (hopeless case, but a facelift awaits this diamond in the rough) and tried to organize everything so the kids wouldn't get frustrated. 

Z3 was thrilled even though he could barely get a few strokes on his little star....

 ...but found his true passion in body art. Caught ya!

A helpful tip for kids and adults alike in creating perfect dots is using the end of your paint brush, dipping it in the paint and ...

 ...voila! You have perfect dots! It's really hard to use the brush end unless it's brand-spankn'-new. Mine  are pretty much at the end of their life!

 I tried to make some mini ebru art (o:

 I tried a couple methods, first I tried putting small dots of paint and swirling it around with a toothpick.

 Then I tried swirling the paint in the plate and simply dipping the ornament in it. They both worked, but the toothpick was faster, cleaner and I wasted less paint that way. 

I mentioned earlier that the last bit of clay was getting too dry. It's important to note when working with air drying clay, you have to talk to your kids about your ideas and plan ahead. There isn't much wiggle room for trial and error because this is not play dough and it will start to dry quickly. My kids, like any other kid, didn't get it and formed and reformed and formed some more the last bit so instead of throwing it out, I made little ball shaped pendents. If you have left over clay you want to save for another time, make sure to place it in a air-tight zip-lock and you're good to go.

Also another helpful tip, make sure not to roll your clay too thin. If you do, the ornament will start to warp like the "z" below when you paint it. Also, my 4 year-old loves to glop on paint on everything. While I don't like to assist my kids too much with their projects I did have to keep Z2 in check since his ornament was getting soft (and eventually broke) from too much paint. Luckily I glued it back together and it was good as new.

 This ornament was thicker and had no problem keeping it's shape. It's a cursive "z" I made for the baby, Z3.

Two out of three "z's" and  two mosques. I used my xacto knife to cut those out freehand. 

Three "z's" and two mosques.

Sorry for the poor quality photos, my rebel died on me, it's being fixed (pray for it) and ALL these pics are iPhone pics. I know, the shame I've brought to blog-land.

The 'gold' chain links are made up of fake wedding rings. I had them from a bridal shower I helped host, and I've wanted to throw them out for years. Luckily they came in handy. It's always a great idea to look around your house and see what random stuff you have that would make for cute decoration.

Well that's that for my first phase of decorating. I might do a couple more things before we head back home for a visit! I'm soooooooooo excited, I'm counting the days. Just not so excited about the airport, and being harassed. What can I say? A right of passage, I guess, to being a true American? 

I hope you liked this post and I would love to hear what you have planned for your home. Leave a comment below. And if you don't celebrate Ramadan, please tell me what you do to make your special holiday extra special for you and your family! Thanks for stopping by!



-Debora