Happy Birthday to me!

I love my birthday.  And this year the day has started out amazing yet again.  And while I'm still experiencing it, I wanted to share my special day with you by offering a rare coupon code to my Zibbet store.  You are welcome to share my post with your friends and they can also use the same code on their order.

Since it is my annual 29th birthday (despite what my friends and family will try to tell you) the coupon code is 29AGAIN.  Simply cut and paste that when you are checking out. 

You can use it on any one item in the store, but you only have 29 hours to use it.  So head over there and see if there's anything pretty you can't live without. 

If you come over to my house within the next 29 hours, I'll also offer you one of my moon birthday lemon cookies.  But that offer is only limited to availability, and right now I have to say they are moving super fast into my stomach.

Camel Coffee Cozy

Eid Mubarak to all my followers & fans & friends & family.

I know so many of you out there, but especially my brother, have missed your morning coffee.  So today's Ramadan Craft Challenge is dedicated to you.  Those that have braved co-workers coffee runs, driving by 15 Tully's on your way to the mosque, and most importatntly, that big, beautiful lonely coffee pot that has been sitting on your counter.

Go ahead, make that cup.  And give your kids the supplies to make this:

Supplies
Fabric coffee cozy
Camel template
Fabric paint

Take the camel template and place it on your cozy so that you can outline the desing with your fabric paint.

After your camel is done, start decorating your coffee cozy with other designs.

Once you have your design painted on your coffee cozy, lay it out in a sunny spot to dry.

5 Pillars of Islam Wind Chime

My youngest daughter is learning about the 5 Pillars of Islam so I wanted to come up with a craft that would have her seeing them all the time.  I love that she wrote out the 5 pillars herself in her handwriting.

Supplies

Wood beads

Colored Pens

Letter stickers

Pliers

Wood tags

Wood dowel

Floral wire

Our wood beads came with two sets, one that had two holes, and one that only had one hole.  Take the set that has two holes and write out the word ISLAM with your letter stickers.

 On the bottom tags (with only one hole) write out the 5 Pillars with a colored pen.

Using your pliers, make a curl on the end of your wire so your tag does not slip out.  We also put the wire back in after this and twisted it on.

 Take your wood beads and feed them in the other end of the wire.

Once you get to a length you like (we didn't measure anything), slip on your other tags that have the two holes.

Continue to add more beads and when you get to a length you like, twist your wire around your dowel. Cut off about 1/2 inch from the top of the dowel and make another curl in your wire.  Continue to do this with your next four wires.

Take another wire and fold it in half.  Twist it around twice in the middle so that you have a hook for your nail.  Twist the two ends on either end of the dowel.

Your wind chime is done and ready for hanging.  We wanted ours to be an indoor chime so that my daughter can see it daily.  However, if you'd like to make your wind chime an outdoor chime, make sure you put a protective layer of a sealant on the stickers and written words.

 Here is a close up of the two tags in their completed forms:

Eid Mubarak Money Envelopes

I spent the day today making these really cool Eid Mubarak money envelopes to hand out to random homeless people in Seattle this weekend. I do this with my kids as part of our Random Acts of Zakat.

Unfortunately my conversion from a word document to a PDF did not work as well as I hoped. So for now, you'll have to content yourself with what they look like. Insha'allah when I can get my computer hubs to look at it, I hope he can help with the conversion.

UPDATE: We got the PDF conversion to work!  Here is the file and good luck!

Crafting Update - Eid Party Distressed Wooden Sign

Do you ever have one of those days that no matter what you do, nothing gets done?  Yup, we had one today.  We had grand ideas for our Ramadan Craft Challenge, but those grand ideas were just ideas today.  Insha'Allah those ideas will happen for us tomorrow, but in the meantime we did accomplish one thing: the completion of our Eid Party sign!

Please note that despite the warm weather, it took a couple of white coats of paint and several drying periods to get this sign done.  So if you are having a party, make sure to plan ahead and make this sign early.

After the paint finally dried, we used the sandpaper to take off the layer of white that was on top of the Petroleum Jelly.  Since we had added on a few layers, this step took a little elbow grease.

Once the layers of white has been taken off, place your carbon paper on your sign with your Eid Party template on top.  Using your pencil, draw out the letters.  Really push down hard on the paper as you're trying to make a mark on several coats of paint.  Take off the papers and paint your letters green.



Your Eid Party distressed wood sign is done!  You can leave it like this or if you'd like it to last for a long time, you can add a layer of Mod Podge for protection.  We left ours alone so that the elements outside can help a little more with the patina of the wood.

Ramadan Dates Advent Calendar

When you are trying to introduce the concept of Ramadan to children, it's always a good idea to create a calendar of some sort to help with time.  As you know from my Ramadan Craft challenge, I like to make things as easy as possible, with most of the items found from items around your home.  When I finished wrapping up some Eid gifts to donate, I had this paper roll that I knew couldn't go into the garbage.  So we took it and made dates with it for our Ramadan Advent Calendar!

Supplies
Gold spray paint
Scissors
Awl
Pipe cleaners
Long empty wrapping paper roll
Yarn

Spray paint your empty wrapping paper roll gold and let dry.  Cut off about half an inch from the end.  You'll need two of these smaller pieces for each date, so just keep cutting till you get to the end. You should have sixty smaller pieces by the time you finish.

Once your pieces are all cut, put one in the other like the photo below.

Take the awl and punch a hold through the two pieces on one of the ends.

Cut your pipe cleaners in half and then in half again.  Take the small piece you cut out and put it in the hole you just made to go through both pieces.  Bend the end of the pipe cleaner so that it holds inside the date.

Hang yarn on your wall and bend the other end of the pipe cleaner to fit over the yarn.  Every night take off a date to signify that end of the day!

I'm Praying Door Hanger

With three girls in the house, life gets crazy with people coming in an out of various rooms, so it gets a little hard to concentrate sometimes.  I believe that children have a honing device instilled in their bodies when they are born.  When you are cleaning or doing something boring to them, they are lost somewhere in the house.  But as soon as you pick up the phone to call a friend, or finish wudu and get ready to pray, they find you.

So today we made this little door hanger to put on the outside of the door when you need privacy.  Here is how we made it.

Supplies

Hand made paper

Wood door hanging sign

Rub on letters & butterflies

Chalk inkpad

Mod Podge

Sponge brush

Wood stick

Cover the door hanger with Mod Podge and made sure it's light.  Place another layer of Mod Podge on the back of the paper and put the paper on the door hanger.

Tear off the paper from the door hanger.  We also took a little bit of sandpaper to even out the edges.

Use the ink pad to give the edges a little bit of color.

Lay out the rub on letters and butterflies to make sure everything fits.  Use the wood stick to rub the letters onto the door hanger.

We were going to put 'Come In' on the other side, but to be honest, the letters we bought were not that great.  As you can see, the y and the g are missing parts.  This was our second attempt at cutting them out and putting them down.  So make sure you don't use Kathy Davis Glitter Rub on Letters.  None the less, we're going to try other letters for the other side.

Whatever letters you do end up using, make sure to cover the end result with another layer of Mod Podge to protect everything.

I pray this sign might give you a few moments of peace with Allah :)

Eid Party Distressed Wooden Sign

Today's Ramadan craft has been turned into a two part session due to weather.  We got lots of rain today, which means no sunshine, so our paint still had not dried at 10:30pm.  We'll show you all the steps that we got to below, and isA, tomorrow we will finish our sign.

With our upcoming Eid party being held at a community public park, we wanted to have a sign that would point our friends towards our event.  I had come across a website showing distressed wooden signs and thought they looked easy to do.

Supplies
Pre-cut wood plank
Eid Party printout
Petroleum jelly
Sandpaper
Carbon paper
Paintbrushes
Pencil
Brown acrylic paint
Green acrylic paint
Silver acrylic paint
White acrylic paint

Randomly place the brown and silver acrylic paint all over your board, making sure to hit the four corners. Wait for this to dry.

Rub Petroleum Jelly over the board that has either the brown or the silver paint.  Wherever you put the Jelly, will show under your top coat color.

Paint the board white all over.  Wait to dry.

And wait...and wait...and wait...we just couldn't get the paint to dry today as it was a wet, gloomy, icky day.  Tomorrow they say the clouds are to clear, but we'll see what happens. 

Ribbon Moon Door Hanger

With Ramadan so close, we are decorating our home to get ready for the festivities!  Today we made door hangers in the shape of a crescent moon.  This is an easy craft, but some of the little hands might be frustrated with the ribbon, so my oldest is the one that made this particular moon.

Supplies
Used cereal box
Satin ribbon
Glue
Sharpie
Scissors

Draw out your crescent moon on the back of the cereal box.  Then draw another crescent moon inside the first moon.  You'll need each moon to be about an inch apart all the way around.

 As you can see from our photo, it took us several times to get the Sharpie drawn on the cereal box.  If you make a mistake, it will be covered up with ribbon later.  You'll need to cut out both moons from the cereal box.

Put a dab of glue on the back of one of the ends and hold it down on it until it sticks.

Start wrapping the ribbon around the moon shape, going from one end to the next.  It's okay if you need to cut your ribbon on one of the ends and start rewrapping the second side.  We also added more glue as we went, so the ribbon wasn't only being glued on the ends.

When you get to the end, put a dap of glue down to close off the wrapping.  Cut off the excess ribbon.

Here is the detail of our moon. 

Oh, and for those that are curious, yes, I have a chalkboard wall in my studio for my to do, to buy, and to make lists.  My daughters, however, like to come in and draw all over the bottom half.  This week it was a mural of a friendly dragon blowing water on a village to cool it down during a heat wave.  I think they are getting their imagination from a hot, summer Ramadan :)