Napkin Roses for Mother's Day

I had the huge honor of teaching Sunday School for several years at Grace Baptist Church in Eureka, CA.  I still miss the kids there very much.  They challenged me to find different ways to challenge them every week. It wasn't just about learning the Bible.  It was about applying those lessons to everyday and helping them to become witnesses to the World.

Of all of the lessons I taught, I only repeated one.  This lesson I repeated every year on Mother's Day.  The lesson changed from year to year in content, but the basis was the same:  Finding Ways to Celebrate Mom.  The Bible tells us to "Honor your father and your mother so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you." (Exodus 20:15).  This is the fifth of the Ten Commandments of God.

God gave us a lot of rules in the Bible, but for Him to have made "Honor your father and your mother" one of the Ten Commandments, and for it to be the first of the Commandments that have a promise attached to it  - well, it stands out.  Our parents came before us.  They learned lessons ahead of us so they could teach us and we (hopefully) won't need to learn the same lessons the same ways they did.  This is a fact that demands respect.

In America we set aside one day a year to celebrate our Mother (Fathers get their own day in June, but this isn't about them).  I want to make it very clear that "celebrating" them should not be confused with "honoring" them.  We should "honor" them (as a person) everyday.  We don't need a special day to do that.  No, Mother's Day is about celebrating her "mom-ness".  What makes her a great mom?  Why did God give you the mom He did?  It is a day to thank her for being your mom, and apologize for forgetting to thank her every other day of the year.

To go along with the lesson I always included the same object lesson/craft:  the Napkin Rose.  This is a very simple craft, but it means so much when the meaning behind it is explained.

Pretty much everyone knows that flowers have meanings.  Colors matter in conveying the message you want to deliver.  Yellow rose = friendship, pink rose = puppy love or infatuation, red rose = passionate love.  However, on Mother's Day, two of these colors take on a different meaning.

I learned this lesson as a young adult, attending a Mother's Day brunch at the Elks Lodge.  My father presented my mother and my grandmother with two different colored roses.  My mother wore a red rose on her blouse, my grandmother wore a white rose.  I leaned over and asked my mom why my father got her a red rose when her favorite color was yellow.  My grandmother was the one who answered.  "Your mother wears a red rose today because the mother she honors is still here on Earth.  I wear a white rose because my mother is no longer here."  

Those words struck me then, and then struck me even harder several years later when I gave my mother her first white rose on the day I wore my first red rose.  It was my first Mother's Day, and her first Mother's Day without her mother.  That was also the first year I presented this Object Lesson.

I found the idea on You Tube (ironically it was a video of a guy trying to impress girls by making roses out of cocktail napkins, but hey, whatever works).

 

 

 Literally all you need is a red or white napkin (cocktail napkins work best) and tape (floral tape works best).

Lay the napkin out flat and tightly roll one entire edge between your fingers.  Only roll about 1/8 of an inch worth.  Just enough to give it a "curled" look.

Flipping the napkin over, roll the napkin into a loose pinwheel tube.  Make sure the rolled edge is rolling out and not in.

Pinch the tube about two inches from the top and start a tight twist all the way down to create the stem.

Wrap the stem in floral tape.  Pull the petals slightly to open up the rose, and - Viola! - you have yourself a Napkin Rose ready to give to your mother (or grandmother, aunt or mother-figure in your life).

First-time Finger Painting

Recently for Mother's Day, my sister (Dude, she's always trying to make me look bad, lol) gave our mother a canvas and magnet of my niece's finger paint art.  My niece is 14 months old and it was adorable.

It also made one glaring point obvious. My boys, who are 5 and 2 1/2 years old, have never, ever, finger painted.  I don't know why.  My brother even bought AJ finger paints for Christmas when he was 3.  Of course if you want AJ to use anything that might require him to be outside, Christmas is not the time of year to get it for him, as his asthma usually prevents outdoor activities in winter.

You might ask why I won't let them finger paint inside.  Two words sum it up: "rental deposit".  The last thing I wanted was to get finger paint in the carpet.  Of course now that we have been here for nearly five years I realize that the carpet is going to have to be replaced anyway.  This still didn't prevent me from using the fairly temperate weather outside as an excuse for their first experience.

While they were napping I wrapped the easel in parcel paper (and priority packing tape).  I metered out the paint in plastic cups and set the easel outside.  Once they were up I had them don just pants and head outside to start the fun.

At first I had to encourage them to dig in, but they got the idea pretty soon.  Both enjoyed it immensely.

Idea for next time:  the Crayola Washable Finger Paint is more gel than paint.  It made it hard to do hand prints and to mix colors.  So next time I'll stick with standard tempera paint.