A Year of Printable Garlands to grow in God’s love

A Year of Printable Garlands to grow in God’s love

Bring joy to your decor all throughout the year!

Would you and your family like to have a bundle of sweet and simple crafts ready to make to celebrate all year long?

In celebration of Sparkles and Sprinkles turning 3 this year, we put together a bundle of our holiday garlands we hope you will enjoy.

When our family started our little homeschool learning blog 3 years ago, our signature printable became garlands (we are not sure what inspired this, but we just kept thinking of ideas for more…). Our first one was a Valentine “Love is…” garland with scripture from 1st Corinthians. Each of our garlands has a message of God’s love. What a gift it is to have visual reminders in our home of how much God loves us!

For the first time ever, we have created a bundle (at a big discount) of all of our holiday garlands. Now you don’t have to pick and chose which garland you might like, you can download the whole bundle at once, and have it ready to print as each holiday arrives. The bundle includes Valentine’s Day (in French and English), St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

The garlands are easy to put together with simple supplies (cardstock, hole punch, scissors, and ribbon or yarn). All of the garlands are digital downloads, so you can download them all at once, and print them as needed, year after year. Most of the garlands have room for personalization, giving you and your family a joyful opportunity to gather around the table and color and talk together.

We hope you and your family will enjoy these garlands just like Kristine, who said in her review:

“I absolutely loved this. This is perfect for families, individuals, Sunday schools , children, and adults.” 

The 3rd Anniversary garland bundle includes the following garlands:

Individual garlands are normally $3.99, but the bundle has a special discounted price. The entire holiday garland collection is only $12.99 (likely less than buying just one store-bought garland). Plus, until February 14, 2025 the garland bundle is an extra 10% off (no code needed).

Wishing you and your family so much joy all throughout the year, with sweet reminders of God’s abundant love!

Blossoms on the sidewalk: a little reflection on creative messes

Blossoms on the sidewalk: a little reflection on creative messes

If you happen to be stopping by Sparkles and Sprinkles, it probably means that you are the parent of creative children, who might just make some creative messes sometimes, or perhaps you are the creative culprit making (and leaving) messes, as I am too.

So, though Sparkles and Sprinkles is not normally a place for reflective articles, we are posting one today… 

A few weeks ago, I happened to have the chance to take a walk by myself on a beautiful spring day. As I walked along the sidewalk, I found myself delighting in walking through an abundance of pink apple blossoms, which had fallen on the sidewalk from the beautiful tree above. I silently thanked God in my heart for this gift of fluffy pink blossoms I was walking through on the sidewalk.

A few days later, it was Saturday cleaning day in our house, and as I sat down drinking some tea, and having a little prayer time after breakfast (getting ready for the tasks of the day ahead), those blossoms on the sidewalk floated into my mind.

One of the ways we are made in the image and likeness of God is that we love to create, just like God does.

It occurred to me that one of the ways we are made in the image and likeness of God is that we love to create, just like God does. God is so abundant in his creation: not just one blossoming tree, but many; not just a few blossoms on each tree, but an overwhelming beautiful abundance of blossoms. With this abundance of creativity comes what one could call “a mess.” But in fact no one would think of an abundance of pink blossoms on the sidewalk as a mess, but rather, just a beautiful sign of spring.

Of course God does have a plan for picking up this “mess” – the wind eventually blows it away, or it’s washed by the rain, or perhaps even swept away by someone in a nearby house as the yardwork is done. However, it’s usually not cleaned up instantly, and as it lingers on the sidewalk, no one worries. And perhaps, others, like myself, even delight in the “mess” of blossoms.

So as I sat sipping tea and reading the Mass readings in my Magnificat, it occurred to me that I could think of the messes strewn around our home like blossoms on the sidewalk. Yes, they would have to get picked up eventually, but as they sit there, they don’t have to be considered as an eyesore, but rather a sign of the springtime of the creativity of our children.

Yes, the messes would have to get picked up eventually, but as they sit there, they don’t have to be considered as an eyesore, but rather a sign of the springtime of the creativity of our children

Since that morning, I have been trying to look at the messes, take a deep breath, say to myself, “Blossoms on the sidewalk,” and then more kindly and patiently figure out a pick up plan. So…

Paper scraps, glitter, and marker caps all over the floor… deep breath… blossoms on the sidewalk.

Legos all over the floor… deep breath… blossoms on the sidewalk (if only they felt like blossoms when stepped on, oh well!)

Hair binders and Barbie accessories strewn on the rug and down the hallway… deep breath… blossoms on the sidewalk.

Flour dust and batter drippings lingering on the counter… deep breath… blossoms on the sidewalk.

Admittedly, sometimes I’m the creative mess-maker… so, candle making supplies all over the counter, and the sewing machine still not put away, surrounded by scraps of fabric and pieces of thread… deep breath… blossoms on the sidewalk.

Praise God for the gift of being made in His image and likeness, and for the gift of creativity He planted in us. Creative work sometimes leaves trails of messes… no worries, just more beautiful blossoms on the sidewalk. Delightful. Beautiful. Creative.

– Written one morning on scraps of paper with a dull colored pencil, as a pen could not be found, and opening the computer sounded unappealing.

 

 

Ready to sprinkle some blossoms of creativity? We have some ideas for you…

Click here for our

craft tutorials.

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kid-friedly recipes.

Thanksgiving Hymn Garland – to color and create

Thanksgiving Hymn Garland – to color and create

Decorate your home for Thanksgiving with this fun craft the whole family can enjoy making together!  You can download our FREE printable, or you can simply let the idea inspire your own creation.  And if you would like book recommendations for some cozy Thanksgiving reading time, keep reading for some of our favorites at the end of this post… Cranberry Thanksgiving, Balloons Over Broadway, Fletcher and the Falling Leaves, and The Lion and the Bird.

thanksgiving Christian banner

The banner has pencil sketch style leaf images overlayed with words from the hymn, “For the Beauty of the Earth.”

As the children colored, we realized that this would be a good opportunity to really look closely at fall leaves… there are often many different colors in each leaf.  

 

Our FREE Thanksgiving place cards coordinate nicely with the garland.  These are so fun for children to write on and color to make your guests feel welcome!  Click on the image to get your FREE place card printable.

fall place card
fall place card

If you would like to listen to the song as you create your banner, you might like to try this version by Michelle Swift.

Let’s make a garland…

Print the images on cardstock

Click here to get our FREE printable, and print the images on cardstock.  Some of the leaves have words from the hymn.  Other images have no words.  You can string them together in a pattern you like, using all or only some of the images.  Alternatively, you could draw your own leaves and write the words of your choice.

Color the leaves and pumpkins

Color the leaves and pumpkins.  You may want to look closely at real leaves from your yard for inspiration.  Fall leaves often really have many different colors in each leaf.

Cut out the images.

Some of the leaf shapes are quite detailed.  Don’t worry if they are not cut perfectly.

Punch 2 holes in each leaf/pumpkin

Punch 2 holes at the top of each pumpkin/leaf.  Punching 2 holes, rather than one, helps the shapes to stay facing forward when they are strung on the garland.

String the images to create the garland

Cut a long piece of twine, ribbon, or yarn.  Thread the twine (or ribbon or yarn) through the holes.  Consider the order of the hymn.  Add in wordless images if you would like to.

toddler thanksgiving craft

Toddler tip...

We found it was helpful to print some extra pages that our toddler could have all to herself.  She was quite proud of her own little banner (we love it too)!  These Melissa and Doug toddler scissors help make cutting safer.

If you enjoy making this garland, and would like to make one for another holiday (including Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, and the 4th of July), you can find other garland printables in our little Etsy shop.

Our favorite books for a cozy fall and Thanksgiving family reading time…

(The book images are Amazon links if you are interested in finding out more about the books.)

Fletcher and the Falling Leaves is a sweet story about a little fox who is so concerned about the leaves that fall from his tree, but then comes to learn of the beauty of the changing seasons.  The illustrations are adorable!

With Melissa Sweet’s illustrations, Ballons Over Broadway is a joy to read!  The book tells the story of the beginnings of the Thanksgiving Day Parade.  We had fun making balloon puppets and having our own little parade after reading this book.

Cranberry Thanksgiving is a classic with some sweet lessons about forgiveness, hospitality, and not judging others from the outside.  We first learned about this book years ago when doing a 5 in a Row reading program, and have read it every year since then at Thanksgiving time. 

The Lion and the Bird is a beautiful story of friendship and care for others.  This book has very few words, and the pictures tell a sweetly slow-paced story.  A beautiful book to look at over and over again.

Note:  Some links on this page are Amazon Affiliate links.  Sparkles and Sprinkles is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Other links may or may not be affiliate links.  We provide links because we have found these products or services beneficial, and we think you might too.

French Advent Calendar

French Advent Calendar

Join us to learn French Christmas words this Advent season!  We have a variety of activities prepared for you to learn Christmas words in French as we wait for Christmas – an Advent calendar, printable mini-books, fun vocabulary practice pages, and audio to hear the words!

We know Advent is a busy time, so everything is simple to use.  Just print and learn a French word each day.  Have fun!

Our printable Advent calendar is available on Etsy.  This calendar features a Christmas tree with spaces for 24 stickers that become the tree’s ornaments.  Each space on the tree has a word in French.  The printable sticker “ornaments” have adorable images of many Christmas related words.

You can find the Avery sticker sheets here.  The printable stickers are sized for 94500 Avery 1″ stickers.  If you prefer not to get the stickers, the ornament images can be printed on plain paper, cut out, and glued on the tree. To easily cut perfect circles from paper, you could use this ek 1″ circle punch.

If your family is brand new to French, keep scrolling down.  We have recordings of each of the Advent calendar words so that you can easily listen and repeat to learn the words.

 

French vocab Advent calendar

We also have several FREE printables to go along with our French Advent calendar!

4 FREE Mini books with all 24 Christmas words found on our Advent calendar.  Each book can be printed on one piece of paper and then easily folded into a mini book.  Watch our quick video to see how easy this is.  (The book with images comes with the Etsy Advent bundle.  The free book has only words, and is meant to be illustrated with your own creativity.) To learn the pronunciation of the words, check out the clickable audio files at the bottom of this post.

4 different FREE vocabulary practice activities to practice all of the Christmas words:  a tracing page, a word search, a matching page, and an illustration page.

French Advent Calendar

Click on the play button below the images to hear how to say the words in French.

Ready to get the Advent Calendar and start learning French for Christmas?  Click here.

Joyeux Noël!  Merry Christmas!

Would you like to celebrate other holidays French style too? Check out our posts for

Saint Nicholas Day, Santons de Provence, La Chandeleur (February 2), and Saint Valentine’s Day…

Note:  Some links on this page are Amazon Affiliate links.  Sparkles and Sprinkles is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Other links may or may not be affiliate links.  We provide links because we have found these products or services beneficial, and we think you might too.

Easter Egg Garland Craft

Easter Egg Garland Craft

It seems we’ve started a little tradition at Sparkles and Sprinkes…holiday garlands to remind us of God’s love.  (Perhaps you made the “Love is” garland or the “Saint Patrick’s Prayer” garland?)  For this Easter season, we made an Easter hymn garland!  Would you like to make one too?

Catholic Easter Garland

This Easter garland has words from the Easter hymn, “Jesus Christ is Risen Today.”  For us, this song brings back sweet memories of meeting with our Making Music Praying Twice group when our oldest children were toddlers.  Making Music Praying Twice has a beautiful version of this song that young children love to sing…and children naturally have so much sweet Easter joy!

Let’s make an Easter egg garland!

These instructions show making a printable version of the garland, available in our Etsy shop.  Our garland is hand-lettered and ready to color!  The garland on Etsy has illustrations to go along with the song verses, plus blank eggs so that you can be creative and add your own drawings.  However, you can make your own in a similar way.  Simply cut egg shapes from cardstock, write verses from the song on some eggs and decorate some eggs with your own drawings.

Print the pdf or draw your own eggs

Print the eggs from our Etsy shop on white cardstock, or pastel cardstock in colors of your choice.  We used white Astrobrights cardtock.

easter garland coloring page

Color the eggs

Color your eggs with colored-pencils, or crayons, or markers.  We think the Botanical Garden colored-pencil set from Prismacolor has a perfect palette for this Easter garland.

Easter egg garland

Cut out the eggs

You can cut slightly outside the black line if you want to have the outline in your garland (our pictures show this option).  If you do not want the egg outline, simply cut slightly inside the egg outline line.

Punch 2 holes at the top of each egg

Punch two holes next to each other at the top of each egg.  We used a standard 1/4″ hole punch.  It is important to punch two holes so that the eggs will face forward when strung on the ribbon or yarn.

String the eggs onto ribbon or yarn

To determine the length of ribbon or yarn, decide on the length you would like the garland to be and add some extra (keep in mind it is easier to cut off extra than to have to restring a garland that is not long enough).   If you are using all the decorated eggs (a total of 18 eggs), the garland nicely spans a fireplace mantel.  If you used a standard ¼” hole punch, we recommend ¼” wide ribbon, or chunky yarn.  This size fits nicely in the holes and allows the eggs to stay in place with the spacing of your choosing along the ribbon or yarn.

Catholic Easter Garland

Decorate your home

Hang the garland in a place in your home to add some extra Easter joy and reminders of God’s love!

HAPPY EASTER!

If you are looking for some Easter basket treat ideas, scroll down for some books we love that might also make nice Easter gifts…

Do you want to do your own hand-lettering?  We love practicing hand-lettering with this beautiful book:  Pretty Simple Lettering by Whitney Farnsworth.  It is such a joy, and brings so much calmness to the day to spend some time with this book.

If you are still looking for Easter basket treats, we wanted to share with you some of our favorite Easter-themed books…

Jan Brett’s The Easter Egg is full of beautiful illustrations, and the story has a sweet message that everyone has unique talents.  Wonderful for your budding artists!

Our children love Rechenka’s Eggs by Patricia Polacco.  Lovely Easter egg art, and a beautiful message of friendship and the importance of caring for others.

Margaret Wise Brown’s The Golden Egg Book is just so fun!  Little children love reading this over and over again.

We love Maite Roche’s books with such sweet illustrations!  The Beautiful Story of the Bible is of course for any time of year, including Easter. 

Note:  Some links on this page are Amazon Affiliate links.  Sparkles and Sprinkles is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Other links may or may not be affiliate links.  We provide links because we have found these products or services beneficial, and we think you might too.