Crafty Moms Share

Sharing Saturday 14-15

Have you entered my current giveaway?

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week!! As always there were so many inspiring ideas! I had a very hard time picking out features this week. I decided featuring 17 of them was a bit too many and cut it down. I love getting to look at them all, and I hope you have had a chance to check them all out. For features I decided to go with the holiday ones: Easter and Passover since both are happening soon. We had a Most Clicked this week from Crafty Journal: Rockin' Peeps.

Some of My Holiday Favorites

1) From Teaching Every Day: Egg Carton Masks
2) From Planet Smarty Pants: Preparing for Passover
3) From Zing Zing Tree: Needle Felt Easter Bunny
4) From Capri + 3: Torn Tissue Paper Decorated Plastic Eggs
5) From Crystal's Tiny Treasures: Washi Paper Easter Egg
6) From Sparkling Buds: Avocado Pit Egg Carvings
7) From From Wesens-Art: Eggs - Owls
8) From From The Mommy Talks: A Variety of Easter Activities (Paper Cup Ascension Craft Pictured)

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog.

Featured Button Code:

From Your Hostess: This week we shared a new version of Beauty and the Beast with West African inspired pictures, Easter in Ukraine and Russia, Easter in France, Portugal and Spain, and a review and giveaway of Dearfoams Summer Fur Slides with information on how purchases can support autism awareness!

Coming next week will be more Easter celebrations around the world and some Easter books and posts plus our post for Virtual Book Club for Kids!

Please enter the giveaway for Dearfoams!

Now for This Week's Party
A Few Simple Guidelines:
1) Please follow Crafty Moms Share via GFC (or one of the other ways that work for you).

2) Link any kid-friendly, child-centered post. Please no etsy shops or giveaways, etc. Remember to link to your actual post.

3) Post the Sharing Saturday button on your sidebar or somewhere on your blog to help spread the word.

4) I would love it if you would follow me on Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest

5) If you do not have a blog, but want to share an idea you can leave it in the comments or e-mail it to me with a picture (if possible).

Disclaimer: By sharing here, you are giving Crafty Moms Share permission to use your photos for features and to pin your craft at Pinterest.

Easter Around the World--France, Spain and Portugal

Today we are going to continue exploring Easter Around the World. Today's stops will be Spain, Portugal and France. Now my first knowledge of Easter in Spain came when my grandparents toured Spain and Morocco at Easter time. They brought back for me a doll which was filled with candy. The doll I had in our doll collection, however it always made me feel uncomfortable, because if you do not know about the Easter celebrations in Spain, it looked like a member of the Ku Klux Klan. It did not help that the doll was wearing a red robe with a white headdress (so red where the picture above is white and white where it is blue or similar to the ones below without the black capes).

Source: By Alessio Damato (Own work) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Now these marchers are called penitents. They represent feeling sorry for any bad acts. They often carry the cross or Jesus on the cross and find it a heavy burden to carry for their sins. In Spain, Holy Week is called Semana Santa. People drape black clothes from balconies and statues of Mary are dressed in black lace. As they are mourning the death of Jesus. There are parades like the one above and people dress up in clothes that were worn in Jesus' time. On Good Friday men take part in Los Tamborados. It is a ceremony where they beat drums to mourn the death of Jesus. Even when the drummer gets tired he does not stop. No candles are lit in the church on Good Friday or Holy Saturday. On Easter a special candle is lit in the churches to symbolize Christ's victory over death. Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny are not a big thing in Spain. For children too young to receive the First Communion, the dessert on Good Friday is mona. Mona is a large bun decorated with colorful eggs. Once a child receives their First Communion, they have more serious things to think of and no longer get the special mona.

Source: By Fun25 (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Source: By Joseolgon (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0],
via Wikimedia Commons

Portugal has a very similar celebration as Spain. On Good Friday crowds gather in town wearing the white hoods as a sign to God they are sorry for their sins. They pray and carry torches. In some parades children carry floats that tell a story from the Bible. In the evening there are Easter fireworks to show light comes out of darkness. The new hope and new life are born. In Braga, there have a funeral procession for the Lord.

Source: By Joseolgon (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

France Source

In parts of France there are similar Good Friday parades. In Sartène, a man in red robes and hood covering his face, called the Red Penitent, carries a cross through the streets (see picture above). He is followed by men in black robes chanting a hymn. This goes on until midnight. In Corsica the penitent repeats the suffering of Christ by carrying a heavy cross. Otherwise Easter or Pâques in French is very similar to Easter in the United States. Children who go to their first confession on Holy Saturday may bring eggs as a gift to the priest. La Semaine Sainte or Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday where people bring branches to church. The decorated branches can be from palm trees or many other types. Palm Sunday is also called Pâques Fleuries or Easter in bloom. In France the children are told that on the evening of Holy Thursday the church bells fly away to Rome. No bells are rung until Easter morning when the bells fly back. The bells drop chocolate bunnies, bells, and eggs for the children to find when they fly back. The chocolate is from the Pope who the bells visited. In some parts of France children look for little chariots of goodies. The Easter Bunny also makes an appearance by hiding little nests that the children make and leave out Saturday night. The children have a great time looking for all the treasures. A game children play in France is to throw raw eggs in the air. The first person to drop one loses the game.

That is our look at Easter in Spain, Portugal and France. I find the similarity of the hooded outfits so interesting. All of my information for this post came from the books shown above and from Euroclub Schools - Easter in France which has some great information about the holiday from a child's perspective. If you live in one of these countries and want to correct or add something about your celebration, please let me know!

For more Multicultural and Easter Posts check out:

Dearfoams Slippers for Autism Awareness -- Product Review & Giveaway

Disclosure: I was sent this pair of slippers to review free of charge from Dearfoams. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to each item for your convenience but do not receive anything if you purchase them. They are also providing a pair of slippers for the giveaway.

You may have read the wonderful post by my good friend, Scarlett. If you did not, please do so. It is so moving and will help anyone be kind and helpful to parents with an autistic child. Well I was contacted by a company representing Dearfoams. Dearfoams has an amazing program going on right now. For every pair of slippers ordered from dearfoam.com this month, they are donating $1 to Autism Speaks. They are willing to donate up to $3,000. Now Autism Speaks is a charity Scarlett holds dear and near her heart. As a result, it is one I hold dear and near my heart as well. So I hope you will go over to Dearfoams and check out their great slippers. They have many fun styles for the summer.

Now they sent me a pair of the Summer Fur Slides in blue for Autism Awareness month. They gave me a few choices, but I liked the blue ones for the month. After all we are lighting it up blue this month. They are so comfortable and soft. They are fun and can be worn outside since they have a rubber sole.

Can you see yourself out by the pool in these? Talk about comfort shoes!! It gets better--they are machine washable!! So if they get some dirt, water or food on them, you can throw them in the washing machine for easy care. Let's face it, as moms we need everything to be machine washable.

My only complaint, which is more about my feet than the slippers, is that I have slightly wide feet and slightly high arches, so they fit a bit tight. I think the fur straps will stretch over time though so that complaint will go away. (However my issues with all shoes will not as a result of my feet--this is why I tend to be in socks or barefoot at home.)

Now I have been affected by autism as a teacher as well as a friend. I consider Scarlett's children like family. I am on the emergency contact list for her son's school, because I am one of the people she trusts with him in an open space. He is what we call a bolter. Now Hazel LOVES to chase him and they play chase all the time, but it can be difficult in an open space. He knows with me to hold my hand, and he is such a sweet boy. My biggest struggle with all of this is trying to explain his behavior to Hazel. He has a very hard time understanding people's emotions. So when he is running away from Hazel for a game of chase and she is laughing is the same to him as when he is running away and she is crying and/or screaming at him. For awhile I used the excuse that he was younger than her, but I knew that would not work forever and thought it was time to try to explain a bit more. Hazel now knows he has a disability. She understands disabilities since she has seen people with different ones. I am not sure she completely gets the lack of understanding emotion cues, but we are working on it. She at least knows if he is doing something she does not like, to come get me or Scarlett to help her. How I deal with Chickadee is to do my best to mimic Scarlett. She is so amazing with him and I just try to copy what she says and how she says it.

This past weekend we had my nephew visiting. Steve and I took him and Hazel to the Science Museum in Boston. Hazel was being her typical slow eater self and the boys had finished lunch. I suggested Steve take our nephew to the gift shop since our plan was for him to choose a birthday gift there since his birthday is a month away. Well a mother and a boy came over and asked if they could sit at our table while it was just me and Hazel. The boy noticed my soda bottle and asked where I got it. He had a cup for soda, but had not seen the bottle. I could tell from how he was speaking and acting he had a slight disability and his boldness definitely made his mother uneasy. I answered him and told him the truth was we didn't know there were cups or we would have gotten those. His mother seemed to relax as I acted like it was completely normal conversation. It is moments like this that I understand more about how Scarlett says our behavior is supportive and how easily it can be to not be supportive. Yes, the boy at the museum reminded me of Chickadee (just in a few years). So I try to remember when I'm out not to judge people by their child's behavior. You do not know what they are going through. Just a friendly reminder.

Now onto our giveaway!! If you want to wait and see if you can win a pair of these fun Summer Fur Slides, enter below. Please follow my Giveaway Rules! Or if you cannot wait (and want $1 of your purchase to go to Autism Speaks) head over to Dearfoams and order your pair!

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Easter Around the World: Ukraine & Russia

Today I am going to share some information I found on Easter in Ukraine and Russia. Since the countries share some similar traditions, I thought I would share them together. Last week we shared Easter in Guatemala. The main thing they share is their beautiful technique for egg decorating. In Russian books I have seen it called pysanky and in Ukraine they call it pisanki.

I know I have not been sharing my Monday Fairy Tales in Different Cultures. I was taking a little break since the truth is I was getting a little sick of Cinderella tales. However I discovered a wonderful version of Beauty and the Beast retold by H. Chuku Lee. The story is pretty much the classical story, however the pictures are beautiful! The illustrations are done with a West Africa influence. The illustrator is Pat Cummings.

The pictures like I said are amazing and it is nice to see a classic story set in a different place. I love that it is a multicultural book. Like in the classic story, Beauty is the youngest daughter and asks her father to bring her back a rose unlike her older sisters who have long wish lists. The father runs into trouble and then is out during a storm. He founds a palace to stay in with invisible staff. As he is leaving the next morning he notices the flower garden and picks a rose for Beauty. The Beast appears and threatens to kill him. He asks to say goodbye to his family before he is killed. The Beast allows this. Beauty insists on returning with her father since it was her rose that caused the problem. The Beast is willing to allow her father to live if Beauty stays in his palace. Beauty agrees to keep her father alive. Over time Beauty becomes to enjoy her dinners with the Beast. The Beast asks her several times to marry him and she always answers no. His servants give her anything she wants from beautiful dresses and jewels to basically whatever she desires as long as she stays. The Beast gives her a magic mirror that she can see what is happening at her home from the castle. One day she sees that her father is sick and she begs the Beast to let her go and see her father. He agrees as long as she returns in seven days. She promises. However while home with her sisters she decides to stay longer then worries that the Beast may be dying since he said this would happen if she did not return. She goes back to the castle and dresses for dinner, but the Beast does not show up for dinner. She runs to the garden to find him collapsed and dying. She tells him he has to live so she can marry him. With that declaration of love, the Beast turns into a handsome prince. Beauty and the Beast are married and her entire family moves into the palace.

The introduction to the book says Beauty and the Beast was first told in 1740 by Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot Gallon de Villeneuve.

Sharing Saturday 14-14

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week!! As always there were so many inspiring ideas! I love getting to look at them all, and I hope you have had a chance to check them all out. For today's features I have two categories. The first is a few of the science posts and the second is the rest of my features.

Science Features

1) From Life with Moore Babies: Spring Into Learning Science
2) From Little Bins for Little Hands: Plastic Easter Egg Races: Exploring Ramps Angles
3) From JDaniel4's Mom: Cool Science Experiment: Making Spider Eggs
4) From Gift of Curiosity: Exploring Glitter Putty

Other Features

1) From the 11 year-old daughter of Blu Lace UK: Her own creation of a scarf (her mother sent me a picture to share with you)
2) From Winegums and Watermelons: How to Make a Rainbow Pinwheel
3) From Life Lesson Plans: Art History Eggs
4) From Bible Fun for Kids: Preschool Alphabet: D is for Disciples of Jesus
5) From A Bountiful Love: Letter of the Week: Dd
6) From Tot Schooling: Egg Carton Recycled Easter Crafts

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog.

Featured Button Code:

From Your Hostess: This week was a busy week as usual and we have my nephew visiting from North Carolina. However we had time to share Easter in Guatemala (come see the sawdust carpets and stay tuned for more countries), April Happenings with our finished sparkling Easter eggs, my first ever guest post -- Autism Awareness -- a must read for everyone, Multicultural Easter Book Round-up and Link Party (help me create a wonderful list of multicultural Easter books).

Now for This Week's Party
A Few Simple Guidelines:
1) Please follow Crafty Moms Share via GFC (or one of the other ways that work for you).

Disclaimer: By sharing here, you are giving Crafty Moms Share permission to use your photos for features and to pin your craft at Pinterest.

Multicultural Easter Books

So with Easter a few weeks away, I thought I would look at some multicultural Easter books. I discovered these are not all that easy to find. Unlike the Christmas books, which I found many multicultural books and divided by race, I only found a few Easter books. As a result I have three new categories: Multicultural Easter books (books with at least one non-Caucasian character), Easter around the world and cultural Easter books. Most of these books I found at our local library network (though some I have not gotten yet and others we have not read yet).

Multicultural Easter Books

1) Celebrations in My World: Easter by Lynn Peppas
2) Emma's Easter by Lisa Bullard
3) Bunny Days by Michael Scott
4) Easter by Miriam Nerlove
5) Let's Celebrate Jesus on Easter by Amy Beveridge
6) Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco
7) Our Easter Book by Jane Belk Moncure
8) Easter Sparkling Surprise by Elizabeth Spurr
9) Painted Eggs and Chocolate Bunnies by Toni Trent Parker
10) Miz Fannie Mae's Fine New Easter Hat by Melissa Milich

Easter Around the World

1) A World of Holidays Easter by Catherine Chambers
2) Celebrations in My World: Easter by Lynn Peppas
3) Easter Eggs for Everyone by Evelyn Coskey
4) Easter Around the World by Shannon Knudsen
5) Easter Traditions Around the World by M.J. Cosson
6) Easter by Cass R. Sandak

Cultural Easter Books

(Note: There are also many books about countries that include a bit about Easter celebrations.)

1) Piccolina and the Easter Bells by Pauline Priolo
2) The Birds' Gift: A Ukrainian Easter Story retold by Eric A. Kimmel
3) Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polacco
4) Tekla's Easter by Lillian Budd
5) Swedish Toys, Dolls and Gifts You can Make Yourself by Ulf Lofgren
6) Eggs Beautiful: How to Make Ukrainian Easter Eggs by Johanna Luciow
7) The Magic Babushka by Phyllis Limbacher Tildes

Have you discovered any more multicultural Easter Books? Please link up the title and author of any I missed here!!

More Easter and Multicultural Things to check out:

My Easter Craft Round-Up

Easter in Guatemala

Multicultural Children's Book Day--Rainbow Stew

Multicultural Children's Book Day--Julie the Black Belt Series

My Easter Pinterest Board

My Multicultural Resource Pinterest Board

Autism Awareness--Guest Blogger

Today I am going to do something I never do! I am having a guest blogger! My good friend is going to talk to you about her own experience of discovering and coping with her son's autism. My friend's son often plays differently than other children his age. One of the unique things he does involves lining items or toys up, something that is common in children with Autism. The pictures below depict some of his "creations" that my friend has randomly stumbled upon throughout the house. Now my friend is an wonderful mother and person and I am always so amazed with how she deals with what life has thrown her way and she does it with grace and style. So without further ado, here is my first guest blogger post.

For April Fools Day, Hazel's school had mismatch day. The principal sent out notices to the families that it would be a day where kids required to wear uniforms, wouldn't need to and all the kids so try to dress mismatched. Hazel loved the idea. To complete the look she wore different shoes as well.

April brings Easter!! We will be focusing on Easter and spring crafts as well as doing some posts on Easter around the world and multicultural Easter books. Yesterday we shared our first Easter Around the World post with the sawdust carpets of Guatemala. We also have done an Easter craft round-up here.

You may remember a few weeks ago we shared some spring crafts from Oriental Trading. One of the crafts was Sparkly Easter Eggs. I finished making all but one of the eggs. I decided to only make one of each how the craft was meant to be done and got creative on the rest. Hazel will be making the last one and I'm leaving it up to her how she wants to do it. I made hearts, crosses, horizontal stripes, spots, and spirals. Then I hung them all in the plant/tree we have in our entry.

Tomorrow is Light It Up Blue for Autism Awareness. I have a good friend whose oldest son recently was diagnosed on the autism spectrum. She happens to be an occupational therapist whose past job (before becoming a stay-at-home mom) was working in an elementary school with autistic (and other disabled) children. She has been asked to start a blog of her own by Autism Speaks. She is in the process of doing it, but first she is going to be my one and only guest poster to help all of us become more aware of autism. I usually do not allow anyone else to guest post here, but I think her insight and information will be invaluable to us all and I trust her completely to post responsibly, so join us tomorrow for lighting it up blue!!

We also have our regular monthly events like Virtual Book Club for Kids and Around the World in 12 Dishes.

April's author for Virtual Book Club for Kids is Denise Fleming! Denise Fleming does the art and words for her books with some help from her artist husband. In her own words:

"My books do not have many words, but I start with hundreds of words—writing and rewriting until I have just the right words to tell the story.(I love strong words, action words, words that convey movement and sound. And I love rhyme.)" Denise Fleming (Source)

So much of her work is the art in the books. They are fun and beautiful!! Have you enjoyed any of her books yet? I hope you will join us April 14th to see what we do with her books!

For Around the World in 12 Dishes we will be exploring Portugal! I hope you join us April 21st to see what exciting foods everyone makes from Portugal and learn a bit about this wonderful country. I will be writing an introduction to the country for the Around the World in 12 Dishes blog.

That gives you an idea of what we have coming up this month!! I hope you will join us!!

Easter Around the World: Guatemala

As Easter is approaching, I started wondering how it was celebrated differently throughout the world. I know every church seems to have its own way of doing it as well as every family, but I wondered what traditions were out there. I have close friends who are Greek Americans and gone through many Easter seasons with them. At some point I will share some of their traditions.

The first thing I discovered is that the different celebrations seem to also incorporate Holy Week. Holy Week is the week starting with Palm Sunday (one week before Easter) until Easter. The special days differ a bit but the major ones include Palm Sunday (the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem), Good Friday (the day Jesus died), and Easter Sunday (the day Jesus rose from death).

Flag of Guatemala

Today we are focusing on Easter and Holy Week in Guatemala. Guatemala is a country in Central America. It borders Mexico, El Salvador, Bolivia and Honduras as well as the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Guatemala has had many different types of government including Mayan rule. It also had a Civil War being fought from 1960 to 1996. Since the Civil War it has had economic growth and elected a new president in 2011. Nearly all of its residents are Christian with only 1% following the indigenous Mayan faith. During Colonial times Roman Catholic was the official religion, but in recent years Protestant religions have been popular with nearly one third of residents being Protestant. (Source)

Source

The first thing that peaked my interest in Easter in Guatemala was a book we found at the library called Sawdust Carpets by Amelia Lau Carling. The book is written by a Chinese woman who grew up in Guatemala. One of her fondest childhood memories was the sawdust carpets or Alfombras de Acerrin made for the parades re-enacting Holy Week or the procesiones. The most famous of these occur in Antigua, Guatemala. The author remembers a trip to visit her aunt, uncle and cousins that lived in Antigua one Semana Santa (Holy Week). In the story she describes seeing the neighbors making the beautiful colorful sawdust carpets and even helping a neighbor with one. The neighbor gives the leftover materials to the children so they can make their own. They design and make one just as the procession is beginning. The young narrator tries to stand in the way of the procession so their special carpet will not be ruined. The neighbor steps in to explain how each carpet is an offering to life. They then watch the procession and see the different floats with statues portraying the story of Holy Week. There are bands who follow each float playing music to set the mood of the float. Overall the day is exciting and sad all rolled into one which seems like a wonderful description of Holy Week to me.

Source: By Municipio de Patzún (Municipalidad de Patzún)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

We also researched some more of these sawdust carpets by reading about Semana Santa in the Fiesta! series Guatemala. This book describes Holy Week or Easter as the most colorful and biggest fiesta in Guatemala with Antigua having the best festival. During this time planting is done and Indians ask their gods to give them a good harvest. The week however is very solemn. The stores close and there are long religious rituals. Antigua was the capital when the Spaniards ruled and the traditions date back to that time, so this is why it has the biggest festival.

To make the carpets, local people make big stencils of birds, flowers, and religious symbols. They first lay down plain sawdust onto the wet ground. Then they use their stencils and colored sawdust to make the designs. They also embellish the carpets with flowers, pine needles, and fruit. To reach the middle of the designs without messing up what is already done they have raised pieces of wood to walk upon. These are made before Good Friday. The procession beings very early. Riders, dressed as Roman soldiers call for the death sentence of Jesus. Floats carry the figures of the Virgin Mary and Saint John as well as the effigy of Jesus. The men who pull the Christ floats are allowed to walk on the stenciled shapes on the street. They wear purple until 3 p.m., the time Jesus died on the cross. They carriers then change their clothes to black until Easter Sunday. Easter Sunday is a day of joy with music and dance. (Source: Fiesta! Guatemala by Grolier International)

Source: GuateRob at en.wikipedia [CC-BY-3.0], from Wikimedia Commons

The largest float requires 80 men to carry it. They are switched every 10 to 15 minutes so the procession can require more than 2500 carriers. Women carry the float with the Virgin Mary on it. It is an honor to be a carrier and often it is passed down through generation to generation of a family. Incense is lite before the procession starts and the streets fill with spectators as well as carriers and smoke and scent from the incense. (Source)

Source: By Jialiang Gao www.peace-on-earth.org (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

The entire procession sounds like a perfect way to celebrate Easter. I hope some day to actually see it. I wanted to do a craft with the idea of sawdust carpets using colored sand, but we have not had time yet. If we do make one, I will be sure to post pictures here. How do you celebrate Easter? What are some of your family's traditions?

For a great first hand experience of the flower carpets in Antigua, check out World Travel Family's post Flower Carpets in Antigua Guatemala.

Be sure to check out:

Sharing Saturday 14-13

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week and to those who went to visit the many amazing posts! I know I was inspired by the many that were shared! Here are a few of my favorites. I have had a crazy week and am getting ready to leave for a religious retreat. I cannot wait for a break. Here are a few of my favorites. Can you tell I can't wait for warmer weather?

I have been a bit absent this week. It has been a bit crazy with helping a friend with a sick child, having a sick child and life in general. I am looking forward to escaping the chaos later today as I join some women from my church and head a women's retreat in Maine. I am only going for one night (and one full day) since I need to be back at church on Sunday and Hazel is having a hard time with me being gone already.

Sharing Saturday 14-15

Easter Around the World--France, Spain and Portugal

Dearfoams Slippers for Autism Awareness -- Product Review & Giveaway

Easter Around the World: Ukraine & Russia

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures: Beauty and the Beast

Sharing Saturday 14-14

Multicultural Easter Books

Autism Awareness--Guest Blogger

April Happenings

Easter Around the World: Guatemala

Sharing Saturday 14-13

Friday Fruit Exploration: Pineapple

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