Feast Icons

We are newish to Orthodoxy, and while I would like to buy lovely mounted icons for each feast, it just isn't in the budget right now. I have looked through several sites to find the highest quality icons for each feast (and several just to go with Lent) that are available and open sourced on the internet. I'll keep looking, but these are most of the feasts (still looking for Nativity and Resurrection). I tried printing them at home, but they didn't look great. I put them on a flash drive and took them to Staples, and they were 69 cents each and look amazing. Their paper is higher quality than what I have at home, so I didn't even have them use cardstock. Then I went to Dollar Tree and bought 15 matching 8x10 frames and trimmed them to fit. I hope to buy nicer ones through the years, but these work well for what I need for now. I'm also planning on printing the hymns that go with them and displaying them next to the icons through the year. I thought I'd share the ones I found in case anyone else found it helpful. Some of these are better than others, but the one for the Annunciation is just lovely.

Resources for Lent

I liked having the Jesse tree to mark time through the nativity fast, and thought it would be nice to have something similar for Lent.  I've gathered readings for each day that take us through the life of Christ, and Saints that go with the days coming up also.  I hope it helps you.  These are more simple drawings-I just didn't have as much time to really work on them, but hopefully I will be able to replace them next year.  Pinterest has many ideas for Jesus Trees for Easter, from hanging them like ornaments on a tree to taping them on the wall.  

Advent Resources

I had a hard time finding things I could use with the girls for advent, so I'm working on my own. It's definitely a work in progress, but I'm starting a binder where everything is broken down by day so I'll be more likely to use it! That means crafts, snacks, information about saints, and the readings for the Jesse tree. There aren't too many that are Orthodox and 52 days, so here's what I've come up with. I will surely tweak it as I go, and feel free to let me know any revisions that need to be made! I'll add links to crafts and recipes we are using this year as we get ready to do them, and I'll put up the rest of the things I am working on soon. Here's a simplified Akathist to the Nativity of Christ. It is a beautiful prayer, but was way too complicated for my girls. This one is 7 pages if you're printing. *added note-I did send this to two of our priests first and they approved the wording!* I wanted information on Saints to read through the season. This is, of course, not even close to all of them, but it is a good number of saints and feast day information. I got the idea from manymercies.blogspot.com, which is a wonderful site, though I did my own so that I could put them in the order I wanted them. This file is around 70 pages. I also wanted all the readings matched up to our Jesus Storybook Bible (which is not Orthodox, but we really like) and broken down by day. This was really a cut and paste job, so I know it'll need cleaning up. It is a large file, over 100 pages. And lastly, I couldn't find any simple Jesse ornaments that had all 52, so I drew them myself. They are not nearly perfect, and they are NOT in order (sorry). But, they're functional. There are also a few saints at the end because my paper had extra circles. Feel free to use any of these materials in a non-commercial way for your kids or Sunday school kids, etc.

I hope you enjoy these materials!

Welcome

Welcome.  I'm hoping this space becomes a place to add the Orthodox resources I've made for kids so that anyone can use them.  We're new-ish to the church and are preparing for chrismation in the relatively near future.  We have three girls who are currently 4, 6, and 8.  I hope these materials help others looking for material.  Thanks for stopping by!