Foolproof Catholic Craft for the Craft-Challenged

Don’t skip this post! I know, I know. Another crafty post. You’re not crafty, I understand. I’m not either. I’m right there with you. I skip past blog posts about crafts all the time and I don’t normally follow blogs that are big on crafts. Even when they are cool and very Catholic crafts. I am on Pinterest, but I dare you to find anything “crafty” on my boards.

The fact that I’m even writing a craft blog post tells you how easy this craft has to be. Seriously, very easy!! So here’s how this came about:

I had heard of an idea a long time ago of putting holy cards on a key ring as a great Mass toy for toddlers. I wish I could remember where I heard this idea, but it was so long ago I honestly have no idea. But the concept stuck with me. I’ve been on the lookout for the perfect size key rings for two years. I either found really cheap ones that didn’t look like they would hold up in the hands of a toddler or I found touristy key rings that cost way more than I wanted to spend.

This is the problem with me and crafts. I have occasional ideas, but I have no idea what materials are needed to accomplish what is in my head. And even when I have an idea, it takes me forever to find something and I eventually give up.

Then one day I was at the hair salon. I was waiting for my appointment and on the table in front of me were two rings of laminated cards. I picked them up to look at the rings, I really didn’t care about the products being advertised. But the rings reminded me of ones I had seen before, I just couldn’t place them. But I had an idea of where to find them.

Later that afternoon I headed to the dreaded craft store. The store I always feel lost in, it’s like a whole different world in there. I wandered the aisles, up and down, up and down, completely at a loss for where to find these rings. I was about to give up when I decided to check the back corner where the knitting stuff was. I looked down one aisle and saw the little thingys of thread for cross-stitch (my mother was a cross-stitcher, so I at least recognize those items), and that’s when I saw them!! The rings! And not only that, I then knew where I had seen those rings before. My mother used to use them for keeping her cross-stitch thread together. Duh!!

These rings were perfect and I bought a package of two for a whole $2.00. That was it!

Honestly, as stated above, any crafty ideas I get usually get derailed at the point of trying to find materials. So this was a big step forward. [All the actual crafty people are laughing at me. Don’t deny it, I know you are and I’m okay with it.] I’m the queen of the craft-challenged.

Once you have the rings, all you need is some holy cards and a single hole punch. The holy cards were easy and my local Catholic bookstore had a discount if you bought 20 or more cards. Perfect! I hate to admit it, but it took me some time to find a single hole punch (yes, I didn’t already own one).

The rest is easy, totally foolproof. Here’s what I did:

My materials: the rings, some holy cards (I put about 15 cards on each ring), and a hole punch.

Above are my cards with little holes punched in. I did mine in the upper left hand corner, being careful not to punch through any text on the back of the card.

Here’s a good picture of the rings. What I like about these, as opposed to a key ring, is that they pop open easily so you can put all your cards on it and then close them up. My two year old twins were not able to open the ring up either. Another great plus!

My finished products. For my boys I chose mostly male saints with several of Jesus and one of “Mama Mary,” as my boys like to call her. There are a lot of ways you can go with this. I think this would be a great way to keep up with your various holy cards (this doesn’t have to just be a kids thing). You can choose other themes for your cards as well: various Marian images, the Mysteries of the Rosary, Stations of the Cross, and anything else you can think of. One day maybe I’ll have a little girl and I’ll make one of female saints for her.

My boys were fascinated with these at Mass on the Sunday after I finished making them. Mission accomplished!

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