"I Love the Quran" - 30 Day Craft Challenge

"I Love the Quran" - 30 Day Craft Challenge

Salam! I hope the first week of fasting is has gone well for all of you. It has certainly been a memorable Ramadan for us so far. I adore this month for bringing so much joy, hope, and love into our lives every year. Here is Day 7: today's craft is another extremely easy one with minimal materials, and takes a small amount of time to complete. Regardless of how easy, or simple the craft is, we leave the activity feeling like we accomplished something huge! It's a great feeling. 

This craft requires a little bit of thinking and connection with our Holy Book, the Quran. Traditionally, some families use a wooden stand to place the Quran while reciting. We were told to keep the Quran at an elevation and to keep it protected from dirt and dust. I wanted to simulate this stand, and also express what we love most about this Holy Book. Have a chat with your kids and see what you come up with! I am so grateful for this time we have everyday to bond over crafts that remind us of our Lord and bring us closer to Him, inshaAllah. 

Materials:

• Construction paper (at least two different colours)
• Two "Craft Sticks" - they are not traditional Popsicle sticks, they are flatter and wider (see image below)
• Scissors
• White School glue
• Tape
• Markers

Steps:

1. Cut out a shape of a heart with one of your construction papers (approximately 13cmx13cm for reference) - we used a red paper
2. Cut out a rectangle with the other colour of construction paper about 20cmx14cm - Hadi's was a bit bigger and it still worked out nicely
3. Glue the heart onto the rectangle and set it aside to dry
4. Now take your craft stick and at about the halfway mark, cut out a tiny rectangle - we used regular craft scissors and it worked perfectly
5. Do this on the other craft stick as well (see image below)
6. Cut off the rounded part of the bottom of the craft stick to make it flat (do this for both sticks)
7. Now slide one stick into the other and it should be able to stand on its own
8. We taped each crevice of the stand to make sure it stays sturdy
9. Now your construction paper should be dry - Write the following phrase "I Love the Quran Because ___________________" fill in the blank after having a discussion with your child.
10. Decorate this card however you please - stickers, glitter, gems, stamps, etc. We decided to leave it blank (my kids have a short attention span!)
11. Use the school glue to adhere the card onto the wooden stand, try to keep it as equal as possible so that it doesn't topple when its time for it to stand
12. Further secure this by taping the back (see image)
13. Lift your stand up and it should be able to stand on its own! 
14. If you wish, place your craft where you recite the Quran to bring you inspiration!

These are the supplies for today

Glue your heart shape onto the rectangle

Set it aside and allow the glue to dry

These are the craft sticks we used - something like you would find at a Doctor's office!
We were glad to have found it at the Dollar Store :)

Use regular craft scissors to cut out tiny rectangles in the middle of your sticks

Also, snip off the bottom curve of the sticks to make them flat

Slide one stick into the other

Test it out to make sure it can stand on its own

We taped each side of our stand to keep it in place

Now, work on your card, "I love the Quran because"
Hadi wrote, "...because it is the words of Allah"

Now glue the card onto the top of your stand

Make sure it is positioned in the middle of the card, and apply pressure

Also tape the back of your card to the stand

And there we go!

Here's how they will look after

Hadi put his above his desk

Thanks for joining me once again! I hope this easy craft will find it's way to your home. Please do leave me some feedback in the comments below. See you again soon!

We Pray Towards the Ka'ba - 30 Day Craft Challenge

We Pray Towards the Ka'ba - 30 Day Craft Challenge

Salam crafting family, here's what I came up with for Day 6. Today, this mama was feeling slightly burnt out so I kept the craft super simple. It was a refreshing change and the result was fantastic! The lesson associated with our craft was highlighting the fact that, as Muslims, we pray towards the Holy Ka'ba. I had a chat with them about the origin of the Ka'ba and that it is widely known as the "House of Allah". 

With this craft, kids are able to perform a wonderful art activity (with minimal parental help) and learn an important lesson as well. This activity required some trial and error on my part but I'm quite happy with what we came up with. Scroll down and take a look!

Materials:

• White paper - thick paper like card stock for best results, but any white paper will do
• Streamers, 2-5 colours ideally
• A black square cut out of construction paper (approx 7cmx7cm)
• White school glue
• Scissors
• Something to decorate the Ka'ba (we used gold adhesive paper)
• Hand Sanitizer
• A spray bottle with water inside
• Paint brush

Steps:

1. Set up your streamers on the paper as you wish them to appear on your design
2. In order to hold them down, spray some water through your spray bottle
3. Squirt some hand sanitizer over the artwork
4. Use the paintbrush to spread it all over, making sure that you cover the entire paper with the hand sanitizer (it should appear wet)
5. Set a timer for at least 3 minutes and allow the colours to bleed through
6. Lift up the streamers slightly to see if the colours have spread onto your paper
7. If you are satisfied with the colours, lift up and remove all the streamers and discard
8. Allow the paper to dry (about 15 minutes)
9. Using the school glue, paste the black square onto the paper, representing the Ka'ba
10. Decorate the square with yellow or gold 
11. You may add any text you like on this paper with a marker, or leave it blank
12. If you like, ask your children to keep it with them when they perfom Salaat in order to remind them which direction they are praying towards. 
13. This is such an easy craft, you can repeat it as many times as you like!

Super easy supply list

Start arranging the streamers to make a design

This was Hadi's design

Here's Hani's design

Spray some water to hold the streamers in place

Start squirting some hand sanitzier

It needs to be all wet!

Use your paintbrush to make sure all of the streamers are covered evenly

Make sure you let it soak in for 3-5 minutes

Now the fun part: check to see if the colours are coming through

Lift it all off!

Here's what it might look like

Let this dry for about 15 minutes

Hadi was so happy with the results

We included it in our prayers today and it gave our prayers a new life!

And that's it for today, folks! It's a short and sweet activity that you can do without breaking a sweat. I know its not much but it had a wonderful impact on myself and my kiddos. I hope you are able to do this with your kids. Please post a picture on Instagram if you do - don't forget to tag and follow me @WishfulWaufa. Would love to hear some feedback as well - please comment below! 

"Glory to Allah" Bird Feeder Craft - 30 Day Craft Challenge

"Glory to Allah" Bird Feeder Craft 
Being Kind to Animals

Salam and congrats on making it to Day 5 of our crafting challenge! Today's craft is sure to spark excitement in your children's eyes. As always, we will be keeping the craft super easy and using items that can be found around your home. In addition to the craft, you will have the opportunity to teach your children how important it is to show kindness to all creatures of Allah (swt), including animals. I was lucky enough to have a book as a reference to further enhance this lesson. We read the book called, "Being Kind to Animals", by my cousin, the talented, Samira Zaidi Rizvi. If you wish to purchase this book, click here. 

We were able to extend our lesson by adorning our bird feeders with the phrases, SubhanAllah, Alhumdulillah, and Allahu Akbar, in Arabic and English text. We talked about how the animals are constantly praising Allah (swt) in their own way. One way of us praising our Lord, is appreciating His beautiful creations, such as the birds with their lovely chirping, and flowers with their vibrant colours and enchanting scents. 

You are free to paint, decorate and create your bird feeder as you wish - the most important part of this activity was the lesson it carries. We found this activity to be short and sweet - took about 30-45 minutes. If you do this activity, please send me a picture through DM on Instagram @WishfulWaufa. 

Materials

• Empty juice/milk carton or small sized cardboard box
• Wooden skewer/wooden spool or plastic straw
• Paint or construction paper to cover the carton/box
• Printouts of the words, SubhanAllah, Alhumdulillah, Allahu Akbar (download)
• Bird seed mix (we made our own with sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, peanuts and raisins)
• Sharpie
• Scissors
• Tape 
• Glue
• Yarn or string to hang the feeder
• Optional: colouring utensils or stickers to decorate

Steps:

1. Use Sharpie to draw the shape you desire for the opening of the bird feeder (see picture) on two ends of the box/carton
2. Cut them out with scissors
3. Using your scissors, make a small poke in the box below the shape you just cut out, and slide the wooden skewer through to the other side
4. Now it's time to decorate your bird feeder. We covered it in construction paper by taping. However, this isn't ideal for all types of weather. You can also paint it and it would withstand more harsh weather. It was rainy today, so I brought our bird feeder inside for the night. 
5. Once the box is covered, you can glue on the phrases of praise. We put Allahu Akbar on one, SubhanAllah and Alhamdulillah on the other. 
6. In order to decorate the bird feeder, we used glitter adhesive paper to put borders around our phrases of praise. 
7. Through the opening on top, we carefully poured in our bird feed mix.
8. Now it's time to use string or yarn to allow our bird feeders to hang. Poke holes through the top part of the box, insert string through those holes on both ends of the box, similar to what we did with the wooden skewers. Tie a knot so that you are able to hang the feeder. 
9. Go ahead and hang the feeder outside! 

These are most of the supplies for today, also need glue!

This is the shape we wanted for the opening

Use scissors to cut it out

Paint or cover the box in paper, be sure not to cover the opening!

Poke a hole with scissors and slide the wooden skewer through

Glue the words of praise on to the box

Decorate as you please

Notice the book in the back!

Carefully pour in the bird seed. We added about 1/2 cup of it.

Poke holes at the top for the string and slide the string through on each side

Hang outside!

We chose to hang ours on a tree

It started to rain so we brought it inside. Will hang it again tomorrow! Hopefully we can get a picture of a bird too!

Thank you so much for joining us again today. I hope you are enjoying the activities so far. Please leave some feedback below. Also, don't forget to subscribe by changing your view to Web Version. See you again tomorrow!