Kaab’a Gum Party Favor {Tutorial}

August 15, 2017August 13, 2017 | acraftyarab

Eid Al Adha will occur on September 2, 2017 and we are getting ready with these Kaab’a gum party favors.

Eid Al Adha is celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son, as an act of submission to God’s command. It falls on the 10th day of Dhu al-Hijjah, the 12th month of the Islamic callendar.

Dhu al-Hijjah means The Month of the Pilgrimage in Arabic and during this month Muslim pilgrims from all around the world congregate at Mecca to visit the Kaab’a, the most sacred site in Islam, located in Saudi Arabia.

I made one of these gum favors to give to a friend on her way to hajj last year. Gum helps with plane takeoffs and landings and I thought she could use it while traveling.

This year we are making them for an Eid party our community is having. They were so easy to make and took hardly any time at all. To be honest, what took longer was driving all over town, buying up all the Eclipse gum!

Supplies

Ribbon
Scissors
Glue
Gum
Black card stock

Cut your black card stock the same height of the gum wrapper but long enough to wrap around. Add glue to the paper and fold over to seal the gum inside. Set the gum, glue side down for a few minutes, so the glue can set.

Cut your ribbon and wrap it around the gum, also gluing it down and letting it sit for a few minutes.

That is all, so easy and took no time at all. Once you open the gum, simply throw away the ribbon and recycle the paper so that it is deposed of in a respectful manner.

Stop by other Kaab’a tutorials to learn more about Hajj

Light Ray Kaab’a Oil Resist {Tutorial} Guest Blog

Kaab’a Paper Clip Bookmark {Tutorial}

Or visit A Crafty Arab on Pinterest to check out other DIY crafts.

RyaTie Moon Wall Hanging {Tutorial}

August 10, 2017August 11, 2017 | acraftyarab

RyaTie is a new way to create fiber art for personalized wall or rug decor.

I was recently sent a RyaTie Starter Kit as part of my Plaid Ambassador role and decided to adjust the pattern to create a crescent moon and star design.

It was so simple to make, I actually had my 70 year old visiting aunt make it, with my 10 year old daughter helping.

I helped create the pattern with my daughter, using the one in the kit as inspiration, and also printing out a few design ideas from the Bucille website. I then showed my aunt how to use the wood tool. I occasionally stopped them to take a photo, but otherwise they were content to pompom the afternoon away.

Supplies

RyaTie Starter Kit
Sharpie
Scissors
Glue
Wood rod

The pompoms you will make will need to be tied off every four squares on the provided canvas mesh, so the first step is to mark those off with the sharpie.

Use the tool to make the pompoms by first cutting off four pieces of yarn the length of the tool, to make the ties. Place two on top and two ties at the bottom of your tool and wrap your yarn 18 times in the notches. Slip the rubber bands in the vertical notches to help hold your yarn while you cut it off the spool. Use the ties to wrap around the yarn bundles in the notched area. (The photo below shows the bottom two pompoms tied off but the ties are still in place for the top two pompoms.) Once all four are tied, cut along the dotted lines on both sides.

Our wood tool makes four pompoms. We used the ties to add them onto our mesh canvas where the Sharpie markings were placed.

Here is what the front of our canvas looked like once the pompoms were tied.

Continue to make pompoms and tie them on according to your pattern.

Once you complete one color, move on to the next.

My daughter wanted to use up all the colors in the kit, so we decided to add shadows to the back of the moon and around the star. To use two colors, instead of wrapping around 18 times, we only wrapped 9. This still gives us 18 pieces of yarn in each pompom to stay consistent.

Once the pattern was finished, the executive decision was made not to add the hanging yarn, similar to the one on the cover of the Starter Kit, but to use it instead to fill in more of the canvas.

Once the canvas was complete to the satisfaction of them both, in Arabic and English, I helped add the wood rod to the back by “hemming” the top edge over it.

I also hemmed in the other three sides to give it more of a finished look. My daughter then added a dap of glue to each tie to hold it in place. After the glue had dried, she cut off all excess yarn ties.

Now our collective work of art is ready for our guest room wall, to be enjoyed by my aunt for the rest of her visit with us.

Please be sure to stop by A Crafty Arab on Pinterest to enjoy more tutorials.

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Jordan Craft Stick Flag {Tutorial}

August 8, 2017August 11, 2017 | acraftyarab

We are continuing our quest to learn about all the countries in the Arab League and today we talked about Jordan. We decided to make a craft stick flag using products I received as a Plaid Ambassador.

This post is part of the Middle Eastern and North African Heritage Month series from Multicultural Kid Blogs. Please be sure to check out below for other participating blogs.

Jordan (Arabic: الأردن‎‎ Al-Urdunn), officially The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Arabic: المملكة الأردنية الهاشمية‎‎ Al-Mamlakah Al-Urdunnīyah Al-Ḥāshimīyah), is an Arab kingdom in Western Asia, on the East Bank of the Jordan River. Jordan is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the east and south; Iraq to the north-east; Syria to the north; Israel, Palestine and the Dead Sea to the west; and the Red Sea in its extreme south-west.

We thought we would make a flag hanger out of craft sticks to place in our kitchen while we talked about it.

We learned that each of the horizontal colors are for the differnet caliphs: the Abbasid (black band), Umayyad (white band), and Fatimid (green band). The red chevron is for the Hashemite dynasty, and the Arab Revolt.

It was interesting to note that so much of the flag is seeped in Islamic history, yet the country contains some of the oldest Christian communities in the world, dating as early as the 1st century AD.

We hope you are able to make your own flag while talking about this country strategically located in the pathways of Asia, Africa and Europe.

Supplies

Martha Stewart water brush set
Craft Sticks
Paint
Punch
Pencil
Ribbon
Glue

We started by laying out 3 sticks for each horizontal color, nine in all, close to each other. We used 2 other sticks to draw out diagonal lines to create the chevron.

Making sure to keep our sticks in order, we pained the top three black, middle three white and bottom three green, up until the pencil marks. We painted all three red to the left of the pencil marks. Wait for everything to dry before moving on.

We used our two extra craft sticks and laid out a line of glue across the middle. We then placed them diagonal to each other, like a = sign and placed our painted sticks in order over the glued sticks. (Tip: We used scissors to cut off the stick overhang.)

We used the star burst punch on some white paper to recreate the white seven-pointed star and glued it in the middle of the chevron.

Once the glue had dried, we flipped the whole flag over and added a line of glue. We then placed the ribbon end on top.

We measured out how much clearance we needed for a door knob, cut off the excess ribbon and glued on the other end. Wait a few hours for the glue to fully set.

Now our beautiful flag is ready to hang.

If you enjoyed this tutorial, please be sure to visit other Arab League country tutorials on Pinterest.

Welcome to the third annual Middle Eastern and North African Heritage Month series from Multicultural Kid Blogs! Follow along all month long for great resources on teaching children about the heritage of this region, and link up your own posts below. Don’t miss our series from last year and from 2015!

You can also find even more resources on our North Africa and the Middle East Pinterest board:

August 4
Sand In My Toes on Multicultural Kid Blogs

August 8
A Crafty Arab

August 14
Kid World Citizen

August 15
Sand In My Toes

August 17
All Done Monkey

August 18
Tiny Tapping Toes

August 21
Biracial Bookworms on Multicultural Kid Blogs

August 23
Jeddah Mom

August 28
Crafty Moms Share

August 30
Creative World of Varya