Miraculous Medal Craft Activity Part 2

It is Saturday morning over here and the finishing touches to our mobile have been worked upon, we have pretty much finished. Our Miraculous Medal mobile is now ready for hanging.

The painting of the words, "Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee." and the date "1830" were done by me, as it took a very steady hand and careful spacing, this was done last night.

Felt was used for our Mother's halo and then beaded with little gold beads. Our Lady's face I drew onto skin colour cardboard and felt was laid behind the face for hair.

The dress was the most time consuming and stressful part to this otherwise enjoyable endevour. I had found a picture of the Miraculous Medal on the internet, put it into paintshop on the computer, isolated the image of Our Lady and blew it up to A4 size and printed it. I then cut out the dress of Our Lady as a template for the felt I was using, then I found some sheer, silky material to cover over the felt and sewed it to the back of the felt and puckered across Our Lady's waistline. This overcovering gives volume and a 'flowing' look to the dress. The same was done for Our Lady's mantle and veil, which was all one piece of felt. The two parts to our Mother's dress was glued to the board.

My original idea was to have this beautiful blue netting with silver stars, cascading from both of Our Lady's hands, to create the "showering of grace" that comes through her hands to us. It was onto this netting that we would pin our printed prayer intentions. It was important that the netting would not come off by the continual pinning of paper (as light as they are..) so I found two small screws that would do nicely. I puckered the end of the netting at one end and sew it firmly together. I then placed the screw over this puckered end and screwed it firmly into the board, directly under Our Mother's hands. In the last turns of the screwdriver the netting turned with it and covered over the screws, so they cannot be seen at all.

Can you see the little shiny beads on the fingertips of Our Lady's fingers? These were the precious jewels that St Catherine Laboure saw from which the streams of grace were coming from. Catherine did note that not all the jewels poured out this grace and when she asked Our Blessed Mother why, she replied, "The rays are the symbol of the graces I shed on those who ask me for them. The stones which send forth no light represent the graces for which people forget to ask me." pg 13, The Miraculous Medal by Mary Fabyan Windeatt.

The serpent, that represents the devil was the last finishing touches....because I did not know what I could use to make the snake with. I thought I could use the red felt and make a snake from that. My husband, Phil said that the snake was green and yellow. Well, I wandered around the house, racking my brains for what I could use that would really look like a snake and preferably green and yellow....tall order....I went to the linen press and opened the door and there was our picnic rug looking at me. It has tassels of all different variants of colours and patterns and I spied green and yellow tassels!! I didn't need much, it would never be noticed to snip down three...red felt for the apple in the serpent's mouth, an orange bed for his eye, all done!

We are still working out how to hang this, hopefully we will have it sorted before the weekend is out, once it is hanging, I'll show you a picture with all our prayer intentions pinned to it!

MAY ALTAR

Beneath her statue in its niche,

(Let busy skeptics gaze and glower!)

Engather flowers, fresh and sweet,

Proclaim this Mary's hour....
Poppies for her mother-heart

Wounded past the mind's belief,

Lilies for her purity,

Lilacs for her grief,
For this the fairest blooms were plucked

And placed below her image there,

To offer beauty as a gift

And fragrance as a prayer.