St. John of Damascus Craft {Liturgical Ornament}

St. John of Damascuc (Damascene) has a long and interesting story, but I’ll keep it short: He was taught by a monk and became very knowledgeable on the faith. He often wrote about many various topics of the faith. In particular, he wrote 3 publications on holy images and the respect that they should be given. He also wrote music. Some of his songs are used in the Mass today. His feast day is Dec. 4th (new) and March 27th (traditional). Read more about him HERE and HERE.

We have included three symbols on St. John’s ornament. A music note, a scroll, and a ”holy image”. These are all symbols of his writings.

To create this you will need:

• light blue felt

• dark brown felt

• off-white felt

• black felt

• a variety of different colored markers to draw the image OR cut out a religious image to add to this ornament instead of drawing one.

• black sharpie marker

• scissors (these kind work well)

• glue (hot glue, felt glue,  or tacky glue – like this or this)

• thread and needle for the looped hanger

Cut out the parts like those above. We used a black marker to add dots to the sheet/scroll – to make it look like writing. Draw your saint/Blessed Mother image on a rectangle piece of off-white felt. If you don’t want to draw an image just find a small, suitable, image to use and glue it onto the light blue background. You can add clear Mod-Podge over top to make it more protected.  

After gluing down the image, add the 4 brown felt pieces to form a frame. Then, add the music note and written sheet/scroll. We curled ours on the end to look more like a scroll, but that’s not necessary to do. 

After every thing is glued onto the light blue background, cut off the extra background around the three symbols. Add the threaded loop to the top to hang it up. That’s it!

St. John of Damascus, pray for us.

~JenMarie and Elizabeth