Artsy Ummi  blogs

These are wonderful links to keep you and your kids busy all Eid Week! Click on these pictures to take you to the respective weblink and instructions. 

 Decorate Your Home with These Crafts:

 Ramadan Mobile: 

Eid Banner:

Eid Stained Glass Craft:

Decorate Your Home With These Ideas: 

Eid Card Ideas

Transform Your Old Cards Into Awesome Eid Greetings:

Make an Eid Card with this Eid Poem, or print it smaller (about half the size of a regular letter sheet) and  get the kids to color it. Fold it in half and call it an Eid card! 

Peter Gould’s Eid Art Download to “use and share as you wish” From His Facebook Wall:

Eid Craft Ideas

Practice Your Artsy Skills and Gift This to a Loved One:  

Great Project for Those Little Hands: 

Henna Skills Need Some Practice:

Or You can Settle With This Idea- Practice “Henna” on Paper Hands instead! Less Messy Anyway!:  

Eid Cakes  and Cookies

Bake an Eid Cake or Decorate a Store Bought One:

Or Perhaps Bake Them in Mini Sizes!:

Make These Henna Hand Cookies- They Are a Guaranteed Crowd Pleaser!:

Gift some of your cookie creations in this Eig Box, don’t forget to make the kids write messages on them along with their coloring: 

Busy baby Mama blogs

You know this year is super mad busy. Kids going back to school, and many to do list that just can’t seem to get down. The last thing I’m thinking about is an Eid Party. But how can I not? One thing I realized about our Muslim children is that they are exposed to birthday parties that are so attractive that it’s important to celebrate our holiday just as special if not more to make it a memorable and an extra special event.

I came up with a to do list.

1. Make invitation cards and give them out at your next Iftar in the masjid. DOWNLOAD HERE: eid invite-1. You can also request each child to bring a gift for another child (no more than $5- $10). So each child will go home with a gift. Also let them know that the gift should be non gender related. This will make gift exchange hassle free.

2. To make decorations you can print this download (DOWNLOAD THIS: eid mubarak party bag labels ) on color paper and paste them on centerpieces. Add balloons around the rooms, and tissue chains. You can choose a color theme like green and white. Make a big poster sign that says Eid Muabrak. Kids can easily make this for you in a jiify.

3. To make a goody bag, print downloads and paste them on goody bags. The content can be healthy treats. I found Annie’s gummy rabbits packs and chocolate chip granola, a nicer alternative to candies. Also Dollar Tree has some nice party favors and school supplies that you can walk away with a lot for $10.00. Party City’s might have some sale items that you can get for 10 cents -25 cents per party favor.

4. Decorate a home made or ready made cake with “Eid Mubarak”. Add moon and stars if you like. you can draw a mosque, palm trees, little muslims…your imagination is the limit! This image is from brilliantcakes.com

5. Nasheed that you can have on while the kids enjoy playing.

6.  Game Ideas:

Arabic Alphabet Hunt -children will have to find all 28 Alphabet letters which are hidden around the house. You can put write the letters on an index card . Have them placed randomely around the house or room. When they find them, they  bring them back to get a small treat. As they find them they put them in order and they all get a prize.

Eid Clothes Game- This is for 2 players or two teams. Each team will get a small bookbag or suit case placed across the room. They must race to the bag, gab a bag, and put on the clothes and race back to their starting point. The team that finishes first wins. 

Tubs of Ilm Water game : Look at this link.

Islamic Pictionary: Make 2 teams. Play this game like the regular Pictionary. Each team member in both groups  must draw a picture of something from the Quran or Quran-related until their team members figure it out and shout the answer.

Musical Chairs with Nasheed: Play the same game except use Islamic songs.

7. End of the Party finale!

Gift Exchange-Have them decorate a brown shopping bag, and attach ribbons as handle. Place all the gifts they brought in one garbage bag that can not be seen. Each child can dip their hands inside without looking. They immediately put this in the gift bag. Instruct them not to open it until they get home if you like.

Make a Palm Tree Pinata out of  brown shopping bag and green paper palm tree leaves. It’s takes 10 minutes to make, and anyway it takes less than that to break…

End it with Surprise balloon toss! One teacher at Hamza Academy, Zahra Biler, had secretly blown up 20-25 balloons, put them on a bed sheet,  and thrown them in the room at the end of the party.  Yell “EID  MUBRAAK!”  before tossing them, which will naturally signal the kids to go chasing after the loose balloons. Soon as they grab one, you might want to write their names on them.

After such a fun and exciting event, send them home with their goody bags, gift bags, and their balloons. Insh-Allah, they will be begging for next year Eid Party.

Umm Professional blogs

Every Ramadan, I found more and more Islamic Websites creating different Ramadan Advent Calendars. Some calendars have simple dates to check off each day. Others have pockets that allow the parents to place a daily Ramadan task or challenge for the child to complete. Once the task is completed, the child is rewarded with a prize or treat that can be neatly tucked into the pocket.  I featured some of my favorite ones to buy for my children and family. 

Barakah Life: Silk Ramadan Calendar

L-Iman : “Flower in Ramadan” Calendar  

A Ramadan calendar made with textile fabrics in an extraordinary design with pockets. Every calendar is unique and follows either a blue or a pink color theme. 

It might be a little pricey as people in the States will be paying in Euros and it costs 69.95, not including shipping! But if you have multiple kids you can hand it down….it might be well worth it! 

Umm Professional blogs

It’s always fun preparing for Eid, and even more so when you are preparing Eid gifts for your non-Muslim friends, neighbors or teachers- you can use it as an excuse to do “The Dawah Power” as I call it to teach my kids the importance of spreading Islam the friendly way. Don’t make excuses, ” I don’t have money or the time to give anything to my non-Muslim friends-they would never be interested in Islam anyway…”

In this difficult financial time, we can still find ways to give a little, and still get a big smile and appreciation from our neighbors and friends. My favorite ideas are made by the children, who have the zeal of giving. Here are a few ideas from different sisters who have emailed us…

1. Eid Mubarak E-Card ($0- free!)- one sister emailed her non-Muslim family members and friends Eid Mubarak e-cards and they responded, “Thank you-What is Eid Mubarak?” Ahh…now all the possible answers to that question!

List of Best e-Eid Card Sites:

www.123greetings.com

www.eidgreetings.com

www.eidwishes.com

2. Sweet Treats ($2.50 per gift -cake mix, paper box, cellophane wrapper, ribbons)- This sister found cupcakes, brownies, and muffins to be an inexpensive but well appreciated gift. “Even if you use instant cake mix, you can’t go wrong with decorated frosting. Put cupcake with frosting on a nice paper plate with cellophane wrapper, or muffins in a bakery box” she explains. One cake mix box can make enough cup cakes or muffins for about two neighbors….that’s less than $1.50 per person!

3. Eid Cake ($3.00 for cake mix and frosting)- You just don’t have time putting the batter in those cupcake liners? Just pour it on to a square or circular pan, and get your kids to frost and decorate it. Says one young chef here who made a desert and date palm tree scene on the cake with fruit loops and dates, “We just took whatever we could find in our kitchen! Our downstairs neighbors’ kids were ecstatic, and did not want to eat it because they said they didn’t want to mess it up!!”

4. Eid Gifts ($6.00 for gift wrap- bought here)-This clever mom looked for any stashed away gift items that she had in the attic or basement that she had not used and were brand new. She found perfumes, dishes, pocket books, scarves, framed art, vases. Then she wrapped them up with colorful gift wrappers and the children gave it to the astonished neighbors. She gave a short explanation, “After Hajj, we celebrate our Holiday called Eid. We give gifts to our family member and friends, and we just want to let you know we consider you as part of our family.”  Suddenly your unknown neighbor is your best friend!

5. Fruit Bouquet ($5.00-$10.00)- If you want to get a little more fancy as this sister attempted to make her own fruit arrangement with the help of her little girl. She explains, “What started off as fruit kebabs became fruit flower gifts. Actually my friend showed up a day before Eid with box full of fruit. Knowing there was no way we could eat all these fruit, we decided to give them away. I got some ideas from fruit decoration companies (They charge $50-$100!), and took out some old vases, Styrofoam and bunch of sticks, and put my little assistant to work. She happily stuck the grapes one by one, and after she completed them, decided to eat them as well. Oh, well… that’s what I get for relying on ‘child labor’!”

Sister Reminder blogs

Jannahsteps has a template ready for creative mothers who would like to add a personal touch this Eid.  An envelope made with love and filled with best wishes and duas.  

Artsy Ummi blogs

Many moms like me like to buy gifts for their little ones as they have no value or understanding of money, but since my child turned 6, I’ve been educating her about cash flow. I’d like her to be dollar smart and learn to make right decisions when it comes to buying and saving. So in Ramadan when she asked me what she was getting for Eid, I explained to her that she would be receiving her first Eidee. “What’s that?” she asked. She was really excited to learn that Mom was going to trust her with some money! As the days went by, her list grew longer and longer with how she would spend that cash! Finally, when Eid ul Fitr came, and she happily received the “golden” note in her hands, much to my astonishment, she gladly placed it in the zakah box instead!!! What happened to that long list? Alhamdulillah- she felt that she had everything she needed and wanted someone else to have a gift instead!! SubhanAllah, my plan had been to educate her to be $ smart….I didn’t know I would be this successful in my first try!!!

Eidee is common practice in some cultures and most often presented to the youngsters by aunts, uncles, grandparents and close relatives. It’s easy and convenient to just hand the children some money on Eid, but with a little forethought, these special moments can be made much more memorable.  How about adding a little sparkle to the festive season by making an attractive envelope?

Jannahsteps has a template ready for creative mothers who would like to add a personal touch this Eid.  An envelope made with love and filled with best wishes and duas.   Tall Envelope Template DOWNLOAD HERE. If you would like to download labels for your envelope, then go here. You can print them on beige paper like I did here, or on any color paper to suit your envelope style!

There are endless designs of scrapbooking paper, gift wrap or even color paper and stickers- use whatever you have at home. I made these with some colorful sheets of scrapbook paper! I love how they turned out! PS: Download each template under their respective photograph.

Fancy Envelope Template DOWNLOAD HERE

Scalloped Envelope Template DOWNLOAD HERE

I used a single hole punch to create the scallop holes. If I’m making a lot of envelopes I would just skip this step!

I also made a little pocket inside to insert the currency, and you could also scribble in a personal hand written note!

Artsy Ummi blogs

Here’s my Eid gift to you! I created these labels and gift card tags for all the Eid gifts I was wrapping for my family and friends. I thought I’d share.

Download #1: Gift Tags and Labels for Eid- DOWNLOAD HERE

Download #2: Gift Tags and Labels for Eid Gifts DOWNLOAD HERE

Download #3: Gift Tags and Labels for Eid Mini Version DOWNLOAD HERE

I made some goodie bags for my daughter’s classmates for Eid. I used the gift card tags to label all the boxes with her classmates’ names.

Happy downloading

Busy Baby Mama blogs

I wanted to make yummy cookies for all our kind neighbors for Eid this year. What better way to get my child involved, excited, busy…and do a bit of dawa while at it! I found this website…I wish I could have found more interesting shapes that were Islamic related. But here is what’s out there:

http://www.astrolabe.com/eid-cookie-cutters-set-of-6.html

While I prepare lots of cookie dough…you check this link out!