How to Make a Cathedral for your Wooden Saint Dolls

I have been so excited to see and hear about the saint doll exchanges that many of you have been doing! It really is a lot of fun and for those of you who have recently done one, I hope you agree.

Ready for the next step? Making a home for your dolls...

I think the most appropriate home is a cathedral. Last year I started building our saint doll cathedral and it's still not complete as I have so many ideas for making it awesome. I keep telling the kids that it took decades to build the Cathedrals around the world, so if it takes us a few years, then we are way ahead of the game.

Here is what I did to make this saintly home!

Step 1: Gather your supplies

You can purchase the castle cathedral at Michael's, with a 40% coupon, so it's roughly $15.00, not $25.00. (We took the "front door" off of ours.)

You'll also need a can of spray paint. We did ours in gray, but you could also do a shade of tan or white. I didn't get a picture of the spray paint at Michael's because spray paint is locked in a cage. I thought it would be odd to ask someone to take a can out just so I could get a picture of it on my phone... and this is about the time my two week old had a poop explosion.

If you don't have a Michael's near you, you could purchase this Melissa and Doug castle and cathedraliz it. It's more expensive, but you wouldn't have to paint it!

Optional items you might chose to purchase include:

Crosses for the top of your castle turned cathedral.

Liberty bells for a bell tower. Oops, fuzzy.

And some wooden blocks for an altar and tabernacle. I forgot to get pictures of these. I blame it on the explosion.

You also might need some acrylic paints. Gold, white, black, and blue are the colors I've used so far. You should have these on hand from painting your saint dolls. Look how green you are. Oh, and wood glue, you'll need that to glue on the crosses.

Step 2: Spray paint your cathedral inside and out

Step 3: Accessorize

First I painted the wooden crosses gold and then glued them to the top of the cathedral with wood glue.

Then I added a bell to one of the cubbies for a bell tower. Since the cathedral is made out of wood you can just screw a screw eye right into the ceiling to hold your bell.

For the altar I painted a small wooden cube white and bought the chalice and paten at Shepherd's Closet. They are currently out of stock :(. Alternatively you could get these from Mountain Miniatures. I also purchased this small crucifix from Shepherd's Closet.

The two little white cubes are the chairs for the celebrants and the tabernacle was made by gluing three cubes together, and then painting the bottom cubes white and the top cube gold. Finally I painted a cross in the middle and little angels on each side of the gold cube/tabernacle.

Above the altar I painted a blue sky with gold stars. A friend of mine is even going to paint the inside of hers with stripes like the Duomo di Siena!

And finally, I've been working on our "stained glass" windows. I made them out of a black shinny-ish scrapbook card stock and various colored cellophane. You have to cut the pictures out twice with an exacto knife and sandwich the cellophane between them. My idea is to have the symbols tell the story of salvation history, so the apple is for Adam and Eve and the rainbow is for Noah. I also have a sun for creation, but the rest of them need to be made.

And now your saint dolls can have mass.

Here is my Pal early in the morning setting up for mass. St. Cecilia is in the choir loft over the bell tower, Sts. Michael the Archangel and Gabriel are watching from above the altar, the faithful are waiting in their pews, and the celebrants are to the right getting ready to process in. It is so cute to watch how they play with their dolls.

And don't they look so happy to be in their special home?

Be saints, it's worth it!
Lisa

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How to Paint a Wooden Saint Doll

Many of you have told me how you are organizing a saint doll exchange! I think that is fabulous. So fabulous that I've put together another resource to make your exchange even better. Here is your step by step guide for painting a saint doll.

Step 1: Design your Saint

Before you begin painting you'll want to figure out what you want your finished doll to look like. I always start by trying to find examples by checking the following places:

My 50+ Saints
Etsy 

Shower of Roses

Equipping Catholic Families

Liturgical Saint Dolls - Boys

Liturgical Saint Dolls - Girls

Wee Saints

If I can't find any I'll do a quick google search for images of the saint. Then I research the saint to find out what symbols, colors, or features I want to include to help the saint be identifiable.

Next I draw out a rough sketch of the saint, so I have a template to follow.

Bean is receiving her 1st Holy Communion this year, so I decided to paint a Bl. Imelda who is the patroness of a fervent first communion. Her incorrupt body is dressed in an all white habit and there is a wreath of flowers around her head, so I sketched those into my doll. I also included the symbol of the host because of what she is the patroness of.

Step 2: Gather your Supplies

Now that you are ready to paint you'll need to following:

To buy:
Wooden dolls
Acrylic paints
Brushes
Finish
Metallic gold paint (optional)

What you probably already have:
Water in a cup (for rinsing your brush)
Paper towels (for drying your brush)
Paper plate (for mixing paint)

Step 3: Start Painting

When I paint multiple saints, I do all of my saints at once, step by step. So, I'll paint every saint's skin, then every saint's dress, then every saint's cloak, etc. I think this is faster than doing one at a time. In general, for the base of the doll I do things in layers, so I don't have to do a detailed job with every color.

Finally I add on the details and symbols. This is where the optional gold paint comes in handy. I think the shiny gold adds a little bling and saintly glow.

I always do the eyes last to make the saint "come alive" as the kids say. Boy saints always get dots, girl saints always get eyelashes. This is the simplest way to make eyes for someone of my ability. Pal once asked why the girl saints are always praying. I guess that's what closed eyes means to a four year old.

A few tips and tricks:

• Don't use a sharpie! It will bleed when you spray the doll with the finish.
• Rinse and clean your brush often when doing detail work. Your brush will start to get a ticker line as you add on more and more paint.
• If you mess up when painting on dry paint, grab a damp paper towel and wipe it off right away. Usually you can clear the mistake without having to repaint the area, but that can't always be avoided.
• Experiment with the back of your brush or toothpicks for very fine details.

Step 4: Finish Up

Spraying your dolls will help them hold up longer. Don't over do it however as the finish can run on your dolls and leave a yellow spot. It's better to do two light layers than one heavy one if you think you might get spray happy. Just let the first layer dry before you add a second.

When your dolls are dry, write the name of your saint on the bottom of the doll. You might think you'll never forget them, but some dolls can look pretty similar if they are from the same religious order!

Happy painting!

Be saints, it's worth it!
Lisa

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How to do a Wooden Saint Doll Exchange

Every six months one of my favorite events takes place...

St. Thomas Aquinas and Bl. Chiara Badano

I participate in a wooden saint doll exchange!

St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross (also know as Edith Stein) and St. James the Greater

My crafty, and even not-so-crafty, friends and I each paint the same saint multiple times and then swap them. For some reason, even a not-so-crafty person (like most of my friends claim to be) can paint saint dolls.

Mary, the Mother of God and St. Joseph the Worker

Seriously, you should just try it.

St. Clare and St. Nicholas

It all started a few Easters ago when I painted the patron saints of my kid's for their Easter baskets. We had a girls' night at my house the night I finished them, so I showed them off to my friends.

St. Francis of Assisi and Bl. Mother Teresa

One of my friend's sister-in-law has a large collection of dolls from exchanges she does with her friends and in our excitement we decided to start an exchange of our own.

St. Gerard and John the Baptist

Between the exchanges and painting some dolls on my own, I now have over 60 saints in my collection!

St. Zita and St. Josemaria Escriva (painted by a husband!)

For pictures of all 50+ of my saint dolls, check out the Wooden Saint Dolls tab.

Doing an exchange is definitely the way to go if you want to beef up your collection quickly, and you know you want your own collection, so here is your step by step guide on how to plan a saint doll exchange.

Step 1: Find crafty or not-so-crafty friends who would like to have a saint doll collection for their kids. Maybe they are ladies from your moms' group at church, friends in your homeschool co-op, religious ed class or catholic school, book club buddies, or Little Flowers/Blue Knights/American Heritage families... just find a community!

Step 2: Decide how many dolls you will paint. In our first exchange there were only four of us, so we each painted four dolls four times, for a total of 12 dolls. For the second exchange another friend jumped in and we painted three dolls five times, for a total of 15 dolls. This last exchange there were seven of us so we only had to paint two dolls seven times, for a total of 14 dolls. Decide what your crew can manage, but I'd definitely shoot for getting at least 10 dolls each.

Step 3: Decide what size of doll you will use, as well as if you will use only the male dolls or both the male and female dolls. We use all small, male dolls. This keeps things nice and simple for us.

Step 4: Take orders for unfinished dolls and then have one person order them in bulk. This saves money! We each ordered enough dolls for two exchanges, so we wouldn't have to reorder again each time. Once they arrive, distribute the dolls.

Step 5: Decide who will paint which saint. This is a fun part. For our group, it hasn't really mattered which saint each individual picks, you just want to make sure you don't have any duplicates, including from past exchanges. You could also go with a theme, like making a set of the apostles, a nativity scene, or a resurrection scene. In this case you'll have to decide who is assigned to which saints/characters for the set.

Step 6: Get painting. I'll put together a tutorial on that soon. For now, just buy acrylic paint (not the kid kind) and paint them.

Step 7: Meet for the exchange! We have a lot of fun with this night and make the revelation of each saint a bit dramatic. We go around the room bringing out each doll one at a time and the painter of the saint gives a short bio on their life. They also share the story of how they designed the saint and anything they learned in the process of painting it. It's very girly, oooh and aaah-y, and so much fun.

That's it! Gather your friends and let me know how it goes!!

Be saints, it's worth it!
Lisa

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