tibetan (peace) prayer flags

(originally written monday, september 21...)

today is the international day of peace. we had plans to combine some guerrilla goodness and pinwheels for peace by making pinwheels and handing them out to neighbors. didn't happen--neither khary nor i were feeling it. i had gotten an update from a friend's recent endeavor about kids making tibetan prayer flags. to my knowledge, khary didn't see the pictures of the beautiful flags. but this morning, he tied together every scarf he could find in his room and hung them on the bannister. they really reminded me of the picture of the prayer flags! seeing as how it was a dark, dreary, rainy day where we had no plans at all, and how we had failed at preparing a celebration for the day of peace, i saw the universe's writing on the wall: make tibetan prayer flags with peaceful intentions.

now, prayer flags are supposed to be printed with ancient prayers that are carved into rolls of wood, then rolled in ink to be transferred to colorful rectangles of fabric and hung outside for the wind to carry the prayers to the world. the project calls for making patterned stamps out of pieces of leftover styrofoam glued to a cardboard background and painted with acrylic/fabric paint. we skipped that part. it also showed how to "paint" with shredded crayon like tibetan monks paint with colored sand--only to make the prayer flags this way, you fuse the crayon to the fabric squares with an iron (and waxed paper or newspaper).

so that's the plan--to make some crayon-painted prayer flags while we talk about peace and love and all that good stuff. while finding the appropriate craft supplies, khary also found his glitter glue--so we had to make about 20 squares with that, too. they obviously will not be waterproof, but will join the others.

pics to come...6 weeks later, i finally have them added!

the boys and i grating (non-washable) crayons:


the crayon palette:


while i ironed the flags, khary built this "international peace house" for all the world to share. it even has a fence so the little kids can place "safe-wy" outside.


all of the flags after being ironed to melt the wax into the fabric. (you can see the glitter glue ones farthest from the camera, too.)


tibetan peace prayer flags, as displayed on our porch railing: