Christians. suggestions for 'decorating' a cross please.

[LetZygonsbeZygons]

Bought a few wooden crosses/crucifixes from The Works today. plain ones.
want to give them as Easter gifts but only things I can think of is black buttons on one. and scriptures on another.

either a sombre type dec or a resurrected celebration thing.

any ideas? thanks.

yeh was looking at the empty cross but as I want to give as a gift Id like to put something on it.

Just remembered a quote I saw once that might be an idea.

''Back soon, gone to see my Father''.

BTW Corus put the word 'Christians' in my op as a deterrent (prob in vain!) for some ''alternative' suggestions!

no, your suggestion was very useful thank you! didn't mean you weren't welcome to post, sorry if i wrote that the wrong way. should have said 'all decent proper appropriate suggestion welcome' IYKWIM !

this is a very diverse site!

anyone who knows the Easter Christian message/scriptures more than welcome to post!

The Chi-rho symbol is easy to draw, as is an intertwined alpha and omega.

Personally, I would go with Scripture quotes which are not directly linked to the Easter Gospels. It all relates back there anyway!
Somes verses might be:
Romans 8:31 "If God is for us, who can be against?"
1 John 3:16 "This is how we know what love is: he gave his life for us."
Ephesians 3:20 "Glory be to him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine."
Psalm 137: 2 "I thank you for your faithfulness and love, which excel all we ever knew of you."
Acts 17:28 "It is in him that we live and move and have our being."

More obvious ones, my favourites would be:
John 11:25 "I am the resurrection and the life."
John 20:27 "Do not be faithless but faithful." (or unbelieving/believing)

It seems quite popular to decorate the resurrection ones with symbols of rebirth from wider life, particularly flowers etc. I've seen some with balloons. Depends on who they're for!

Could you make something with quilled flowers like this? If you google quilled flowers there are some lovely ones made with simple narrow paper strips. The roses on this cross are made with thicker strips but you can make beautiful daisy shapes with thin strips. You can buy these from craft shops in colour coordinated packs - or you can run a sheet of coloured paper through a shredder or even cut them by hand. A quilling tool is vey handy but they can be bought very cheaply.

I would make flowers in lilac and lemon as these are Easter colours for me. There are loads of tutorials on the web.

well I bought a few crosses so ones done in small black stick on flowers, looks good actually.
thanks for all the quotes from scripture Fink ill do one with those, and those quilled flowers are lovely Wooly aren't they? might give that a go.
thanks everyone for your suggestions.

I think anything with flowers, greenery etc to signify new life would be lovely for an Easter gft

DC and I are making the cards too for art class this month (shes home schooled), so a few religious ones, a few chick and egg ones, a few easter egg ones, Neil Buchanan eat your heart out!

and we send those to friends and family too. more personal, although we get a few shop bought ones too.

For a cross? A corpse. Duh.

I don't know the rules- does cross decoration have to be sombre?

To me Easter is a very light, bright and happy festival, but I guess if you are a christian there is the aspect of death and suffering so not sure how to advise. Does there have to be a funereal aspect to the decoration?

If it's straight down the christian then bunnies and eggs are probably best avoided- not really mentioned in the bible.

I saw 'Not a hopeless end but an endless hope' on some Easter literature at church once which I thought was quite clever.

I don't think it should be sombre. Easter is a celebration, the biggest celebration in fact.

Quite a disturbing tale to celebrate isn't it. THe local minister came to give and Easter service to our primary school ( non denominational) and went into quite gruesome detail abut the crucifixion, including the blood from the crown of thorns,spear in the side, nails through the wrists etc.
Several of the 5 year olds were in tears and visibly shocked at the end of assembly.

I'm quite glad my Easter doen't include jesus.

I'm planning to make and decorate a stole (item of clothing worn by priests) for Lent and I was thinking of making it in the colours of the dawn so purples going into the greys and pinks. You could use the same idea for your cross. On the reverse perhaps you could have the greens and yellows of the new day and that could be for Easter Sunday.

Green was thinking of doing a 2 sided thing. dark on one side and then Easter Sunday turn it round to the bright side.

At the that happened at a school I worked at as a teacher. Primary too. yet same children who were disturbed by the story were the same ones that watched their big brothers play graphic x-box games and were allowed to watch horror films. They told me.

Letzygon- that's sounds good. A flip flop thing dead/alive. I think the kids will love it.

So you are making a connection between video nasties and jesus?

no not a connetion between Jesus and nasties, just that we got some parents saying they didn't want their kids subjected blood and guts and gore and stuff. not necessarily Jesus. yet theyre quite happy to let them watch guts and gore on other things IYKWIM.

(and Crucifixion was a well known torture in Roman times. and aren't things like that taught in history lessons? maybe not so much in Primary but later on.)

Head teacher told them that in no uncertain terms! a few went away with their tails between their legs!!

"yet theyre quite happy to let them watch guts and gore on other things "

Not most parents I know. And no, things like that are not taught in history lesons- and I have kids at secondary school. It seems gratuitous and sadistically indulgent to me.

I live in a rough area, must be that! .