Solstice Greeting Card

In today's story, we learned about the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. If you'd like to wish someone a Happy Solstice, you could make them this neat card that shows the return of the sun.

-construction paper

-glue

-scissors

-markers, pens, or colored pencils

-circular lid

-brass fastener (works best with one of these, but I'll point out an alternative when we get to that step)

Choose the paper you'd like to be the base of your card. Fold it in half.

Take your circular lid and position it in the center of the front of your card. Make pencil marks on either side of the lid. These marks will guide you in drawing a nice semi-circle. Trace the lid from mark to mark.

Line up a straightedge of some kind between the pencil marks and trace the edge with your pencil in order to complete your semicircle. You've drawn your window for the front of the card!

Poke your scissors through the center of your semicircle, and cut out the whole thing. Cut slightly inside of the lines so that the window is a little smaller than the circle you traced.

Choose the colors of construction paper that you'd like for your day sky and your night sky. I chose light blue and black.

Take the same lid you used to make the window and trace a circle on each color of paper. Cut out the circles.

Take one of the circles of paper (it doesn't really matter which) and fold it in half. Unfold it and cut it in half at the crease.

Glue the half circle on top of the whole one. Then decorate your skies however you like! I was lucky enough to have metallic markers for this, but you could also use regular markers, stickers, or even cut out a paper sun and glue it on.

(And really, you could put anything on the halves of the center circle if you wanted to. Always be creative!)

If you don't have a brass fastener to make the sky spin, you can simply glue it inside the card instead. Then, when your recipient opens the card, they'll see the sun!

Line your night sky up with the window, then glue the disc to the inside of the card. Let it dry, and then you can write your message!

Line the sky disc up in the window, then very carefully poke your brass fastener below the window into the center of the disc. You want to make sure that you don't poke it in too close to the edge of the window, otherwise it will tear. Bend down the ends.

Decorate the outside of your card.

Celebrate the return of the sun!