Recycled Triangle Beads: Wooden Candy Corn Pins

Last summer I found these really dated wooden bead belts at a local craft/home decor store for a grand total of twenty five cents each so even though I’d never dream of wearing one (and I am NO fashionista!) I bought several just for the beads.

The round spacer beads I had an instant use for but I held on to the triangular ones for a while because the holes just don’t run the right way to use them as beads.

I really wanted some candy corn look-a-likes for a fall craft idea (more on this later) and after many attempts using paper, foam and felt that just weren’t what I wanted I thought of using the triangular beads from the belts. Even though I eventually decided NOT to use them on my fall door hanging I did use them as Trinity Candy Corn Pins.

I teach the children at the church I attend on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings so I have plenty of crafting opportunities and I really like to do crafts that will be kept and used. Even though I do a lot of “paper and glue” type crafts I am always on the lookout EVERYWHERE I go and with everything I use for FREE AND CHEAP CRAFTING MATERIAL. And this was just a perfect project for the kids – cheap, quick & easy and hopefully one that will be worn for years!

We put these on a card with a poem to make a great gift (and testimony) for a parent or grandparent. I am sharing a poem I’ve had practically forever with you. I have no clue as to the origins of the poem and I have rewritten it several times myself. If it sounds familiar to anyone I’d love to know the author. HappyBird’s Crafting Haven also has a slightly different poem (on a really cute bag header), Christian Candy Corn Poem, that is “not copyrighted so others can use and enjoy freely”.

Of course if you have been reading this blog for a while you KNOW I just can’t do a craft without a lesson to go along with it. Following is the lesson I used to TRY to explain this to for and five year olds. This is a very simplistic explanation of the Trinity and all the errors are mine, all the things I have right are from God!

TRINITY LESSON FOR CHILDREN

“Tonight we are going to discuss one last “icon of fall”. So far this month we have talked about what we can learn from some of the common things we see in the fall like that just like fall leaves we are all FALLEN and fall short of the glory of God, how scarecrows can remind us we need not be SCARED for He is with us, that some of the FRUITS we should strive to have are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, & self-control, and that we need to let our light SHINE OUT for Jesus just like pumpkins made into jack o’ lanterns.”
Start off the discussion by asking a question, “What is your favorite trick-or-treat candy?” Let the kids name a few types of candy and then direct their attention to CANDY CORN. “So how is the trinity (the three persons of God) like this piece of candy corn?” Direct the children to see that there are THREE different colors in a SINGLE piece of candy. “Each of the three colors are different but the all make of the piece of candy corn. Without any of the colors it’s just not candy corn.”
“We talked earlier in this lesson series about the three persons of God and tonight we are going to explore it a little more. Does anybody remember back to March (around St. Patrick’s Day) when we used ice, water and water vapor to help us understand that there is ONE GOD in THREE PERSONS?”
Read the poem and the Bible verse and discuss how each of the persons of God is different but how they are all the same. Explain that the candy is really not exactly like God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit – that it is really a very simple object used to try to explain a very complex being and that we can never really fully understand God because we a human and He is divine but that the simple piece of candy (give the kids each a piece) can HELP us to start to understand Him. Remind them that this is something we will all spend the rest of our lives trying to understand and that we will only understand it completely when we are in the presence of God.

CANDY CORN TRINITY POEM

YELLOW is for LIGHT that Jesus is. We find this in John 9:5, NIV; Jesus said: “‘While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’”

ORANGE is for the SON OF GOD that Jesus is. We find this in Matthew 3:16, 17; “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

WHITE is for HIS WORDS which are so sweet. We find this in Psalm 119:103; “The sweet taste reminds us of the sweetness of God’s Words!”

Thank you for reading (and I hope enjoying) this tutorial. If you have any questions or something is not clear, please let me know so that I can improve the tutorial.

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Thanks again.

buggalcrafts a.k.a. melba