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Folding Palm Crosses, Flowers, and More for Palm Sunday

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Turn Palms into Meaningful Palm Sunday Symbols and Decorations

The cross folded from a Palm Sunday palm frond is a tradition that has been around for many years. Folding your palm is a way to express the Easter story. Jesus came into the town walking over the palms laid down by the people, but one week later died on a cross.

Palms are passed out at most churches on Palm Sunday in America, but they are used worldwide in a variety of ways in the Palm Sunday service.

See what else you can make from your palms, from a large palm floral display, to a simple rose bud.

How to Make a Palm Cross

How to Make a Palm Cross: by michaelpwalther | video info

274 ratings | 157,089 views

curated content from YouTube

How to make a Palm Cross

Step-By-Step Instructions

Palm Cross Instructions: How to make Palm Crosses
How to make a Palm Cross: How to make Palm Cross
Palm Leaf Cross: Jesus came from a royal family, a direct descendant of king David. The Genealogy of Jesus Wheel provides the kids a fun way to compare the Genealogy of Jesus with their own.
Parish Church of St Giles Aintree - How to make a Palm Cross: How to make a Palm Cross, St Giles Aintree

How to Make a Taklayan Knot

TAKLAYAN NI GIGI: by anen21999 | video info

0 ratings | 9,883 views

curated content from YouTube

How to Make a Palm Rose

Instructions for Folding Palms

Plaiting instructions

Palm Crown of Thorns: This tutorial will show you how to create a crown of thorns from palms.
Palm Frond Bird: How to fold a 3D bird from palms.
Palm Weaving, Crown of Thorns: Fold an Easter Crown of Thorns
Rose Bud Made of Palms: This tutorial will show you how to create rose buds from palms.
Learn to plait a palm frond: Tricia Legg gives detailed instructions for plaiting a palm frond to include in floral displays.
Palm Cones: This tutorial will show you how to create a decorative cone from palms.
Palm Braids: This tutorial will show you how to create palm braids.
Palm three-dimensional star: 3D Star
Making a flax angel: How to make a palm angel
Palm bracelets: How to make palm bracelets
Palm hibiscus: These instructions show how to weave and shape a hibiscus in several different ways.
Easy Palm Fish: Make an easy fish.
Palm grasshopper: Palm grasshopper
Circular Folded Rose: By Sister Cecilia Schmitt - A12 is the Circular Folded Rose - there are several other great instructionals on this page as well.

Books on folding or plaiting palms

These are a few great books on plaiting palms. Two other good ones, which Amazon appears to not currently carry, are Palm Weaving Guidesheets and Palm Weaving the Story and the Art Video.

Palm Sunday Celebrations from Around the World

Check out more amazing photos like these at the The Palaspas Palm Leaf Art Group on flickr.

Domingo de Ramos, Barcelona, Spring 2007 by Guillaume Paumier

Davao Auxiliary Bishop George Rimando by Keith Bacongco

curated content from Flickr

Palm Displays

Avante Gardens - Palm Sunday Flowers: Palm Sunday floral designs
Palm Weaving - Italiansrus.com: A fascinating tradition that my family does for Palm Sunday is to create decorative designs using palms.
Art of Filipino Palm Weaving - Atlantic Highlands Herald: News and Events for Northern Monmouth County, New Jersey
Folk Artists Directory: About Sister Cecilia

Fun with Flax

Fun with Flax: 50 Projects for Beginners

by: Mick Pendergrast

Amazon Price: $57.95 (as of 05/31/2012)

These 50 interesting and entertaining projects are designed to teach beginners the basic skills of the Maori craft of plaiting. Fun with Flax shows how to make items ranging from a simple windmill, a dart and a whistle to more complex puzzles, balls, birds, fish and even a caterpillar. Each project is described one step at a time with easy to follow line drawings and instructions.

Eco-Friendly Palms

Go Green by using environmentally friendly palms. Make the responsible choice to purchase from a supplier who regularly replants native vegetation and does not over-harvest. Also be sure they treat and pay their harvesting labor appropriately.

Palm for Palm Sunday: catholicsupply.com

Beautifully Folded Palms

Coconut Palm Leaves Art - Hats, Baskets, Bowls - Gary 'Hatmon' Lustic: Gary Lustic, the Hatmon, weaves coconut palm leaves into beautiful hats, baskets, bowls, roses, and other unique creations, In the summer you can find him at Seacrets Night Club in Ocean City, Maryland. In the winter, he is stationed at Captain Hiram's Restaurant and Marina in Sebastian, Florida.

Beautiful Palms!

curated content from Flickr

Children's Books about Palm Sunday

Reading and re-reading a wonderful children's book about Palm Sunday is a great way for kids to learn the story and why we celebrate this day.

Kid's Palm Sunday Palm Projects

Palm Branches Craft: Palm Branches Craft
Palm Cross Coloring Page: Palm Cross Coloring
Palm Frond Collage Craft: Paper craft about for children to make for Palm Sunday celebrations.
Palm Sunday Coloring Page | Easter | Bible | Preschool Printable Activities: Bible | Preschool Printable Activities
Palm Sunday Coloring Page | Easter | Bible | Preschool Printable Activities: Bible | Preschool Printable Activities

African Palms USA

African Palms USA is a non-profit organization which organizes the sale of palm crosses handmade in Africa to churches in America. The proceeds from the sales are returned to Africa in the form of non-denominational self-help grants to meet very basic human needs, such as: disaster and refugee relief, medical and public health programs and agricultural programs.

Click here to watch a video of a village man folding a palm cross. With just one hand, he expertly folds the cross to help support his family.

The African Palms program was founded in 1965 by Father Alan Talbot, an Anglican priest who served for six years as a missionary in the Diocese of Masasi in Tanzania, not far from the Mozambique border. Father Talbot observed the poverty of the people and sought ways for them to augment their income above that achieved from subsistence farming. He encouraged the villagers to begin making palm crosses for use in churches on Palm Sunday. At first he distributed crosses to friends and churches in London. From this small beginning the project spread until it included all of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Sweden, and Germany. This year over 6 million crosses will be shipped worldwide, 1.8 million in the U.S. alone.

African Palms USA crosses are made from dried branches of the dwarf palm Hyphaena Coriacia, and are each approximately 4.5" x 6". Crosses are sold in quantities of 50 only. Depending on the quantity ordered crosses are sold at a cost of $0.19 - $0.23 per cross.

African Palms USA - Palm Cross Order Form

For churches who have chosen to use palm crosses from African Palms USA, a bulletin cover is available that shows a picture of palms on the front, and explains African Palms USA on the back.

Making Crosses for African Palms USA

Palm Folding Guestbook

Do you have any questions or tips on folding palms? Any ideas you'd like to share?

Reply

Badbreathguy Apr 13, 2012 @ 2:29 pm | delete

Every year I am handed one of these when I go to church on Palm Sunday. Now I know how a Palm Cross is made.

Reply

elynmac Apr 10, 2012 @ 8:07 am | delete

Fantastic - we have a bunch of wonderful Filipino friends who folded amazing corsses for everyone after church on Palm Sunday. It was such a labor of love!

Reply

rnhealthinfo Apr 9, 2012 @ 10:35 am | delete

I'm sure your lens on folding a palm cross has helped many people during this Easter season, great tips for using our palms!