Inky Fingers...but not letterboxing

What does one do when they are faced with having to decorate for a birthday party the very next day (the birthday boy could not decide what he wanted to do until last night), and all of the stores are closed today due to it being a National holiday in Denmark. Well?? One gets very creative!


So, Cameron turns 12 tomorrow, on Cinco de Mayo. Back in NC, we used to try and talk him into having a fiesta themed birthday party but he would never go for it. Now that we are in Denmark and all of the fiesta themed party favors, decorations and party ware that were readily available in NC are not available here!

I began thinking about decorations...I made my own confetti with bright paper and a hole punch...that was fun! I cut out letters to spell "FIESTA" and will string those up. I made a paper mache pinata that will be ready to fill with goodies tomorrow. I wanted to make some tissue paper flowers and other tissue paper decorations but only had white tissue paper. Bummer, right? Nope...I took my very old Crayola markers, that barely colored anything any more, and soaked them in water. 

Once the water was a pretty color, I poured the ink into a spray bottle. This got a little messy and I got inky fingers but thank goodness they were Crayola and washed right off. I carried about 6 sheets of tissue paper, for each color, outside and sprayed them to the point of saturation. Then let them dry.

Once dry, I made my decorations!! More pictures of the birthday party to come......
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Today is a National holiday in Denmark. It is called Store Bededag, which translates to Great Prayer Day. In 1686, King Christian V consolidated several Roman Catholic holidays into one day. Rather than honor several minor saints in the Spring on separate days, they are now honored on this 4th Friday after Easter.


Some of the traditions that are still practiced are the tolling of church bells, strolling along the harbors, and purchasing and eating varme hveder, a Danish bread. The church bells could be heard all morning and afternoon while I was outside, they were lovely to listen to. The grocery stores were full of fresh baked bread when I was there on Thursday night so I bought some for the family and they had it with dinner tonight. It was a day for all Danes to enjoy their families as there was no school or work. Denmark is the only Scandinavian country to celebrate this particular holiday.


In America, they are celebrating "Star Wars Day"...sooo, grab some bread and May the 4th be with you!!