How To Craft A Chalice, Ciborium, and Paten

Find all of my Mass crafts and activities for kids here.

I’ve been wanting a Mass kit for my kids for some time now, but the reality is, they are expensive! Even the little ones made from felt cost nearly $100, and don’t include all the pieces. The really nice ones, also over $100, also don’t include all the pieces I was looking for. Also, even if I had the expensive sets, it really stresses me out to have expensive kids stuff. So I decided I needed to make a Mass set for us. It turned out to be easier and more fun than I thought it would!

catholic craft; chalice and ciborium

I made the Mass kit for my kids awhile ago, but the task of typing up one big post on how to put all o fit together at one time has been so overwhelming that I’ve never shared my ideas with you. So now, I have made the executive decision to post directions on how to make one Mass object at a time until I have the entire crafted Mass kit for kids all represented. As I craft more pieces, they will all be linked to this one easy-to-navigate Mass objects page.

I am very happy to have this Mass kit for kids, and that it was especially helpful last year in prepping Lydia for her First Holy Communion! You don’t have to stress over making it all at once- you can start with the basic pieces, and add to them as you go.

Today, I’m going to show you how to make your own chalice, ciborium, and paten.

Supplies Needed:

  • gold spray paint (if you’re going to be making the entire Mass kit, you’ll need to get a full sized can of gold spray paint, as you’ll use it on almost everything. If you’re making just the chalice and ciborium, you can get a smaller sized can)
  • 3 Plastic wine cups (I got mine from the Dollar Tree, 4 for $1.)
  • small wooden crosses from craft store
  • cool glue gun and sticks (if you use a super hot glue gun for this craft, it may melt your plastic, so just keep that in mind)
  • small plastic plate (I got mine at the Dollar Tree 5 for $1)
  • big popsicle stick

Start by assembling 2 plastic wine glasses. You’ll also need the bottom of the 3rd wine glass.

crafting a chalice

Assemble the pieces with hot glue to keep them from coming apart during play. Attach the wooden cross to the top of the extra wine glass piece. This is going to be the lid for your ciborium, but don’t glue it on. You can glue another wooden cross to the front of your chalice as a decoration. Make designs on the cups with your glue gun.

glue chalice together

If you just want to make a regular paten, just take out one of your plastic plates. For those patens on sticks (that alter servers use to collect crumbs while the communion is being given) hot glue a big popsicle stick to the plate. We made some of each.

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crafting a paten

S[ray paint all of your pieces at the same time. I usually do this on a sunny day so that it only takes a few minutes to dry. You may need to do 2 coats in some places.

catholic craft; chalice and ciborium

Voila! All the glue from underneath becomes golden decorations! You can also embellish these with craft jewels if you wish. We did not. As you can see in the picture below, I also got a roll of necco wafers for my kids to play communion with. You could also cut pretend hosts out of white fun foam, or white felt.

craft a paten for kids

These are just a small part of a much larger Mass kit! I’m going to be releasing the directions piece by piece, so stay tuned! 🙂

craft a mass kit for kids; affordable

And don’t forget a Mass book to aide your children in their pretend Mass! 🙂

Picture Book of the Mass

Find all of my Mass crafts and activities for kids here.

Comments

  1. Thanks for this; in my Anglican church, we admit children to communion before confirmation so I might make one of these for future use – we had three admitted in August. By the way, I noticed you mentioned the Apocrypha in a previous post. My New Revised Standard Version has it and we use it sometimes in church, and I’m using Baruch in Sunday School soon.

  2. Shannon @ Distracted by Prayer says

    I love the idea of teaching sacraments in a hands-on way to children as you have done. This way they are familiar and don’t seem foreign or scary.

  3. Your executive decision was a very good one, I think a long post would’ve been too much to read, too. And what a great idea to include the Mass kit with a First Communion prep… I’m getting the crafting itch. Thanks, Lacy!

    • Glad you think so! I really struggled with the delivery on this one, but I’m happy to see it being accomplished now. 🙂

  4. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I wanted to make a mass kit for my classroom, I just didn’t know where to start. This is just perfect. I love how I can use it in my preschool classroom and again for 1st communion Prep. I love that most of the items can me found at Dollar Tree!!! Getting really excited to start this soon.
    Blessings!!!