The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Narnia movie night

Time for a family movie night!  We just had to get around to watching the Narnia movies sometime during our Narnian Christmas theme.  Yes, it did start out as a November Narnia theme during the C.S. Lewis memorial week, but now it has transformed into a Narnian Christmas!  The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is the second book in the series, but the first movie (Disney version) that has come out in recent years, so we started with that one.  I wanted the kids to enter into the land of Narnia to watch the movie.  I’ve been thinking about this theme for awhile, and about ideas to do, so have been gathering a few props.  But in the end, I had to throw this movie night together quickly because there happened to be a free, non-school-night that would work.

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What images pop into your mind when you think of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe?  I guess those three things would be the first obvious ones, the Lion Aslan, the wardrobe full of fur coats which leads into Narnia, and the White Witch who has made it always winter and never Christmas in Narnia.  And if you thought of something to eat…would it be the Turkish delight that tempts Edmund into betraying his siblings to the witch?  How about that famous symbol, the lighted lamp post, where Lucy first meets the Faun, Mr. Tumnus, in the middle of a wintry wood.

It wasn’t too hard to find some of these things and to quickly decorate my room for movie night.  I love the idea of the warm fur coats that the kids push through to get into the back of the wardrobe, and later borrow to wear in the wintry Narnia.  Of course I dreamed of making wardrobe doors that would open up and lead into Narnia (I was just going to make them out of large cardboard boxes) but (also of course) I didn’t have time to make all of my ideas.  So I passed on the wardrobe and just focused on pushing through the fur coats to get into the land beyond.  No fur coats around here, so I used my faux-fur throw (the dark brown color was perfect).  Here’s the simple how-to:Get a fur blanket and a tension rod, install the rod in the door frame and drape the blanket over it, that’s all!This is what the inside of the door looked like.  The blanket was too heavy to cover the whole door, which would have been cool, but I didn’t have safety pins to pin it, and clothespins didn’t work, so just draped it hanging as long as I could.  It gave the right effect, when each kid pushed past the fur “robe” and slipped into Narnia….To create an instant and easy forest did require one purchase.  I found this canvas picture of an evergreen tree at IKEA.  When I first saw them advertised, I thought that they were kind of strange, especially when I saw that ornaments were pinned on, as if it was a Christmas tree, but now I totally changed my mind and love my canvas tree picture!  I scored this one in the As-is section for half-off, but here in Canada the regular price is about $14.50.  It looked really big in my room, and only took 5 minutes to tack up on the wall, right along the edge of the ceiling, though it does have a sleeve at the top to run a rope or curtain rod through…It really gives the feel of being in a winter forest, though there isn’t actually snow in the picture.  And in the process of setting up movie night, I found out that the tree glows in the dark!!  How fun is that?  Especially where the lamp post shines on it…Which brings us to the all-important lamp post (lamppost? lamp-post? I don’t know how to spell it…) which I wasn’t going to do without.  Another IKEA hack!!  I have a small Ikea lamp that cost about $7, it uses smaller round bulbs, so I just pulled off the shade and made a lantern-like top out of black cardstock (heavier than paper, lighter than card).  Since I was rushed, I didn’t spend much time on it, and the post at the top is proportionally way too big, but “la idea es esa” you get the idea.  I won’t leave the lamp post turned on for long, for fear it will burst into flame.  It would probably be great with a night-light bulb in it, but oh well.  The top is just a square of cardstock, creased cross-ways and basically just setting on, with 2 dots of glue.  There are 4 kinda rectangle shapes glued to a paper circle at the bottom, just to give the illusion that it’s wider and solid at the bottom.  And that was it, but kinda cute!It’s not at all sturdy, but fine for just a display.  I’m sure there would be ways for making it last longer…oops, I forgot to take a before shot of the lamp….I draped a white sheet over the little bookcase (for snow) and set out a few things…. (hey, right when I typed that sentence out about snow, I remembered that I was going to throw white tissue paper on the floor, so that when you stepped “through the wardrobe” you would “crunch” on the snow!!!  What a bummer I forgot!!  That would have been super easy but really cool).

The craft store (Michaels) had a great plastic lion (used a 40% off coupon!) for Aslan, I really like the expression on his face.  We had Susan and her horn from a McDonald’s meal from a long time ago….And of course, a box of Turkish delight!  Didn’t have time to try making our own Turkish delight from this recipe from SprinkleBakes that I want to try, and I think (the adults) we were kinda tired of the real stuff anyways, so Henry picked up some of my favorite chocolates….yummy! That went over well!  So the rest of the “decorations” were easy, just lots of comfy pillows, and a small white tree with white lights…I had wanted to make chocolate beaver lodges for dessert, but just let it go for another time… We all piled together and got comfy, ate pizza and our Turkish delight for dessert, and enjoyed the Narnia movie!  Happy to report that a fun time was had by all.  It helps to have heaps of snow outside in the freezing weather and early darkness to make you feel reallllly cozy!  Hope this helps with some ideas for a family movie night for your family!

The Magician’s Nephew, DIY Narnia theme

And back to Narnia!  We’ve been up to some more DIY (do it yourself) Narnia theme stuff.  I’m still here with the Magician’s Nephew.  I wanted to include a photo of the book cover from the books that I grew up reading, since they seem a little rare.  These ones were published in 1983 and were new when we were given a boxed set of the 7 books.  I remember that I wasn’t allowed to read them right away, I had to wait till I was older (10, I think) and I used to gaze in longing at the box…which looked like this:

The illustrations for the covers and box were by Stephen Lavis.  Here’s the cover of the first book, and this is how I will always think of it.  I loved these illustrations, and like that each book had one of the symbols from that story on the front cover.  This one has the apple…And about that apple…..I made some (totally awesome) caramel apples for one of our Narnia treats.  For the special apple that Digory picked, I used some edible silver spray paint to make it shine.  That caramel was so so very good, I feel like being greedy and not sharing the recipe for it, but that doesn’t seem quite right….so you can find it here.  If you really want.  But you might not want to because it’s really full of calories and sugar and all that stuff.  But just in case you really want to, I will share.  Oh wait, I can’t find the link, too bad.  If you reallllly want it, beg and I’ll look for the recipe!! 😉Here’s the apple and a quote from the end of the book after he gets the apple and takes it home….And now for some DIY ideas from our display.  Start with some empty bottles…This the quote that I wanted to portray in this part of the display in our living room…We had the bottles, now for the candles.  All candles now-a-days seem to be dripless.  So these ones needed some help.  Now, I’ve always been careful about letting my kids play with fire, but I figured they are quite old enough now, and when I remember all the fun stuff Henry and I did playing with fire when we were kids….(we did live in cement houses), it seemed like a good time….Using other candles, we dripped wax down the sides of candles in bottles.  Then we melted crayons to add some different colors.  Then we lit crayons as torches.  I heard that one crayon can burn for 30 minutes.  You never know when that fact might come in handy.And then parts of supper (garbanzo beans) were roasted over the candles…It was all fun, and made a great ambiance for our supper, and later, a perfect Narnia display.  Oh, here’s something that didn’t make it into the display though I really wanted one…a guinea pig!I came up with another fun display or diorama thing, with Fledge the winged horse and Digory when he’s in the walled garden.  If you look closely you can see the witch hiding behind the tree with an apple in her hand, and the sleepy-looking bird in the tree.  The cutouts look really cool in the bonsai tree, but the coolness doesn’t show up the in the photos!  The lighting is so terrible today, a grey cold winter day…so photographing the tree felt impossible….these are the best photos I could get…
And this is what the gate at the walled garden said:A few more quotes from The Magician’s Nephew.  Can you tell I’m having fun with this theme??

The Magician’s Nephew: How to make Narnia Ring cookies

The Magician’s Nephew is the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis, and I’ve always thought that it’s my favorite.  “It is a very important story because it shows how all the comings and goings between our own world and the land of Narnia first began.”  (Though every time I start reading any book from the series, I think this one is my favorite!)  Can you tell I’ve got Narnia on the brain?  Let’s start at the very beginning….

When I first thought of having a Narnia theme around here, I thought: a display.  Then I thought: baking.  That’s how my brain works.  How to display something edible with a theme.  That’s what it’s all about, people!

So in today’s post I have our first display, for the first book, The Magician’s Nephew.  The book starts out with two children named Polly and Digory exploring an old house, and accidentally ending up in Uncle Andrew’s study.  He is a magician, or magician wanna-be and has supposedly found a way to travel to a different world.  Or at least he thinks it’s possible, but has only tried it out on a guinea pig, who unfortunately can’t tell anything about his experiences in the other world!  So Uncle Andrew needs someone else to try it out!  But not himself, of course!  He offers to let Polly have one of the lovely shiny yellow rings that are humming on a red wooden tray on his desk….

I love the image of the red wooden tray with the shiny green and yellow rings!  I knew that it had to be a part of my display.  I had already decided to start off with things that would remind me of Uncle Andrew’s study.  I dug around in our basement and found some old-looking and even just large books.  Some old candlesticks, an ancient globe, anything that looked old.   (I wanted sealing wax and an old microscope, but didn’t have them on hand!)  My old wooden “treasure chest” with safari animals on it was perfect, representing the secret box where Uncle Andrew first found the dust from another world, and the safari animals were perfect graphics for the animals who burst out of the ground in the new land of Narnia!  There are a few other symbols in here that weren’t from the study, but just appeared in the rest of the book (like the golden apple, but more on that later!)

Back to the red tray….I thought a lot about it.  How to do it?  I didn’t want to buy anything for this project, (except the special plastic animals, in this case, the winged horse).  A picture frame could work as a tray….yay, found one from an old school award.  Next step: to paint.  My son was happy to help me out with this project and painted the frame and a piece of cardboard red.  After that, we added some wood-look lines and a few sprays of glimmery paint, then a bit of distressing with brown paint.  I really really wanted to make handles for this tray, and spent a lot of brain power on it, but didn’t end up having the time.  Assemble the frame without the glass, presto, a tray!

Next: the rings.  That took a lot of thought, and it wasn’t till the last minute that I thought of making cookies.  But how perfect  (much better than another idea of cutting up paper rolls from toilet paper).  Here are the cookies, step by step.  Many of the photos were taken by my son, as those are my awkward-looking hands in the photos.  For the cookies, I used the End-All for chocolate cookies recipe from Lilaloa, so yummmy, and melted Wilton candy melts for the icing.

Cut out small circles cookies.  They are about 1 and 1/2 inch cookies.Melt up some black candy melts in a small baggie and snip off a corner.  Outline 2 circles per cookie.(When I saw these photos I realized how strangely I hold the icing bags! ha!  And don’t worry, that is fresh chocolate candy melt under my fingernail!)With yellow candy melts, snip off a bigger corner and fill in outlines that have already set.  Then go for the green!Before the “icing” on each cookie had set, I added a small white line for a bit of a “shine” on one side of each ring.  Then later when they were set and hardened, added a white asterisk to make it look like a sparkle.  Can’t leave well enough alone,  I wanted more shine.  I painted on a bit of silver sparkle, too.  It went faster than it sounds.  Really.All that spiffing up and you can hardly notice…. !  Set out the rings in pairs of yellow and green on the red tray!  We’re ready to travel to the Wood between the Worlds and on to Narnia…(My son was practicing some fancy photography techniques…)  This is how Polly must have felt when she touched the yellow ring….“They were no bigger than ordinary rings, and no one could help noticing them because they were so bright.  They were the most beautifully shiny little things you can imagine.  If Polly had been a very little younger she would have wanted to put one in her mouth.”  (I have always loved that description!)I think the “funnest” part about these ring cookies, was sending them to school in my kids’ lunches, then asking them if they had whisked off to Narnia during Math class!!! 😉