Savta and Eli

'Savta' is the modern Hebrew word for 'grandmother'. I recently made this card for a customer who wanted a birthday card for her Mom, yet it also had to show that the greetings were from her children too. I think that 'Savta's' name at the top of the card did just that and I am sure that she was proud to see it up there in lights!
My customer told me that her Mum had recently started to dabble with watercolour painting, so a pan set and tiny brush were incorporated into the design. This particular card was quite a last minute request and had to be made at night - something that I really try and avoid because I find it hard to work accurately under artificial light. The hand cut letters made it all the more complicated but I was happy with the end result. A few days ago a visitor to my Flickr page commented with a question as to where I get my Hebrew letters cut. She wanted to know if they are only found in Israel or do I do it with a die cutting machine? I was so flattered to read that question because I cut all my letters out by hand after having drawn them to the required size. The fact that she thought my letters were machine-cut hopefully means that I might be doing something right! 'Eli' was celebrating his birthday a few days after his Grandmother so the very same customer asked me to make a card for her son too. People have very different ideas about what should go on cards for teenagers and this particular customer felt that he was "too old" for pictures of his hobbies or a portrait. She asked me to make a more generic card for a 15 year-old, with his age somehow depicted on it. I'm pretty sure that a birthday cake and candles are still quite acceptable to teenage boys, right?