A Bat Mitzvah and a Birthday

The recent winner of my blog giveaway very sweetly came back to me with a customised card order. She wanted a Bat Mitzvah card for her Rabbi's daughter. The celebration took place this last weekend so I am now able to show you the card that I sent over to the USA.
The Bat Mitzvah girl is called Talia. My customer wanted some Hebrew on the card, so I hand cut the Hebrew letters of her name. Talia is interested in reading, skiing and science so I decorated the card with a couple of books, skis and some bottles and a bunsen burner, as well as a Star of David to include a Jewish element in the overall design.
The only question I had for my customer was whether the Bat Mitzvah girl is a "flowery pink girl" or not. I have had requests for lots of pink on a Bat Mitzvah card and, as in this case, for the opposite! Blue and purple were the requested colours this time and I was easily able to incorporate them into my design, particularly adding some lovely lilac and blue potions into the glass bottles!

The card below has a wonderful tale to go with it! As I mentioned in a relatively recent blog post, my Dad was staying with us not so long ago during the Passover holiday. The day before he was due to fly back to England one of my regular customers called. She needed a card quite quickly because she was looking for someone who could take it to the UK for her, to speed up delivery! This particular customer prefers to send my large, customised cards, which I obviously did not have ready for her there and then but, because she is familiar with my work, she popped round to my house, wrote the blank card and I created the design the following morning, just in time for my Dad to pop it into his suitcase and take it with him that afternoon! Talk about doing things in a topsy turvy way! Everyone was happy though. My customer got her card. I fulfilled the order and Grandma Judi received her birthday card in time. I am not sure what Dad got out of it - except for being a very willing delivery boy!

I recently made this yummy Quinoa Salad and it looked so good that I decided it was worth sharing here. The interesting thing about quinoa is that it is in fact kosher for Passover, even though one would assume it is in the same food group as wheat, barley, rye, oats and other grains which have leavened (risen) or fermented. Passover is over for this year though and I made this salad for a simple weekend lunch, though frankly I made so much of it that it lasted until midweek! I added toasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds, rather than the walnuts, simply because that is what I had in the house and the end result was a great main dish salad, perfect for a summer lunch in the garden.