Tamar's Album

I have known Tamar since she was a baby and remember her so well at the age she is in little photo you can see above. Therefore I was delighted when her Mum asked me to make an album for her Bat Mitzvah celebration and, even though time was tight, it was all ready for Tamar to take along to her ice skating party for all of her friends to write in.

Tamar's Mum sent me a favourite photo with her hair really curly, just how she likes it, along with the cherished photo of her from when she was little. She told me that Tamar's hobbies include gymnastics (the subject matter of her birthday card last year), shopping and drawing, and that her favourite colour is purple.
On the front cover on her album I showed Tamar with her really curly dark hair, a big smile (and a few freckles). She is wearing big hoop earrings - as Mum requested - and all around her I have depicted her various hobbies, as well as an Australian and Israeli flag since she was born in Australia and now lives in Israel.

Inside I decorated several pages. The shopping bags made an appearance again, along with a few little doodles (apparently she doodles all the time at school) and some pencils. The name Tamar means 'date' (the edible kind) in Hebrew and Tamar's middle name is Rose, thus a page with a big red rose on it, above, and palm tree complete with teeny tiny dates, was created. The final two pages showed the flags of her two "home countries" and, shown above, a picture of her doing gymnastics in the sparkly white top she wears for competitions.

The front of the album says 'Tamar's Bat Mitzvah' in both English and Hebrew, and displays the date of her celebration according to the Western Gregorian calendar and also the Hebrew date. (The Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar, with twelve lunar months of 29 or 30 days, which is about ten days short of a solar year, so seven years in every nineteen have an extra month.  This ensures that the seasonal festivals keep to their correct season.) The album opens in the Hebrew direction, from the right, because the Hebrew language is read from right to left instead of left to right like English.
I am told that Tamar loved it. Now her Mum intends to get photos printed from her celebration so she can stick them in alongside the greetings from her friends. She predicts it will take months!!!