Opa and Savta

A fellow blogger, whom I met on the Jerusalem Scavenger Hunt, recently wrote and asked me to make a special card for her parents-in-law's 40th wedding anniversary. I explained what information I would need from her to make the customised card and, goodness me, did she send me a lot to work with!
The couple are originally from New York but now live in Jerusalem. Their daughter-in-law told me that Israel is very important to them. Her father-in-law studies Jewish texts and has had a Sefer Torah written in his name. They love to host people in their Jerusalem home, especially on Shabbat and Sukkot, and they have a very big Sukkah for that reason, after years of living in an apartment, and thus no room for a Sukkah, in New York. Lastly, they like to play cards, and games such as Scrabble and Rummikub.

So how did I incorporate all that on the card? Well I crafted a little picture of the couple, Mum wearing a head covering (some Orthodox married women cover their hair) and Dad with a black kippa. A road sign points to New York and Jerusalem, and below that, a little papercut illustration, above, depicts their new hometown of Jerusalem.

I included a Sefer Torah, perhaps like the one written in Dad's name, and the large white Sukkah, below, with its roof of sechach (raw, unfinished vegetable matter). A pack of cards and some Scrabble tiles spell out the words 'forty' and 'years', and I popped all the different elements onto a red background, since the 40th anniversary has ruby as a theme.
The couple go by Opa (Grandfather in German) and Savta (Grandmother in Hebrew). It seems that they appreciated the card. My customer told me that it was "a hit!"