Lucy's Album

Lucy celebrated her Bat Chayil back in July and her aunt and uncle asked me to create an album for her special weekend. (Bat Chayil means 'daughter of valour' and is an Orthodox Jewish ceremony. It takes place in Orthodox synagogues at a date close to the girl's 12th birthday. The girl will give a talk on a Jewish topic, but not during the Sabbath service.)
Lucy is an actress and singer (she was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the West End) and she loves maths and science at school. Her favourite food is sushi and edamame beans, and she also loves ballet and pointe work. Her mum told me that her daughter's favourite colour is pink and that the colour scheme for her Bat Chayil celebration was going to be hot pink.

I have shown blonde-haired Lucy with a microphone in one hand. Behind her are two big spotlights. To her right is the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang logo, the show she was in for a year, and some sushi and edamame beans. On her left are some music notes, some pointe ballet shoes and two books with Science and Maths printed on their spines.
Lucy's Bat Chayil appears at the top. The date of her Bat Chayil celebration is below. The silver lettering and pink background box match the colours of her celebration perfectly, while two silver Magen David's (Star of David) appear in two corners of the cover, surrounded by shades of pink to match the colour scheme as well.

I also decorated five pages inside the album. The first page, the opening page, has a microphone and some music notes on it. Next I added another spotlight and the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang logo, followed by a page with two books on it, illustrating Lucy's favourite subjects at school. I created some teeny tiny sushi and edamame beans for the following page in her book and, finally, for the last page I crafted some more pale pink pointe shoes.

Lucy's mum was very enthusiastic about the album. "That front cover looks just fantastic - you really have captured Lucy." she wrote to me, then followed it up to say that "She [Lucy] loved it - so special. Thank you."

* This post has been shared on Little Things Thursday, Creatively Crafty, Share Your Cup Thursday, The Creative Circle

Ben & Perry's

A new customer requested a birthday card for "Grampa Ben". He is an architect and, I am told, a bit narcoleptic. He can apparently fix anything that needs doing around the house, and also travels a great deal, from Toronto to his grandchildren in New Jersey and Palo Alto in the United States, and Ra'anana, Israel.

I have shown Grampa Ben with some architectural drawings rolled up in his arms. He has a hammer in his other hand, and yellow hard hat and some nails and tools nearby. The flags of Canada, the United States and Israel, along with an aeroplane, represent his busy travel schedule. Grampa Ben always wears a small black kippa, oh, and he might just be about to have a little snooze too... 

Savta Perry (Savta is the Hebrew word for Grandma) loves skiing and is a patron of the ballet. She was due to travel to Thailand and Myanmar (Burma) for her birthday.

I have shown her in a red snowsuit (the photo I was sent of Savta Perry showed her in an elegant red dress, so I figured she likes the colour red!), against a backdrop of snow-capped mountains. In her hands she holds a pair of skis and also some pink ballet shoes. Once again an aeroplane appears on the card, along with the flags of the two countries she was visiting.

I am delighted to say that my customer, a first-time buyer, left me some wonderful feedback in my Etsy shop. "Absolutely uncanny resemblance!!!" she wrote. "Thanks for such super personalised cards and very quick service."

Dancing Girl

A new customer asked me to make a Bat Mitzvah card for a young lady called Ariella. Ariella, she told me, is the eldest of four children so, despite her age, she is a bit of a superhero when it comes to childcare, cooking and babysitting. She really loves ballet and recently got her first pair of pointe ballet shoes, so my customer was keen for me to show those on the card too. She also goes to the Scouts, likes reading and, according to her Mum, "of course she likes watching rubbish television!"
I have shown the Bat Mitzvah girl balancing on her toes in her new pointe shoes in the centre of the card. She is surrounded by all the things she enjoys in life: cooking pots and utensils, a television, books and the badge of the Hebrew Scouts Movement in Israel. I added a Magen David (Star of David) and the number 12, since that is the age that a girl becomes a Bat Mitzvah and is considered an adult, according to Orthodox Jewish law.
I heard from Mum that the card was Ariella's favourite!

I haven't blogged about anything food related for quite some time but, since I have mentioned Ariella's love of cooking, I thought I'd show you the chocolate brownies which I made recently, and which I think deserve a mention. I enjoy baking but have never really managed a decent chocolate brownie. I have tried several brownie recipes over the years - some because they were simple and quick to make, and others because they just sounded delicious - but I never got them quite right. Some time ago I spotted Margo Sugarman's Lush Chocolate Brownies recipe on her blog, "The Kosher Blogger". I used to work with Margo in my previous life as a graphic designer at a news magazine, and now I enjoy following her cooking adventures through Facebook. She describes these brownies as "the Holy Grail of brownie recipes and everything a real classic brownie should be." She's not wrong! The brownies came out chocolaty and rich, and were wolfed down at speed, even though I had doubled the recipe (I do have a teenager and a preteen in the house!). I won't be looking any further for a good brownie recipe.

An interesting aside, brownies were invented by a prominent Chicago socialite, Bertha Palmer, whose husband owned the Palmer House Hotel. Bertha asked a pastry chef for a dessert suitable for ladies attending the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. She requested a confection smaller than a piece of cake, though still retaining cake-like characteristics, easily eaten from boxed lunches. The first brownies featured an apricot glaze and walnuts, and are still made at the modern hotel according to the original recipe.