Henry and Ann

A customer asked me to make a 70th birthday card for her husband. He is an avid Hull F.C. supporter (the rugby league football club based in West Hull, England). He loves trains and has set up a model railway in the garden, and he also likes vintage forms of transport. Her husband has had his own curtain and blind business for over 40 years. She also asked me to include a picture of him on the card.

I think I got everything on there. My customer was amused by her husband's paper portrait!

Her husband's sister was turning 60. She is into crafts, particularly beading, stenciling and stamping. She loves gardens and the Yorkshire Dales, and has a black and white cat. I had fun creating the cat and hope that I got his or her appearance about right!

* This post has been shared on Wednesday around the World, Wonderful Wednesday, {wow me} wednesday, Wordless Wednesday Link Up, Creatively Crafty Link Party, Share Your Cup Thursday and Little Things Thursday.

Painting Placemats

During the Chanukah break the youngest son and I went to a workshop at Kakadu. It's something that I have wanted to do for some time and it just worked out that the two of us were home and looking for a fun activity to do together.

I have written about Kakadu before. Founded in 1990 by Aharon and Reut Shahar, Kakadu is an Israeli company which creates handmade wooden art accessories for the home. Each Kakadu creation is painted by hand with a distinctive art motif and coated with a protective lacquer. The Kakadu gallery, in Moshav Tzafririm in the Elah Valley, contains a selection of Kakadu products including wooden wall hangings, art-based fashion, jewellery, and furniture. The gallery also hosts changing exhibits, music seminars, classes on nature and Jewish heritage, and workshops, like the one my son and I attended.

Reut Shahar runs the Kakadu workshops. After introducing herself and telling our group all about Kakadu and how she got started, Reut explained how she believes that everyone is a born artist and has the ability to produce a unique piece without any great expertise. She encouraged us to just enjoy the experience of painting and have fun!
It was time to enter the workshop and create a Kakadu masterpiece of our own. We could choose from placemats, door plaques, coasters, Hamsas and even large table runners. My son and I decided to start with placemats. Maybe we'll go back and create a big table runner now that we have some experience!

Now, my son and I draw in very different ways. I always like to plan out my work and make a preliminary sketch. He jumps right in and is less afraid of making mistakes. (Granted he is also quick to throw something away if it isn't "working".) Well, Reut was keen for us to just pick up a marker and simply start drawing. It didn't come naturally to me, but soon I was drawing leaves, flowers and a couple of little birds.

My son did a rather brilliant job of his mat. He explained to me that the four boxes in the top left corner depict the four seasons:  the butterfly represents Spring, the flash of lightning Winter, the red and white fire represents Summer, and the swirling leaves are for Autumn. I particularly like the two faces on his placemat too. They are so full of character. Kakadu is known for its bright colours and whimsical imagery. I think my son picked up on that and created his own unique piece in the most perfect way.

Once we had finished drawing and painting, Reut and her son were on hand, ready to “finish off” any pieces that people wanted help with. Neither my son or I wanted that. We had completed our work and were able to walk away with a beautiful piece of art in the Kakadu style, with a little bit of "Handmade in Israel" and "Master Handmade in Israel" mixed in.

I just know that we'll be going back.

A Good Healthy Meal

In this post I am featuring the work of my youngest son because it's paper related and, well, because it's great! My son, who is 11, had a school science project where had to create the menu and then a model of a healthy meal. He took the project very seriously and wrote a great menu with some very sophisticated choices! Most of the kids, as far as I could see, opted for cottage cheese and chopped Israeli salad. All good but not nearly as delicious as my youngest's choices.

He made wholewheat bread with butter and olive oil all from polystyrene and paper. The main course was St. Peters Fish with onions, oregano, almonds and carrots, along with side dishes of brown rice and new potatoes. Dessert was fruit salad and a yoghurt drink. I think he did an amazing job!

Now, of course I helped a little bit. How could I not? But he's a hard taskmaster! Everything had to "look real" and be in proportion. I tried to get him to use the plastic sliced bread from the toy kitchen which we still have in a box somewhere but, no, he wanted to make everything. Okay, so the meal is a little heavy on the bread. I wouldn't suggest eating that much or there wouldn't be any room left for the fish and those beautifully sculpted Plasticine potatoes. But it all looks delicious and is very healthy too.

Fruit salad anyone?

Gadi's Papercut

My kids are pretty blasé about my work. I guess they're just used to seeing it. They get excited when it comes to their birthdays and wait with great anticipation to see what theme I have gone for on their card, but otherwise they're really not too bothered to look at my latest creations. Therefore, when I recently had a first attempt at papercutting, I was thrilled when my youngest son - the son who walks around listening to his Mp3, with his ipod in his other hand - was excited to see what I had made. So excited, in fact, that later the same day he piped up and asked if he could make a papercut too.

You bet he could!

Now, 11 year old boys don't do birds and flowers. They do battles and guns and skeletons and all things nasty. Well, mine does anyway! I suggested the skull and crossbones to start with and my boy was happy to go with it. The teeth proved too hard for him and I helped out, and I must admit that allowing him to use my scalpel, while I stood over him holding my breath and praying that we would both keep all our fingers, was more than scary. But he did a great job!

He drew... he cut... and then it was finished! His very first papercut.

I hope there will be more.

If anyone wishes to order a similar papercut to mine, then please be in touch using the "email me" button on the right.

Nine

We had an early start this morning. I crawled out of bed when it was still dark to make sandwiches and get the boys' school bags ready early. Why? Because my youngest son turned 9 today and we had presents to open and cake to eat of course! There was a special card from Mummy too. My eldest son had been begging to see it for several days but I kept it well hidden. Both boys have learned to expect them and anxiously wait to see how I have portrayed them that year. This year's card seems to have been a big hit!

My son is a creative little guy. He loves to draw and has written some great short stories. He reads and reads and reads as well. Inside his special birthday card I wrote "Keep drawing. Keep writing. Keep reading. But please stop chewing your pencils and please stop spilling your food!!!". You see, with the creativeness comes a messy personality! There isn't a pencil in the house which has not been gnawed (any tips on how to get him to stop would be very much appreciated!) and he is forever spilling food on his clothes. Not everything is rosy! However, I love that he appreciates art and craft and so we'll not worry about the chewed pencils and ruined clothes for today!

So, how does the birthday boy look on his card? Well, I have shown him wearing his absolute favourite piece of clothing - his "leather" jacket which make him look so cool! He has his bullet necklace - purchased with his pocket money at The Ayalon Institute clandestine bullet factory some time ago - round his neck, and has a book in one hand and the aforementioned chewed pencil in the other. In front of him is one of his better drawings, a Doctor Who one, which I scanned and rotated a little so that it looks like he is working on it. My son thought that was great! A big orange number 9 declares his age and a favourite toy, Cookie the hamster, is perched on top of it. Finally I added some coloured Lego blocks - another favourite activity - and a big pile of books to the picture. I think it all just about sums him up!

My son's passion for creating means that he very much appreciated the couple of homemade gifts I made for him. He was fascinated when I sewed this little cross stitch, so I made him one for his room too. This one was a counted needlepoint kit and I am happy to report that, even though his bedroom walls are covered with scary looking Doctor Who posters, he seems excited to add this little cat picture to his collection. I put together his very own book as well, full of his own stories and illustrations, but am going to save that for another post.
And what's a birthday without cake? Happy Birthday to my crafty and creative 9 year old. I can't wait for your sleepover next week...

* If you would like to see some of his previous birthday cards, click here, here and here.

Redheads and Punks

The friend who ordered this card when her brother got married recently came back to me for another wedding card. This time it was friends who were getting married and the key thing she told me about them was that they are both redheads, or gingies as we call them here in Israel. Easy and fun to work with!
Amit, the groom, is a photographer, so I placed a camera in his hand. Jo, the bride, is from Australia and is a sciency gal. Upon clarification I learnt that she writes science papers, so I added a 'science' paper to her bridal bouquet. She is also holding an Australian flag.
Grooms in Israel tend to wear a white shirt and dark trousers at best and I have seen them stroll up to their own wedding in a pair of jeans but, after checking, I gave this guy a suit and tie. Apparently Jo is 'adjusting' him to western ways! Lastly, the couple met in Vietnam so, as a tribute, the Vietnamese flag can be seen blowing in the wind behind them.

My boys finish summer camp today so everything I create from now on till the end of the summer holiday will be done with a teeny tiny amount of interruption! Eldest son has been swimming and playing one sport or another most days and the youngest has been על גלגלים ('On Wheels'), visiting all kinds of kid-friendly places in the region. The other day he came back from the A Land and it's Dolls exhibition at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv where all the  kids had done a paper crafting activity. I loved his paper version of a punk rocker (below), especially the pierced nipples! The funny thing is, I don't think he has ever seen a punk in his whole life.

The kids are on holiday from school and so, in a way, I feel like I am too. I've definitely been taking life a little easier and it is so nice not having to take them to all their ex-curricular activities each day. There's even been a little time for some cooking and baking. Another batch of the best cupcakes in the world were made and consumed and I practised my sushi making too. We all LOVE sushi in our home. It's healthy and fun to make but I spend so long making it, only to see it disappear in the blink of an eye! I guess there are worse problems in life.

Shabbat Shalom - A Peaceful Sabbath

It's been a busy few days. The kids have been home from school and we have been celebrating the holiday of Shavuot, or the Festival of Weeks, which commemorates the anniversary of the day God gave the Torah to Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai. It is also the festival when we eat dairy - the holiday is also connected to the season of the grain harvest in Israel - so I made my usual time-consuming but tasty cheesecake, which disappeared much too quickly but was enjoyed by all.

In between the cheesecake eating, a visit to the synagogue and entertaining, my 8 year old son and I found some time for a little crafting. For some time now he has been asking to make something to sell in my shop. When he created some place setting cards for our Shabbat table recently, I knew that we had found the perfect card design. Over this school holiday we sat together and each made a card using his illustration.

My son's design shows two candlesticks, a beautiful plaited Challah bread, a Kiddush cup and bottle of wine. In big, bold letters he has spelt out the words 'Shabbat Shalom', A Peaceful Sabbath. I enlarged his original sketch on the computer and showed him how to trace his drawing onto coloured paper. We then had great fun together cutting and sticking to our hearts content!

My son's card and mine now share a listing in my Etsy Shop. If you click here you will  notice that this item is very special and not quite my usual style. The card set has been listed for less than 24 hours but my boy has already asked me a thousand times if anyone has bought it yet! Therefore, dear readers, if any of you would like to make a young boy very, very happy, please consider purchasing this very reasonably priced set of cards. All proceeds will go to the young man in question!
I am sure that there are many people the world over who would love to receive these special cards before any Shabbat. They have been handmade in Israel with so much love and the sale really would make my son's day!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update
The card set has been sold - thank you.

Frogs here, frogs there

Last week I was busy finishing off a bunch of customised card orders before the forthcoming holiday and now it is all systems go in our house as we count down to Passover. I thought I'd show you a little cross stitch design that I recently completed and actually now realise that it fits in very nicely with the current theme of Passover since frogs were the second of the ten plagues that God brought upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians, to persuade Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt.

I'll be honest, in reality this little frog doesn't really have too much to do with Passover or plagues. I used to embroider quite a bit as a young girl. My Mum created some beautiful embroidery over the years and she encouraged me to sit with her and have a go too. Time passed and I did it less and less but recently, whilst showing my own boys how to sew on plastic canvases, I dug out this little kit that has been in my sewing box for years and decided to try again.
The result is no great work of art. I don't think there are any mistakes in there, though the experts amongst you might spot one or two! However, I'm pleased to report that I really enjoyed creating something with a needle and thread again and found it relaxing to sit and stitch a little at the end of the day. At the moment there is too much going on with Seder preparations and lots of cleaning and cooking to do but, who knows, maybe after Passover I might get the urge to create something more than a little green frog!

Celebrating Purim

We have been celebrating Purim over the last few days. Technically the holiday falls only on one day, on the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Adar, but between a full week of dressing up at school, preparing Mishloach Manot and my eldest son marching with his class in the city parade on Friday, it seems to have lasted quite a few days. And it's been a great few days too! The holiday is one of the most joyous and fun holidays on the Jewish calendar and for the young man featured on the card below it was even more special because he was going to be celebrating his Bar Mitzvah.

This Bar Mitzvah boy completed 12 hikes all around Israel over the course of the year before his big day and is going on a trek in Nepal very soon. I have shown the freckled young man hiking with his backpack and have added the Nepalese flag and landscape. Above the flag you can see a Megillat Esther (Book of Esther) scroll from which we read the Purim story and, since the Bar Mitzvah boy was celebrating on Purim itself, I have added some triangular-shaped Hamantashen, or Oznei Haman. I have also illustrated a gragger, or ra'ashan (from the Hebrew ra-ash, meaning "noise"), which is used to blot out the name of Haman, the culprit in the Purim story, when it is read out during the public chanting of the Megillah in the synagogue.

Whilst I was creating my Purim themed card, my youngest son was making his own holiday artwork. I thought that his drawing of a clown was so delightful that I decided to scan it and use it to make gift tags. The clown's body is made from Hamantashen and he is holding his own rattle and can of snow spray (one of the less wonderful items popular with the kids on this holiday).
On Purim it is customary to prepare Mishloach Manot (food baskets) and to deliver them to your neighbours, friends and local charities, to ensure that everyone has enough food for a Purim feast later in the day. I baked and baked and baked some more to put together these baskets of cupcakes and other sweet items for our friends, and then tied them all up with my son's beautifully illustrated tag.

Finally, there is one more Purim custom that I would like to mention. It is traditional to dress up in fancy dress and wear masks over the festival and in fact throughout the whole month. There seems to be several reasons given for this custom, the most common being that on Purim we recognize that God saved us in a hidden fashion and we dress up to show that we understand sometimes that God's ways are hidden from us and we need to look further into things to see his presence.
My boys wanted costumes just like all their friends, though my eldest son doesn't like to wear anything that might make him look silly! After some thought I asked him whether he would like to dress up as a football. My suggestion went down well and my paper crafting skills were put to work.
The big day came and my sandwich board footballs were well received. "Mum", my son exclaimed at the end of the day, "There were lots and lots of footballers at school today but I was the only one in the whole school dressed as a football!".

Who is this man?

This card was made for a local guy who recently celebrated his birthday and I was pretty pleased with the likeness that I achieved. I really do think that it looks quite a lot like the birthday boy himself! That being the case, I've decided that it's time for a bit of fun! If any of my local readers can guess who this card was made for, leave a comment and we'll see how many of you are right! (If you're not local, please do leave a comment anyway - I'm always very happy to hear from you!). In the meantime, I'll give you a few clues and tell you a bit about our mystery person.

This fellow loves to run and has just finished his first marathon. He sings (thus the microphone in his hands whilst running!) and is a fan of The Boston Redsox baseball team. He writes for a profession, has black and grey curly hair and wears a kippah. His wife also mentioned to me that he is very thin. Her words not mine!

Can you guess who he is?

This past week my boys have been celebrating the upcoming festival of Purim at school and the annual Purim parade will pass through our city streets tomorrow. I took on the responsibility of decorating my youngest son's classroom in honour of the festival and, after a meeting with my small committee, it was decided that we would go with a seaside theme.  We hung buckets and spades, beach balls and surfboards from the classroom ceiling and I decided to add my own little personal touch and crafted some paper seagulls too (below).

They were based on a beautiful wooden mobile that my eldest son received when he was born, which still hangs in his room, and I reworked the design a little to make my gulls a little simpler but, I hope, equally effective.

One of my favourite cards was recently featured on the EtsyGreetings blog. Team members were asked to submit a photo of their current favourite card and I was happy to see my chosen design appear on the blog a few days later. Some lovely comments were made about it too, which made it even better! The card, Step into Spring, is currently available in my shop.

God's Eyes

My youngest son and I recently hosted a Bayit Cham (literally 'a warm house') afternoon activity in our home. 'Bayit Cham' sessions are popular in many Israeli schools. Basically your child's class is divided into small groups and each child who has offered to host some classmates at home receives a list of five or six kids to invite, the important thing being that they are not necessarily their good friends. This gives all the kids an opportunity to mix with some other children and have a little fun outside of their normal circle.
After a number of e-mails and phone calls to the parents of the kids on our list (goodness me, these kids have busy social lives!) we finally fixed a date that suited everyone and my son and I sat down to think about what we would do with his 'new' friends.

Decorating cupcakes was high on the list, as well as the obligatory game of Bingo (we always play Bingo at our get-togethers!) and then my son remembered something that we had made on a Kibbutz outing two summers ago that he really wanted to do again. Something that even my eldest, and let's just say rather artistically challenged, son had fun with. God's Eyes. A yarn weaving craft from the Huichol tribe of Mexico!
No, we didn't know the name of the craft activity until I did a little Internet research,  and, yes, it was a rather strange choice considering some of our visitors are religiously observant. But, I figured if the girls on the religious kibbutz we visited could do it, then we could too! So, God's Eyes it was and all the kids - boys and girls alike - seemed to enjoy it!
The collection you see here were the examples that my son and I made... and continue to make. Our visitors took theirs home with them of course. I want to work out a way of hanging all of these in my son's bedroom - I think they will make a gorgeous mobile - but in the meantime look how perfectly they go with this beautiful bunch of Kalaniot (anemones). The fields here in Israel, from the north to the northern Negev, are currently carpeted with these vibrant red flowers and, though these ones were shop bought, I love their amazing colour all the same!

The delightful world of paper cutting

Last Friday I was lucky enough to participate in a workshop held by Zipora Neeman, a paper cut artist and teacher who creates the most beautiful traditional Jewish paper cuts. Her workshop took place at Limmud, a conference based on the theme of Jewish learning and held for the first time in my home city of Modi'in. I was delighted to discover Zipora's workshop on the itinerary and was excited to have a go at something quite new to me.Zipora outlined the history of the craft of traditional paper cutting, which can be traced back to the 14th century in Spain. Afterwards we chose which template we wished to base our designs on and set to work. Zipora is a retired school teacher, which was very apparent in the way she instructed us. She checked each and every stage that we worked on and we were certainly not allowed to rush ahead in case obvious mistakes were made. Everything was very clearly explained, of course making it all seem so simple! It would be nice to tell you that what you can see here is all my original work. Well, I did create this particular paper cut, and am indeed very proud of it, but it is based on Zipora's design of a hamsa - a symbol or talisman used by both people of Islamic and Jewish faiths, thought to ward off the evil eye and offer protection from the hand of God.
We were shown how and where to create the intricate design inside the hamsa's outline; where to add a line or a curve, leaves, pomegranates and birds. My finishing touch, Zipora's suggestion, was to hand cut the Hebrew letters חי inside the Star of David. The word chai, spelt by these two letters, means "living" and also appears in the slogan "`am yisrael chai!" ("The people of Israel live!").
I won't tell you that my finished paper cut, below, looked terribly different from those of the other participants, who were of varying ages. However, I can tell you that it was a great workshop to participate in. It was fascinating to learn how to create a simple paper cut and my head is bursting with ideas of my own now! Thanks Zipora.