She Requested a "Lisa Card"

I made this card a month before my youngest son died, so Meital is now a little older. It's a cute card though and one that I still wanted to share here. I hope she doesn't mind.
Meital requested a "Lisa card" that she could use as a new door sign for her bedroom. I made a set for her whole family back in 2019 and Meital wanted to update hers.

I was asked to show her singing and dancing. She loves 'Just Dance', a dance video game, and 'Simply Sing', an app that enables you to improve your singing. Mum also asked me to show Meital wearing the green shirt of NOAM, the youth movement she goes to. (NOAM is an acronym for No'ar Masorti, Masorti Youth, a Zionist youth movement.) The orange cord at the collar of Meital's shirt, known in Hebrew as a sroch hadracha, displays her rank.

Meital loves the caramel shortbread chocolate bar Twix and, in mum's words, "unfortunately her phone". There was also a request to include 'BTS', also known as the Bangtan Boys, a South Korean boy band and 'Black Pink', a South Korean girl group, on her card. I had to look them up!

I already knew that Meital loves Christmas and anything to do with it. I added a red Santa hat and some Christmas decorations, quite an unusual request for a Jewish girl living in Israel but hey, I love Christmas too! Finally mum told me that light grey is Meital's favorite colour, so I made that the background colour of her card.

Meital was going to be turning 10, but since she wanted to use the birthday card as a sign for her bedroom door, I decided to leave her age off the card on this occasion.

Mum told me that "I made someone very happy today!" when she opened her card. The accompanying photos were a delight to receive.

* This post has been shared on Thinking Out Loud Thursday, Little Things Thursday, Thursday Favorite Things

A Singing Savta

This special savta (savta or safta is the Hebrew word for grandmother) was turning 70 and her daughter asked me to make her a card. It actually turned out that this card was pretty meaningful for me. Savta's 70th birthday was on the exact same date that my mum would have turned 80. I couldn't make my own mum a special card, so it was my pleasure to be able to make one for another much loved mum...

Mum's prominent features are her glasses, her smile and dangly earrings, her daughter told me. I suspect that I may have made her earrings a little bit too dangly actually, but they made me smile, so it seemed a shame to trim them! Themes on the card should cover swimming, walking and (lots of) grandchildren, her daughter wrote, adding "if you want one more, music/singing" too.

I have shown Savta happily singing, with outstretched arms. Some music notes surround her. To her right are some walking boots, a swimming costume, swim cap and goggles. On Savta's left I added a sparkly silver number 70, to mark her special birthday. My customer told me that Savta has 11 grandchildren, which is of course wonderful but too many to fit on one card! Instead I created three little faces and added the word "savta" on a banner in front of them. The heart shows how much they all love her!

* This post has been shared on The Good. The Random. The Fun., Inspire Me Tuesday, Tuesdays with a Twist and Creatively Crafty Link Party.

Nili's Album

Nili appeared in one of my favourites pieces, the family portrait I created showing her dad portrayed as Superman. I also made a Bat Mitzvah book for her sister Emmy back in 2018. This time it was Nili's time to celebrate and mum asked me to make her a Bat Mitzvah book for her party back in June. (She decided to leave the date off the cover just in case the party had to be postponed because of Covid-19 or in case someone had to be in quarantine.)

Nili is a young makeup artist, her mum told me. She has apparently been doing professional looking makeup since she was 7 and actually did the makeup for a local amateur theatre production a couple of years ago. She also has her earphones on literally all the time, mum said, with her phone in her hand, watching Netflix. The colour scheme for her Bat Mitzvah celebration was black and gold. I used some artistic license and added a few spots of colour as well.

I showed Nili busy making a YouTube video for her channel on the cover of her album. She is surrounded by makeup, on the table in front of her and on the white shelves, like those in her bedroom, behind her. She is wearing earbuds and holding her phone, which in fact shows her YouTube channel on the screen. Finally, I added music notes in the background since mum told me that she loves singing and has a seriously beautiful voice. Some makeup brushes appear in two corners of the cover.

I decorated five pages inside Nili's album. The first page, above, showed her precious phone, with Nili herself one the screen. I also included the Netflix, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube logos. Next I added some music notes to illustrate her passion for singing. A makeup bag and more makeup appeared after that. "Oh she loves her makeup!" mum wrote to me.

The following page, which appears to have been her favourite if you have watched the video I shared at the top of this post, shows the family dogs, Aish and Belle and their cute white hamster too, below. I was already quite familiar with both dogs since Aish appeared on Emmy's album and both dogs features in the family portrait.

Mum told me that one page of Nili's Bat Mitzvah book had to have something to do with McDonald's on it. It seems that she is rather partial to their Chicken McNuggets! I cut out some of the favoured nuggets and added a small pot of tomato ketchup. Then I crafted a tiny version of the red McDonald's french fry box and made sure to add the Golden Arches, the symbol of the restaurant chain. Apparently real arches were originally part of the restaurant design. They were incorporated into the chain's logo in 1962, which resembled a stylised restaurant, and in the current Golden Arches logo, introduced 1968, resembling an "M" for "McDonald's". They are widely regarded to be one of the most recognisable logos in the world.

Mum was delighted with the book and later sent me the clip of Nili opening it. "She loooves it!!" mum wrote to me. That's all I needed to know.

* This post has been shared on Little Things Thursday, Creatively Crafty Link Party, Thursday Favorite Things and Craft Schooling Sunday.

Nir and Jonny

I made a birthday card for Nir last year with the greeting "Enjoy your last year in your 30s". Of course this year he was celebrating his 40th birthday and a new card was requested. He is a baal kore (the person who reads the weekly excerpt from the Torah during synagogue services) and enjoys Jewish learning. His wife says that he also has a cheeky side to him. He is a big football fan and loves the Israeli football club Macabbi Haifa and Ronaldo. He also likes listening to Shwekey, an Orthodox Jewish recording artist and musical entertainer, and singing with his kids.

I have shown Nir with one of his favoured kodesh books (religious texts) in one hand and a football in the other! He is wearing an Israeli policeman's hat - a reminder of the fun times he had with his kids at Purim, a Jewish holiday where customs include wearing masks and costumes to public celebrations and parades. Behind him is a badge of his favourite football team, to his right is a picture of Ronaldo and to his left, Yaakov Shwekey. I added a big red number 40 to mark his age and a few music notes too, since he loves to sing with his kids.

Nir's wife sent me the wonderful photo of him proudly showing off his card.

Jonny has received many, many cards of mine over the years! Last year I showed him joining in a karaoke session singing Queen's "We Are The Champions". This year, lockdown year, his wife asked me to show him sitting on the brown sofa on their balcony with his laptop on his knees. He has his England shirt on - a little dig at the fact he was supposed to see them play in the Euros this summer - and his favoured blue Reading F.C. cap. I added some red and blue balloons and bunting because, let's face it, the brown sofa wasn't so exciting!

"Great card as usual" Jonny wrote to me.

* This post has been shared on The Good. The Random. The Fun., Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday), Pictorial Tuesday, Tuesdays with a Twist, The Happy Now Blog Link- Up and My Corner of the World.