Aviva's Invitation

It's been a great summer. We've done some fun day trips, had quite a few lazy days at home, and travelled to the north of the country for several glorious days. I'm going to organise my photos and post them here soon, but in the meantime I can now show you this invitation design, created for a dear friend's daughter who celebrated her Bat Mitzvah this last weekend.

I know the young lady in question quite well, since her family visit Israel often and we always hook up when they are here. After a few emails back and forth I was able to put together a design which pretty much included all of her current interests and hobbies.

Aviva's Mum told me that one of the most important things in her daughter's life is her violin. Apparently she is a superstar with it and it *had* to feature in the invitation design. The Bat Mitzvah girl also plays the piano, so references to music - notes, treble clefs and staves - were suggested. She is very artistic, loves reading and is very studious too. All those attributes were incorporated into the design. Finally, Mum said the colour scheme was to be purple and that, if I was able, I should use both English and Hebrew in the design.

I have shown Aviva with her violin under her chin and a book in her right hand. A couple of pencils and some papers are nearby. Apparently she always wears a flower in her hair too, so a lilac one, to match the colour scheme, was a must! I initially had a piano in the top corner of my design but we all agreed that it felt too crowded. The music notes somehow looked younger and lighter.

I was delighted to receive my own invitation in the post a few weeks after I had sent my artwork to the UK (below), though I was less delighted to realise that it simply wasn't on the cards for me to travel abroad this summer. However, my friend told me that everyone was "raving about them [the invitations]" and that her daughter especially was very happy with my work.

Next up, Aviva's album. I'm saving that for another post.

"The 7th Floor"

The youngest son got very excited when I told him about "The 7th Floor" project, a graffiti and street art exhibition at the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv. He was so keen to go and see the exhibition that we really didn't think too much about the location. Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station, once the largest bus station in the world, is located in the poorest part of the city and in recent years it has become somewhat neglected. Numerous drug addicts, prostitutes and homeless people have taken residence there. It was probably not the safest place to take the kids, but is also the reason why the street art exhibition was created there. As the exhibition poster states "We dream of transforming the Central Bus Station building from a symbol of grey massiveness into a place of surprise and colour." 

We had to be brave. Oh, and we took Mister Handmade in Israel with us.

To get to the exhibition we headed to the seventh floor, the top floor of the station where thousands of travellers arrive and depart each day. There we were greeted by 1,000 metres of painted walls created by 50 artists including Israel's best graffiti artists, as well as artists from abroad. We saw the work of Pil Peled, Maya Gelfman, Adi Sened and many more. It was interesting to compare and appreciate the differences in styles and techniques, and we enjoyed browsing the walls and choosing our favourites.

The aim of the exhibition is to raise public awareness of street art and was the vision of two Tel Avivians who wished to support the street art scene that has flourished in recent years in Jaffa-Tel Aviv. The idea is to change residents' attitudes toward their immediate environment. The explosion of colour, shapes and letters currently transforming the Central Bus Station building has certainly gone some way towards doing that, though there is clearly a long way to go.

After spending quite some time examining all the walls, we left quickly. We had thought about grabbing a quick falafel in the station but soon realised that it was not a place where we wanted hang out with the kids. We took the bus back to our home city instead and ate pizza in the shopping mall there. We felt safer.

Leah and Ari

We are well in to the summer holidays now but it's never too late to show you some thank you cards that I made for some special teachers at the end of the school year.
The first card, above, was for a lovely lady who has taught my customer's son for six years. I was asked to illustrate the young man with his teacher, who taught him several subjects including maths and Hebrew. My customer also wanted me to somehow illustrate the young man's movement from Primary to High School so, along with the school books and maths symbols, I added two little school buildings labelled 'Primary' and 'High School' in Hebrew. The arrow is pointing in the right direction.

Now I can honestly say that I don't get asked to put Haredim (the most conservative form of Orthodox Judaism) on the front of my cards very often, but this gentleman was the schoolboy's aide in school and my customer said that they had a very special bond. Ari, the aide, helped the young man throughout the time of his Bar Mitzvah and my customer was keen for me to capture their special relationship on the card.
I have shown the young man and his aide, resplendent in his dark suit with white shirt, and his head covered with a black, wide-brimmed hat. There is a pair of tefillin on the card, since the art of putting on tefillin was something that the schoolboy learned from him, along with a Siddur (a Jewish prayer book containing a set of daily prayers).
My customer returned from her son's end of year party to find the cards in her letterbox. Both she and her son loved them and she wrote to say how excited she was to give the teachers something so unique.

Girls! Girls! Girls!

My last post was devoted to the boys. This one concentrates on the girls.

Ella, above, was turning 7. Her Grandma told me that she likes gymnastics, dancing and playing the piano. Grandma sent me a photo and I matched Ella's hairstyle and spotted hairband.

This young lady was celebrating her 16th birthday by getting hair extensions. I'm told that it is quite an unusual thing for a girl of that age to do, but that's what she wanted! Her Auntie asked me to show a teenage girl with very long straight brown hair on her birthday card. I hope I got the look about right.

This card was made for an 11 year old who is into clothes, make up and dancing (erm, which 11 year old girl isn't?). I've made a similar card before but added a few items to fit the various themes. The Hebrew greeting says "Happy Birthday to my dear Granddaughter Shiri".

Finally,  a regular customer wrote to ask me for a Bat Mitzvah card for a very special young lady who loves tennis, jazz dancing and listening to music on her headphones. My customer also wanted the number 12 on the card - the age that Jewish girls traditionally celebrate their Bat Mitzvah - and told me that the Bat Mitzvah girl loves the colour purple.

My customer was nice enough to email me when she saw the card to tell me "It is lovely!". I hope that Sarit thought so too.

Let's Hear It for the Boys

Yonatan celebrated his 10th birthday last month. His Mum told me that he is into anything computerised and asked me to include some of the big computer company names and their logos on his card. She was, however, a little bit afraid that the birthday boy would think that he was getting an iPhone or laptop of his own for his birthday but in the end I don't think that there was any great confusion! I suggested adding some balloons and cake to the card to give it a birthday theme, and made to sure to match his cool hairstyle from the photo supplied by the young man himself.

Jack was turning 14. His Auntie requested a card showing a football goalkeeper wearing a dark blue kit and white boots. I put the young man in front of the football net, preventing the opposing team from scoring a goal. I hope he managed it!

Finally, birthday cards are not just for 14 year old football fans or 10 year old computer whizzes. This 'young man' was turning 80 and his daughter felt that he should have a special card on the day too. He likes doing crosswords, drinking red wine and watching rugby, and can often be seen out and about wearing his Panama hat. It all went on the card. I hope he had a wonderful day.

A Festival of Paper

Israel is really good at festivals. There are beer festivals, food festivals, music festivals, you name it. When a friend told me that she'd heard something on the radio about a paper festival in nearby Rehovot do you think I hesitated? No, I practically ran there, with the youngest son in tow. It was fabulous!

The Paper Festival was the first festival of its kind in the country. It had paper art, paper street performers, paper fashion, paper workshops for the kids and more. We saw beautifully designed furniture and a giant castle made from carton, and sat on seats made from bundles of cardboard boxes when we needed to rest our feet. The festival was also keenly promoting recycling and aimed to increase public awareness of the need to recycle materials.

There were dozens of artists exhibiting their work. My absolute favourite by far were the gorgeous paper flowers made by Tami Vardi, above. Her flowers were dotted around the park where the festival took place and her table overflowing with flowers was, in my mind, the absolute highlight of the festival. Can you tell how much I loved it? My son had to practically pull me away.

Avi Sevilya's sculptural creations were simply breathtaking. His webpage tells me that he normally works with papier-mache, combining traditional techniques and modern material. The works he displayed at the festival were created from rolled paper, above, and looked rather like alien life forms had just landed in the park. They were simply incredible.

There was plenty of papier-mache art, admittedly some better than others. These seated figures, above, using plastic garden chairs as a base, were just wonderful, as was the delicate oversized quilling, below. The youngest son and I watched in fascination as a group of actors turned themselves into utterly convincing paper monsters.

It was a truly wonderful evening, full of noise and colour, and of course paper! What more can a girl who makes papercut art need? 

The Very Sleepy Sloth - Part II

Mister Handmade in Israel recently celebrated his birthday but I'm a little late in blogging about it. The kids are home for the summer you see and, although they are now big enough to amuse themselves and to let me get on with my own thing to a certain extent, I am still a little out of sync. Anyway, better late than never, right?

Now, my hubby has learnt to open his birthday card with a teeny tiny amount of trepidation. For the last few years I've been making fun of him on his cards. And this year was no different! I am really not 100% sure that I should be telling you this on my blog but Mister Handmade in Israel is a sleeper. He loves to sleep. Often. And for a long time. I, on the other hand, do not need a huge amount of sleep. I prefer to read. But my hubby is a light sleeper and says my reading light disturbs him. Thus the mask.

I have shown my hubby snuggled under the duvet with his most glamorous grey and turquoise rimmed sleep mask on. His trusty alarm clock, with the long-missing digit, is by his side, along with a pile of his preferred reading material. The football money box, bought by the kids several years ago, and his black slippers with the hole in their toes (apparently he likes them that way!) feature too.

The kids, like always, got in on the act as well. Both of them made Daddy a lovely card but the youngest son's card, on the right, made my friend Mandy snort with laughter when she saw it. He drew the top of Daddy's head with its, ahem, receding hairline. His ears are a little pink and the sun cream spray is marked as "obviously not helping". Daddy's dreadful green hat appears too.

I think I have competition.

I'm sorry if I've given too many secrets away, Mister Handmade in Israel, but at least you got cake. Happy Birthday!

This is my 400th blog post. Writing about my hubby's birthday seems like a great post for it.