A touch of Hiddur Mitzvah

[Disclosure: This post contains some Amazon affiliate links for certain items.]

I am back! Well truly I haven’t gone anywhere but I have been far too busy mamaleh-ing to be blogging. That’s just the truth. I craft and create but adding the layer of writing and photographing (especially in the mess that is my craftroom) has just exceeded my daily allotment of quiet hours. Two year olds are busy bees and they want to do whatever mom is doing! So, it’s currently nap time in my house, or rather was until a minute ago, and I have a few minutes to share a simple and sweet creation with you.

A dear friend constantly tells me that I am engaged in hiddur mitzvah, a term that I was not all too familiar with but after some research, clearly my friend gets me. I’ve linked to a great article about the concept but I like the description found in Gates of Shabbat by the CCAR best. It describes hiddur mitzvah as “the belief that the spirit of any celebration is enhanced when it is carried out as beautifully as possible.” (Note to self: my Gates of Shabbat is the 1991 edition and there is a new one from 2016…may be time for an upgrade).

Last month we had a lovely family Shabbat dinner at our synagogue for outgoing and incoming board members. The hosts sent a lovely online invite from Paperless Post, which offers a more elegant option to evite, in these tranquil blue watercolor hues.

I was tasked with creating some table numbers and family seating cards and so with the invite from Paperless Post in mind, I immediately reached for some Hero Arts Ombre ink in Soft Sky to Indigo. I paired it with a great Judaica stamp featuring a Kiddush cup and that was a total ebay find so sorry, no details on how to get your own. Then I printed the names and numbers on white cardstock using fonts in Rustic Brush Script (which I can’t seem to find online any more but if you search for brush fonts, you’ll find many watercolor inspired designs) and Century Gothic and then layered it on Night Cardstock from Paper Source.