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Tag Archives: jewish
Coming soon…A Very Jewish Summer
Shabbat Shalom! Sorry to have disappeared for a bit. In short, I’ve just been busy dealing with life. Just the way it is sometimes. Among other things, on Mother’s Day, just six weeks after we lost his brother, Smokey Bear, we said goodbye to our almost 14-year old dog Teddy Bear. The house has been way too quiet and it’s been a big adjustment for all of us and to be honest, I just haven’t felt all that crafty. We miss our bears.
But, as the saying goes, good things come to those who wait and if you are reading this it means you’ve stuck around and didn’t give up on me which I greatly appreciate. And it also means that you are the first to hear about the very exciting blogging party that is going to be happening the week of June 17th featuring none other than moi and four other fabulous up and coming Jewish bloggers.
I am looking forward to it and have some fun things in store (as do all of these fab bloggers) and hope you will join us! In the meantime, stay tuned!
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The last lights of Hanukkah 2012
As Hanukkah 2012 draws to a close, I want to share one final Hanukkah project with you. As you are probably painfully aware, finding a Christmas T-shirt or pajamas (or anything) for kids is so easy but Hanukkah-wise, you’ll be lucky to find anything. Last year, I lucked out and found a “Dreidel Champion” T-shirt by Carter’s. This year, armed with my trusty Silhouette, I decided to make my own using simple Ts from Old Navy and a variety of vinyl.
First up is my own version of the “Dreidel Champion” for a friend’s son:
Now, love or hate the whole princess thing, we all know it’s popular with preschool girls. So, I decided why not embrace it and give it a new twist by creating a Dreidel Princess! For this shirt I used a combo of plain, glitter and flocked heat transfer vinyl as well as rhinestones of course. Next year I may need an adult version…
I had bought some purple foil star of david ribbon on one of my 1-800-Dreidel shopping trips and couldn’t resist the chance to use it for a matching bow. A little hot glue and a pony tail holder and I was in business.
Finally, for my own mini-mensch, I’d planned to do a collage of numbers since counting is rather popular in our house at the moment but he informed me that he wanted a menorah so a menorah he got. Using gold glitter vinyl and several shades of blue in plain and flocked, I created this “8 Crazy Nights” shirt.
He absolutely loved it (he wore it more than once!). I just can’t resist the chance to show off his Hanukkah (and all around) cuteness. Hope your Hanukkah was as full of sheer joy as mine!
As Hanukkah reminds us of the miracle of light, there are so many positive ways that we can channel our collective feelings of sorrow surrounding the Newtown tragedy. My heart aches for the families and I wanted to share one outlet that speaks to my creative side. One of my favorite crafty blogs, Damask Love has created a very special project to inspire healing through creativity. Check it out if you are looking for a non-traditional way to help.
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Shabbat = WINE {& A GIVEAWAY!}
What’s Shabbat without a little wine (or at least a little Martinelli’s)? I mean you can’t celebrate Shabbat without saying kiddush. The problem is it can be hard to remember who’s glass is who’s (especially after you’ve had a glass or two). Hence, the usefulness of the wine charm – a cute and easy way to identify your glass. Today’s project is a set of wine charms just for Shabbat – a bridal shower gift for a friend.
This type of wine charm is simple to make even if you don’t have much experience working with pliers and beads. Here are the supplies I used to make these:
- Jewish charms – probably the trickiest thing to find but 1-800-DREIDEL has an amazing selection of charms along with all sorts of Jewish craft stuff and I just have to say, they also have some of the best customer service I’ve seen lately (my order came 2 days later and they adjusted the cost of shipping because the package was so small!). Since this is a Shabbat set, I chose a challah cover, challah, candlesticks, Shabbat table, kiddush cup and a bottle of kosher wine. I have Passover set I made for myself a while ago that I’ll have to share one of these days.
- Beads – 2 Swarovski 4mm bicones in a rainbow of colors and 2 silver seed beads per charm but you can use whatever strikes your fancy.
- Jump Rings – 1 for each charm
- 3/4″ Manipulating Hoops – many styles, colors and materials are available. Remember you don’t need fancy silver since these are just going on your glasses not in your ears
- Pliers
First thing you’ll want to do is attach a jump ring to each of your charms. If you’ve never worked with jump rings before, here’s a good jump ring tutorial. After you have the charms on the jump rings, you’ll then string your beads on the hoop in whatever pattern you like. Once that’s done, you’ll want to bend the hoop. Take the pointy end and grip it with your pliers and bend it 90 degrees so that it makes a little hook to go into the eye on the other end and secure your charm closed.
Just repeat these steps for however many charms you want and you are done! I started with a set of six Shabbat charms but decided to add 2 with the saying “Ani L’Dodi V’Dodi Li” – “I am My Beloved’s and My Beloved is Mine” with the couple’s initials for a sweet wedding memento.
Since this set is a gift, I wanted to make sure they were nicely packaged so I took a greeting card box (you could use a leftover one or they also sell these at packaging/paper stores) and then made a customized insert with holes for the charms. I got fancy and did a print and cut using my Cameo and Silhouette Studio but you could do this simply using a hole punch and a nice piece of cardstock.
But, I couldn’t stop there…I decided I needed to make a uniquely Jewish gift bag so using my new hamsa stamp (another 1-800-DREIDEL find) and one of my “Mazel Tov” stamps, I embossed a little gift bag.
Want to win our very own set of Shabbat wine charms and save yourself from having to get out the pliers? Leave a comment on the blog and then click the link below to be entered to win on Rafflecopter.
CLICK HERE to enter Shabbat Wine Charm Giveaway!
Extra entries for liking Made by Mamaleh on Facebook, liking this blog post on FB, following madebymamaleh on Twitter and sharing this giveaway on your FB page and tagging madebymamaleh in your post! The contest ends at midnight on Saturday, July 21st!
L’chaim!
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A SUPER SIZE NOSH!
I am so excited about my latest project, I’m not even sure where to begin! If you’re like me, you’ve now become totally addicted to Pinterest. It’s total eye-candy and inspiration for all of my crafty kindred spirits out there. The trick to it though is actually following through on some of the ideas it generates.
On my ever-growing idea list, I re-pinned a fabulous pin for an awesome tutorial on how to make faux industrial/metal letters from the blog Retropolitan and I knew I needed to make some for myself. The only thing was I wasn’t sure what I needed them for or where I’d even put them. At the same time, I had also been trying forever to come up with some art for our breakfast nook…I could do the word “EAT” but that was too boring and then in a moment of sheer genius Yiddishism, it came to me, “NOSH.”
I had seen these super size 23″ paper mache letters at Joann that would be perfect for the faux metal finish. I won’t go into how to get the finish, you can check out Retropolitan’s tutorial here – her technique is simple and brilliant and I totally agree with all of her suggestions, especially the brad detail!
I will give you a few hints for working with these super-sized letters:
- Be sure to check them carefully at the store – some are really weak at the seams. I had to go to two different stores to find letters that were fully intact. The best “H” still had minor damage that I patched with blue painter’s tape which worked just fine and was hidden by the paint.
- I think because of their size, these letters are actually a bit more fragile than the ones in the tutorial so you need to take a little extra care when piercing them (I used a paper piercing tool) for the brads or you will be back to my first hint.
- To hang the letters, I highly recommend the 3M Picture Hanging Strips.
Here is the final result, fun and inexpensive art for our breakfast nook with a Yiddish twist:
I LOVE the result! Wonder what other Yiddish words I can turn into art…
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Happy Mother’s Day to my mamaleh!
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mamalehs and bubbes and tantes out there! Today I wanted to share with you the gift I made for my mom. Before I had my son Avi (almost 3 years ago), I was an avid jewelry-maker and even sold my jewelry but sadly it’s something I’ve done very little of in the last few years, in part because tools and small pieces do not mix well with babies/toddlers. My mom has been wanting a new gabrielle renee bracelet for a while now and I’ve also been saving this beautiful star toggle for just the right occasion so I figured it was time to get creative. So, using amethyst briolettes, mini apatite rondelles and sterling silver chain and wire, I created this:
A simple, chic piece with a very subtle Jewish touch. I love how it turned out and hope my mom likes it! I may have to find some more of those star toggles… What did you get for Mother’s day, mamalehs?
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Welcome baby!
In honor of my friends Jen and Paul, who’s son was born yesterday, here is a simple fun little baby card wishing them lots of mazel (luck).
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A Very Toddler Passover!
Since I am home with a sick boy, I thought I’d take the opportunity for a little Passover follow-up. The Passover story we tell every year is such a rich one but it often gets lost amidst hunger and outdated haggadot. This year our 2nd night seder was tailored specifically to our youngest guests – a group of toddlers from our PEPS group (if you aren’t in Seattle, PEPS stands for Program for Early Parent Support).
Using the URJ’s seder for toddlers age 2-3 as a template, I copied the content and added my own into an easy to hold program just for the adults using MS Publisher. I even pre-assigned the sections to help expedite things! The content was written for kids and they really did a good job of following along and paying attention.
In addition to this, I pre-downloaded this song about the 10 plagues which we played at the appropriate part of the seder and which was a big hit with the kids. Since a group of toddlers is very into numbers and colors, this was the focus for our seder table. For the 4 cups of wine, I used clear plastic shot glasses (a novel use for these I am sure) and used the print and cut feature on my die-cut machine and clear label paper to create numbered toddler-size cups for each of the four glasses. I also created plague bags with a label with the numbers 1-10.
Placemats were made using primary colors of scrapbook paper which made for not only easy cleanup but easy personalization, with each child’s name written across the bottom. The dishes were ones I had picked up at Target a couple years ago on sale – I love them! Each kid got a toy hammer for pretending to hammer along with one of the songs. Such fun!
The plague bags themselves were filled with stuff to go along with the song. You’ll note the “blood” confetti above that I made using red cardstock and my die-cut machine and a raindrop image. Even my husband was surprised when we sang about the blood and I suddenly tossed a handful of confetti at the kids. The bags themselves contained a little shaker of confetti (hail), sunglasses (darkness), wind-up flying bug (lice), flies (flies)sticky frogs (frogs) and a band-aid (boils). We didn’t have something for every plague but that was just fine, there was plenty to keep the kids engaged and involved in the seder. Oh and one other tip, little bowls of cucumbers and carrots (karpas) for the kids to dip as necessary before it’s time for the actual meal.
Overall, it all turned out really well. My husband said it was the best seder he’s ever been to! I can’t wait to do a new variation next year! Hope you all had a lovely Pesach!
madebymamaleh 