creative jewish mom

Dried Orange Slice Pendants For Tu B'Shevat

Dried orange slices are great for crafting, and at long last I stuck some in my oven to make some things for Tu B'Shevat, which my friends is tomorrow night! Rather than show you say a dried orange slice garland or another ornament, I came up with this fun idea which could also be a great little activity for a Tu B'Shevat party. Yup, that's right, dried orange slice pendants! And on little kids these pendants are well, quite large, making them all the more fun and festive. And when the party is over, you can simply hang your pendants somewhere for decoration. Enjoy!

You'll Need:

• dried orange slices, see my friend Maggy's tutorial over at red ted art
• pony beads
• colored leather cord, or any natural cord like cotton rope or hemp 

How To: 

Make a hole in the top of an orange slice, find the center point of the cord, attach cord, and add beads on both sides. Enjoy!

Orange Rind Candle Centerpiece For Tu B'Shevat

Ever heard of candles made from orange rinds? Or candles made from clementine rinds? Great idea right, especially now that Tu B'Shevat (Feb. 8th) is right around the corner! Basically, according to the original source, one carefully removes the fruit, leaving the two halves intact, and when you are careful not to sever the stem that's connected to the top inside of the peel, you can actually use this as a wick once olive oil is poured into the rind.

Well my friends, this little idea sounds great, but just didn't work for me, since maybe the stem was too moist or not soaked enough in oil. (Another post suggested leaving the half rind and stem to dry overnight, but who has time for that?) So I got just a little creative with this one and got out the round floating wicks which work perfectly here! Fill your empty half-citrus shell with olive oil, add a floating wick, light it and voila!

Now, while my orange and lemon and clementine rinds look great with little wicks floating in them, I just couldn't stop until I had also tried making a beautifully carved cover with the top half of the rind. (I kind of felt like I was making up for all those pumpkins I never carve?)

And I must say, the carved tops look gorgeous, but once again I came upon another problem, the top started to burn. Now I did read that one should make sure to make the hole in the top big enough so it doesn't burn, but I had the same burning problem even when the hole was huge. So, if you have some extra time, go ahead and carve a top or two, and experiment, or better yet, enjoy my photos and just skip it all together?

The assortment of citrus halves do look lovely just as they are. Don't you think? And while my family won't be surprised when I actually do this on Tu B'Shevat, yours certainly can be! 

For complete instructions, see the original post on this subject on Apartment Therapy and entitled How To Make A Clementine Candle. You can also choose to watch their How To Make A Clementine Candle Video, which I'd advise if you want to work through all the kinks that I encountered. And as far as working with lemons and oranges I removed the fruit by cutting around the perimeter as one would when eating a grapefruit. Have fun with this one!

Note: In case you are not familiar with the floating wicks that you see in my photos, they are widely available in any Judaica store world wide, and possibly in the Jewish foods sections of major super markets with a Jewish clientele. (They are generally used for lighting Shabbat and Chanukah candles using olive oil, and come in little boxes slightly bigger than matchboxes.) Or you can always order them online, even through Amazon! Just google "round floating wicks" and you'll find lots of sources. Oh, and in my last photo you can see the "large" size and the "regular" size, which refers to the size of the little round cork floater. Okay enough about floating wicks, you'll love them!

A Whimsical Painted Fruit Centerpiece Will Make Them Smile!

 

A painted Styrofoam fruit centerpiece is not only adorable but a super fun project for all ages. While I originally thought this would be the perfect centerpiece for a summer barbe-que, I decided that it would also be great for a Mexican style Purim fiesta, so here you have it. And I have to tell you, this is truly one of favorite projects because the results were even better than the image that I had in my head!

While I am going to use some of these on the table for the Mexican fiesta that I'll be posting about next week, I'm also playing with the idea of gluing the fruit into the basket and hanging this on my front door. Then at least every time I open the door I'll see smiles all around, right? And plus it's perfect for the joyful month of Adar. And since we have two months of Adar this leap year, well I'd say it's time to make them all smile! And if the neighbors wonder where you got your strange sense of humor, so like I always say, blame it on me. Just make sure to tell them creativejewishmom.com, so they'll know where to find me!

You'll Need:

• styrofoam or paper mache fruit
• acrylic craft paint
• wooden skewers
• a protective coat of acrylic varnish if you'll be using this outdoors

How To: Since my fruit are made from styrofoam, I stuck a skewer into the bottom of each one, so that I could paint the fruit on all sides and avoid touching it while it was being painted. I did not paint a base coat of white over the existing color of the fruit, but if you want to paint the fruit pastel colors, so that would be a good idea, and you can certainly do that with white spray paint. Other than that, well, paint the fruit a base color, and when that is dry paint the details—polka dots, stripes, dashes, you name it! And I do think that these fruit would look great hanging as a mobile, or strung on a string, then again, you could also glue them onto a big straw hat for a great costume!

A Fun Winter Fruit Arrangement That Kids Can Make!

As you can see, kids can make fun arrangements or centerpieces using citrus fruits and dried fruit! And then Mom can complete the look with a large arrangement of her own, and wow, what a great combination! It's so easy, and doesn't really require an explanation right? I'll just add that the orange and pomella are held together by a wooden skewer and the rest of the fruits are attached with toothpicks.

And who is stealing the glory in this arrangement? That amazing pineapple top that I have to credit to one of my older sons. At his school party they ate pineapples, and he immediately thought that I could do something with it. (Nothing like training the kids to bring home good garbage!) Honestly when he brought it home yesterday I wasn't quite sure what I could do with it, but today, the solution seemed so obvious. So if you're serving pineapple, don't forget to save the top!

Pineapples are a treat for us here, but maybe I'll just have to buy some more for my next centerpiece! So file this idea somewhere, in the "don't forget this simple idea file" and you'll be so happy you did! Enjoy.

Crafting With Vegetables: A Humorous Eggplant Centerpiece!

Crafting with vegetables? A centerpiece using eggplant? Do these things happen to anyone else, or is it just me? Remember the potato creatures craft? And now eggplant? But just look at that hair, it's perfect! And it all happened very innocently as I was about to put this eggplant into the over to make my Moroccan roasted eggplant salad. Good thing there were some thumb tacks and a few buttons on hand!

Can't you imagine a platter of these guys for a super funny centerpiece at your next birthday party? You could even make little crowns for them! And best of all, when the party is over, you can still use the eggplants to make something delicious. And by the way, I certainly hope that this eggplant with the golden smile isn't the eggplant that ate Chicago (know that camp song?) because I just happen to have some very nice readers there! And another by the way, inject some humor into your life, especially when things are tense or you sense an argument about to surface.....laughter really is the best medicine.

Use Fruit Roll-Up To Make Healthy Cake Decorations & Mini Edible Bouquets!

 
What happens when a crafter enters the kitchen? Edible rosebuds made from fruit roll-up of course! After all the felt flowers I've made in the last year, well this just seemed like a natural extension, for healthy cupcake toppers, cake decorations or even for sweet mini bouquets, which are perfect for Tu B'Shevat! The only fruit roll-up I could find in my neighborhood is on the thick side, as you can see, but the thinner versions in shades of red would be a lovely compliment to these!

You'll Need:

• fruit roll-up (called fruit leather, or actually "leder" in Hebrew)
• raisins and dried cranberries, if desired
• tooth picks for small flowers, wooden skewers for larger flowers
• tutorial for making rolled rose buds, here
  
• a salt shaker or vintage sugar/flour shaker to use as a vase

How To:

1. Make flowers according to tutorial(using fruit roll-up instead of felt), wrapping around toothpick as you go, don't make flowers too large or they'll droop!
2. Make stacks of raisins and cranberries by inserting a toothpick through them
3. Insert toothpicks into salt shaker, add a pretty ribbon, viola!
4. Wouldn't these look great adorning a carrot cake?
5. Give some of these to neighbors as tiny gifts on Tu B'Shevat, they'll be so happy!

 

Introducing The Real Mr. Potato Head. A Fun Kid's Craft Anytime!

Don't you just love our new friends, Mr. Potato Head and Sammy Potato, his performing seal? A while back we found a giant heart in our cornflakes, and now more recently, we found a potato in our bin that looked just like a man, nose and all. Shortly after, I spied another funny looking potato that reminded me of an animal of some kind, and so this craft was born! 

You'll Need:

• interestingly shaped potatoes, or even regular shaped potatoes....
• recycled items from the kitchen to make hats: a yogurt container for a hat, a plastic lid plus the top of a liquid dishsoap bottle, anything else you can come up with....
• felt or fabric scraps
• hot glue or high stick craft glue

How To: Use your imagination and have fun! Throw a potato head puppet show! Oh and here they are in profile, just to get another chuckle out of you....