creative jewish mom

A Walk Down Passeig De Gracia, Barcelona!

Are you ready to get just a little bit acquainted with Barcelona? Well, then you're in the right place, as over the next few weeks I'm going to share with you quite a few posts about my recent stay in the city of Barcelona. I sure wish there had been a web site that had told me what I'm going to tell you! I spent hours doing research on line, which was certainly a big help, but once we arrived I felt totally clueless and even literally lost! Not to complain, figuring things out for ones self is also part of the adventure!

On our first day in Barcelona, we boarded the metro and headed into the center of town to the Placa De Catalunya, where there is a tourist information office and this beautiful fountain. I thought we'd  take a leasurely stroll down the famous street Las Ramblas, and with a map in hand and some directions from the tourist information office, we set out to see the city. Only quite a bit later, and after lots of confusion on my part, did I realize that we weren't on Las Ramblas at all but rather on Passeig De Gracia! 

Of course this really turned out to be for the best as we ended up having a great introduction to the city and some of it's architectural treasures.

 A typical street corner on Passeig De Gracia

Love this mosaic, from the same building, that looks so contemporary but is actually something like 100 years old!

 The Hotel Majestic, very appropriately named for a very majestic street!

There are amazing lamp posts with curvy mosaic benches, reminiscent of Gaudi, though designed by Pere Falques i Urpi in 1906, just as Gaudi was finishing his Casa Batillo and starting the construction of Casa Mila, both on Passeig de Gracia.

I had read about Casa Amattler, so I was surprised to come upon it........

but much more surprised to come upon Gaudi's Casa Batilo, since I thought we were on a different street altogether, silly me. Okay, I'll admit, I was a bit tired having not slept enough the night before.....you know I was trying to do research on Barcelona! 

Love the juxtapositions of Casa Amattler and Casa Batilo. We didn't go inside Casa Batilo as there were crowds, it's a little expensive, and it just wasn't calling me. A bit of an oversight on my part, and now I'm trying to figure out when I can do a layover in Barcelona just to go into the city to visit Casa Batilo and go inside!

Many of the buildings have luxurious penthouses, as you can see. 

And here's Casa Mila, another of Gaudi's masterpieces, which we fortunately went back to visit on our last morning in Barcelona. I can't believe that me, of all people, was about to miss going inside a Gaudi masterpiece. I think I got a bit thrown off track as I wasn't so attracted to his buildings from the outside. Fortunately we did go inside this one and it was one of the highlights of the trip. (A post on that to come!)

One of the modern buildings across the street from Casa Mila echoes Gaudi's work. 

High end shopping often means amazingly creative window displays, such as this one for a handbag company.

A typically grand facade on Passeig De Gracia, a lovely street very worthy of an afternoon stroll anytime!

That's all for now, stay tuned for many more posts.....just gotta find the time to go through all those photos and pick the very best to share with you!

Havdalah Beeswax Candle Craft For Kids

Havdalah bee's wax candles are simple to make, and a nice crafting activity for kids. Make a bunch for gifts, and while you're at it, how about making some little chanukah candles? Admittedly, little chanukah candles require more skill, but look amazing, so do give it a try! 

You'll Need:

• sheets of bee's wax, in natural or colored, one sheet per candle (generally)
• wicks
• a tiny decorative bee (optional)

How To:

Carefully lay a sheet of bee's wax on a flat surface, place two wicks just inside the edge closest to you, and start rolling away from you carefully and consistently for a tightly rolled beautiful candle. The sheets are rectangular, so you can decide if you'd like a taller candle like this one, or a shorter and wider one, by rolling from the short side of the sheet.

With or without the little plastic bees, which you may or may not be able to find, there's nothing quite like bee's wax candles! And of course you may be able to find some little bee charms, or little wooden bees, which could also work.

And now for a little Hebrew lesson: The word "havdalah" comes from the hebrew word l'havdil, which means to separate. And the havdalah ceremony which we perform (which includes lighting a havdalah candle) separates between shabbat and the new week. What better way to honor this beautiful time and usher in the new week than with a home made candle!

Whoops almost forgot, you'll certainly want to decorate some nice matchbook covers to go with your candles, right? So check out my washi tape matchbox, as well as my decoupaged matchboxes, both great projects for all ages!

Washi Tape Matchbox For Chanukah!

How about whipping up some fun washi tape matchboxes this fall, to enjoy this winter, or even as part of your holiday gift giving plans? They're so very simple to make, as you can guess, and oh so sweet!

I haven't seen any washi tape in my little town, but of course saw lots of it on my recent trip to The Netherlands, and so of course I did treat myself to some at long last! Washi tape isn't exactly inexpensive, but it's one of those craft supplies that sure can save the day in a pinch, since you can use it to decorate so many things in just minutes!

You'll Need:

• fireplace matches
• silver contact paper
• washi tape

How To:

Cover the box, except for one striking plate in silver contact paper. Then apply stripes of washi tape to the box, and don't forget to decorate a few matches as well for a little extra surprise! 

Elegant Macrame Beaded Bracelets, Who Knew?

This past Shabbat we had a special visitor, a young woman from New York who I watched grow up and now she's watching my kids grow up! She happens to have great taste in jewelry and was sporting the exact same bracelet you see on the upper left. I was so surprised to see something that was actually macrame and looked so gorgeous and dressy on account of the marcasite and other beads. On close examination I figured out how it was made except for one small detail, how they glued the ends of the slider piece. I looked up the bracelets, which are called shamballa bracelets, and found a great tutorial which shows that the ends are melted, since nylon cord is used, why of course!

Here's the tutorial on You Tube for making these bracelets and it's really so simple I thought I'd pass it on to you all. Certainly a great thing to get started on for holiday gift giving and the type of jewelry that while hand made looks amazing. One small suggestion— do use marcasite beads as in the bracelet on the left, it gives the piece a lovely weight, as the marcasite beads are comparatively heavy, being that they're stone.

If you live in the US, and you'd like to buy a bracelet, my friend bought hers on line here, for a reasonable price and no this is not a sponsored post, just passing along what I think is some great jewelry making info.

Enjoy! 

 

 

Welcome To Craft Schooling Sunday!

Thanks so much for joining me for this exciting little get together with crafters from around the world. The list has changed a bit from last week, so pardon me while I name all the exciting places where our talented crafters reside! You know places like the United States, Australia, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany, Macedonia, Muldavia, Singapore, Jakarta, The United Kingdom, Canada, Guatemala, and maybe more?

Okay, that's it for the armchair traveling, now on to the features from last week's party:

I love fabric yo yo's and this jean dress yo-yo trim from craftiments is just adorable! And this spaghetti painting from Lizon is just amazing, don't you think? Hard to believe it's art made by a small child painting with spaghetti!

Gingerbread snowflakes made these gorgeous leaves from mod podge, and the artsy girl connection created this sweet burlap wrapped pumpkin. 

Red ted art made the cutest fairy pine cones ever, and I love this apple tree art from housing a forest.

 

Happy In Red made this fabulous breakfast in a bag gift, including the great bag! And red ted art scores again with a great idea for making monster cookies with the kids!

MIni pumpkin pies from egg roll wrappers look amazing, from make the best of everything. (Note to Israeli readers, I believe the wrappers for "cigarim" may be similar, worth a try!) and I just love this little crocheted star wheel from aduo scriptum, with it's unique wrapped chain finish. That's all for now, can't wait to see what you've been up to!

Helping Kids Use Their Brains—A Little Lesson In Parental Involvement

What is this you may ask? Well if you read Hebrew, then you will understand that this was a little exercise my ten year old daughter was asked to do as part of a low pressure art competition of sorts to kick off a new learning unit called "Moach Mavrik", namely sharp minds. Wondering myself what they'll be learning!

For those who don't read Hebrew, I'll just have to explain it a bit. In Hebrew, a phrase meaning something like a "sharp mind" literally means a clean and shiny mind. So for their class unit about sharp minds, my daughter chose to do a play on the Hebrew words by showing a sparkling clean brain (drawn by mom) with a bunch of cleaning products! And even smarter, she drew a little bubble with the brain saying "at long last I feel shiny clean!"

I just love the little illustrations, and the fact that on her own she figured out the whole presentation once I'd drawn a (not so great) brain for her, including making the brain have dimension by gluing it to some small wooden blocks.

The lesson I learned here? Sometimes when you help kids out with their projects by doing just exactly what they ask of you, and no more, you'll actually be helping them exercise even more creativity as they don't get hung up on the part of the project that they feel they can't do. Food for thought, right?

Dutch Canal Houses Embroidered Table Runner, For Chanukah?

I just love the idea of capturing the charm of Dutch canal house architecture with embroidery, don't you? This fabulous idea, shown in progress, is brought to you by Pam over at gingerbread snowflakes, and I can't wait to see the finished project! And thanks so much for Pam for not only contacting me, but contacting me at just the right moment when I was really in need of a crafting post to break up all the travel posts, and this couldn't be more perfect!

Interestingly enough, a blogging friend of Pam's, who lives in Haarlem, saw my post here, about our recent visit to the gorgeous city, and emailed Pam to tell her about it. And as it turns out, Pam and I are actually acquainted with one another from the blogging world. Small little crafty world, right?

And the blue and white theme would make this just perfect for Chanukah, don't you think? You could even embroider some Chanukah menorahs in some of the windows! 

Come to think of it, I just love the idea of preserving some memories from travels in the form of embroidery! Maybe I'll just have to find some great images from some of my recent photos and get to work! Thanks so much for the inspiration Pam, and once again, here's the link to the post on her fabulous blog, gingerbread and snowflakes!

I sure would love to start an embroidery project, how about you?

A Visit To Delft, The Netherlands

On a rainy Sunday just before Rosh HaShana we took the train from Amsterdam for a visit to the historic Dutch city of Delft. I enjoyed visiting Delft, and while certainly "Dutch" and charming the city has a much heavier feeling to it than say Haarlem, which I posted about here. These feelings could be on account of the overcast skies, so please don't take offense anyone, or maybe because of it's roots as an industrial city once filled with factories?

Delft is in the region called South Netherlands, between Rotterdam and The Hague, and is now home to a very large Technological University. It was also the home to the reknowned painter Johannes Vermeer, and at one time a major producer of Delft pottery, with many many factories producing the blue and white pottery inspired by pottery imported from China. 

LOVE this little turet, that I in fact thought was the Royal Delft factory. But I was mistaken and we wandered around and actually got quite lost looking for the factory/museum. We even by accident wandered through the campus of the university, which surprisingly enough was totally empty on account of it being Sunday. That just goes to show you that the Dutch must know that the weekend is important. In the United States many university campuses are still quite buzzing on Sundays with students going to the library to study and so forth!

We finally found the Royal Delft factory, which I blogged about here,  just next to the university, and I just had to take a photo of this typical Dutch front yard.....bench, check, orchids in window, check, lace curtains, check, love it!

The Delft town hall, located on the town square is quite an imposing building, built in 1620!

Love the little buildings lining the town square.

A floating seating area on the canal!

A little bridge in a new section of town just beyond the town square.

And back to the historic canal houses that we love so much!

Beautiful architectural details.

And then suddenly seemingly out of nowhere I spy some hebrew letters between the branches. Of course my two ten year old girl companions didn't believe me, as really what would a synagogue be doing here? I of course had read that there's a historic synagogue in Delft, but didn't think we'd have time to find it. 

I was so very excited to have happened upon it "accidently" just hours before Rosh HaShana! It turned out that inside there was an exhibit about historic synagogues in The Netherlands, but two of us don't read Dutch and we really didn't have time to look too closely.

The synagogue was built in 1862 and flourished for half a century, but by World War 1 only 100 Jews lived in Delft, and by 1942, 5o or so were deported by the Germans, and only 12 returned after the war. The synagogue was sold to the city but eventually bought back and re-opened as a community center with services every two weeks and on holidays.

Heading back to the train station.......

 Lots of red brick buildings in Delft, which I believe are mostly painted in Amsterdam?

 The gorgeous train station, undergoing some major construction around it.......

And in constrast, some fun modern architecture that we saw at one of the stations during a change over. I have since forgotten which station this is, can one of my Dutch readers please remind me? I do remember that someone screamed at me "Frau!" as they thought I was dangerously close to the edge taking this photo, though really I wasn't, promise! 

And just on a side note, when you buy a train ticket in The Netherlands, they will be happy to print out an itinerary for you showing alternate routes and times, so amazing! This service was not offered to me at the very busy Central Station, but in Leiden the clerk happily offered it to me, and I was of course so very grateful to have an itinerary.

That's all for the Dutch leg of our European adventure, stay tuned for more adventures in a very different country!

The Royal Delft Factory And Museum

What to do on the Sunday before Rosh Hashana in The Netherlands with two ten year old girls? How about a train ride to the historic Dutch town of Delft, and a visit to the Royal Delft Pottery Factory? Sounds good to me, even though we did board the train without tickets, much to my daughter's shagrin, (not to worry, we bought tickets at the next major station.....) and we got a bit lost looking for the factory. But all in all, even with girls who don't love to walk around with no real plan in mind (as I do!) the trip was a great success, and it was fun learning about Delft pottery. 

In the museum you'll see lots of stunning versions of plates created for the Royal Dutch family for many historic occasions.

You can see a real painter adding the details to a piece of pottery, up close! Very detailed work, which explains partly why the pieces produced today cost a small fortune!

 I love the plates that include orange mixed with the traditional blue and white.

And the non blue and white versions of their work are also lovely.

 

This dining room gives us an idea of what a traditional Dutch dining room looked like around the time of the painter Vermeer, who lived and worked in the city of Delft.

 Love this traditional Dutch china cabinet, dreaming of one for my dining room!

The Royal Delft factory also at one point were producers of all kinds of ceramic tiles and architectural details for building projects, so part of the factory was once a showroom of sorts showcasing their work.

The garden courtyard displaying some of the architectural details that were once made here.

A very sweet mural that one passes on the way into the present day factory.

Because we visited on a Sunday, there were no workers in the factory, but we were still permitted to wander around within a roped off area. 

 Check out these huge kilns! That's it for our little visit to the Royal Delft Factory, stay tuned for my photos of the city of Delft.

Oh and by the way, admission for children is free to the museum, which is mostly the case for museums of all kinds all over The Netherlands. Another good reason to go! Or maybe another good reason for me to go back with all the kids in tow? Time will tell!

Saying Goodbye To The Succah

Here's a little glimpse of what our Succah looked like this year.....something like Moroccan Casbah meets the Chinese circus in Mexico. Fun and colorful and put together at the last minute on account of two weeks in Europe prior to the holiday, (about which I'm certainly not complaining!) So while I did spend hours and hours adhering contact paper shapes to the tile walls to create a colorful wallpaper pattern of sorts, none of the other decorations were hand made by me, as in past years, and fortunately the results were equally festive and welcoming. Phew, I guess I can go traveling again next year?

Goodbye colorful succah, it was great dwelling in you for the past week! We love the holiday of Succos so much, but it's time to say good bye. Simchat Torah starts tonight, which means lots of serious festivities and in my case a huge crowd to host (part way through all the dancing on Sunday night) for some refreshments before everyone faints from hunger and thirst......so gotta run, we've been dwelling in the Succah but now it's time to come back home, and boy is there lots of work there waiting for me! Oh, and crafting? Did anyone mention crafting? 

Wishing you all a joyful Simchas Torah and Shemini Atzeret!