creative jewish mom

Watercolor One Stroke Leaves On Branches

With just a few very simpe techniques under your belt the mystery of painting simple and beautiful watercolor illustrations becomes so much clearer! I'll admit, learning how to paint leaves with just one stroke was a new one for me, and I am in love with this technique! Yesterday I shared with you my fern leaf watercolors, and today we're going for a denser bush/tree look by painting leaves on delicate branches.

So get out those round watercolor brushes and some watercolor paper, or at the least round brushes and paint of any kind, and lets get started!

Simply Lovely Watercolor Fern Paintings For Mastering Brush Control

Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the New Year for the trees starts tonight, and if you have 30 minutes or so you can still whip up some gorgeous watercolor leaf paintings and learn about practicing your brush strokes a win win crafting experience! While I have yet to actually put in the time I'd like, I'm in the process of honing/learning some illustration skills, starting with watercolor painting. It turns out that the first step is learning brush control, using a round brush, and leaves like the ones used in my fern illustrations are created with just one stroke. Pretty great I must admit, and so relaxing to paint. A friend was over the other day and she thought I had stamped all these little leaves! Of course there are so many designs one can make once you master the one stroke leaf, so give it a try and enjoy!

Tissue Paper Collage On Jars Is Perfect For Festive Votives Or Floating Candles

Celebrate Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish new year for the trees, with fun candle jars, or small vases that are so simple to make, you can whip up a whole orchard for your holiday table !! Tu B'Shevat celebrations include a festive meal where an array of fresh and dried fruits are eaten. Kids can help make this day even more special with some fun tissue paper collage on recycled jars that depicts citrus fruits in the orchard, and adding a few animals and characters brings the cuteness up a notch, don't you think? So soak the labels off those jars you've been saving, get out the tissue paper, and let the fun begin!

Orange Pomanders: The Perfect Family Craft Activity For Tu B'Shevat

It has been eight years (gasp) since I actually made these great looking orange and cloves pomanders, but they are still looking good, so I figured I'd dust off this project and share it with you again. i have come to realize that bringing things out of the archives to see the light of day isn't such a bad idea, especially since most people don't go fishing around in there!

You may not have time to actually make some of these pomanders before ushering the Jewish holiday of Tu B'Shevat tomorrow night, but they would be a great craft activity to do on the holiday itself. I have come up with a great way to make these so that even those who aren't so crafty can succeed.....and of course the fragrance that goes with this activity is just lovely, so go for it!

Simple Origami Fruit Is The Perfect Last Minute Tu B'Shevat Craft

I'm really not sure how Tu B'Shevat managed to sneak up on me just like that, but that aside, with the holiday coming tomorrow night now would be the time to whip up a few fun crafts and then run to the store and buy as many kinds of fruit (and nuts) as you possibly can to truly celebrate in style! It isn't about quantity but about variety, so go for it! And speaking of variety, with this simple origami fruit craft you really can make a variety of fruit! Think orange paper for an orange, yellow paper for a lemon, green and red paper for apples, and purple paper for a plum!

Now, if you need a quick centerpiece, or something large to hang, go ahead and use the largest paper you can find to make fruit that really make a statement. Solid color wrapping paper might also work if it is thick enough, or simply double it up.

Welcome To Craft Schooling Sunday!

Welcome to Craft Schooling Sunday, and thanks so much for joining me here! This week is a special week as it contains the lovely holiday of Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish New Year for the trees! Some of the almond trees around town are already showing gorgeous blooms while the rest of the flora lays dormant and sleeping, Just hoping that all the wonderful rain we are having won't keep those trees from showing all their glory, and me from photographing them and sharing them here to honor the holiday! Update: It is snowing here in Northern Israel, huge flakes and enough to get all the kids screaming, but not cold enough to actually stick sadly enough for the kids, though happily enough for my container garden. I have moved all the small succulent pots under a roof or indoors, and would even move larger pots but the forecast shows the weather warming up. Such is the life of a container gardener in a tropical region with snow now and again!

Stay tuned this week for some Tu B'Shevat related crafts and in the mean time enjoy the wonderful features from last week's party, thanks to all of you who contributed! Enjoy!

Bird Feeder Recycling Crafts For Feeding The Birds On Shabbat Shira!

Whoops, it is a good thing that my daugher reminded me that this Shabbat is "Shabbat Shira" in which we celebrate the birds! While for many, this special shabbat is only acknowledged when reading the weekly Torah portion on Shabbat morning, most young school kids certainly do something in school tp bring home for shabbat, which reminds the parents! With no young school kids n the house, well, you'll forgive me for almost omitting to post about this special day, right? Crafts, or no crafts, we of course always remember to put out food for the birds before shabbat, though this year may have to be an intention rather than an action as it is pouring rain right now, with more to come, fortunately!

Of course, my archives are busting at the seams with crafts for all jewish holidays, and i've just added a new category called Holiday: Shabbat Shira, so you can certainly check that out. Since you are here, keep on reading for my little roundup of great bird feeder recycling crafts, mine and a few from around the web.

A Crocheted Canary Beanie Hat Makes A Great Costume, Or Just Because.

A crocheted beanie can be decorated in so many fun ways to use as part of a costume or to make cold weather dressing a little bit fun. This fun canary beanie, which could of course be just about any kind of bird you like, just change the colors a bit, was crocheted for my daughter for a Purim costume quite a few years ago, but it still looks good, so I though I'd share it with you again. And this shabbat is shabbat shira in which we celebrate the birds, so the timing seems right!

If you'd like to crochet a hat for an eagle costume, which I'm actually lending to a girl neighbor this year, check out my post and get crocheting, Purim is just around the corner! And of course, this beanie was worn together with a crocheted costume cape, so check that out as well.

Keep on readin' for tips for making this fun hat!

How To Paint Loose Watercolor Florals

I just love all the watercolor floral patterns that are everywhere these days, on stationary, on fabric, you name it. And so of course, I am dreaming of creating my own lovely patterns, but first I have to learn how to paint, so don't anyone hold their breath! Okay, I'm not starting from scratch exactly as I did once upon a time do gouache paintings for a course in pattern design at Parson's in NYC, but I'll be honest that was quite a while ago, and I'm not exactly even sure why I took that course in retrospect, since I had no painting or illustration background. I guess it sounded good then, and it still sounds good, only today I can learn quite a bit by checking out all the amazing resources online, and especially at skillshare, where I am in the middle of a 7 day challenge called Expressive Florals.

So much fun to get out the paints and watercolor paper, and I can't wait to spend some more time honing my skills......though truthfully one can and should dedicate just a small window of time to learning something new, and for that skillshare is just too perfect, especially since you can download the videos to view off the grid, now wouldn't that be great?

How To Paint Red Poppies With Watercolors

After the holiday rush I decided that it was truly time to start dedicating some time to learning some new artsy skills, which really doesn't have to take a whole lot of time or money courtesy of skillshare, which I am happy to say is truly an amazing site with sooooo many great things to learn. I totally recommend it, and when you click HERE, you can get 3 months for 99cents, really folks, don't miss out on this one. (Or click on the ad below for a free month, but I'd go with the 99 cents.)

Given my wide range of interests I had a hard time figuring out where to start, (after the crayola calligraphy and brush lettering which we need to get back to) but something using supplies that we had on hand surely seemed like the best way to go, and i loved the idea of a challenge of sorts, so I started the Expressive Florals 7 Day challenge, which starts with painting poppies, a favorite of mine as they are native to my area here in Northern Israel.

The poppies I painted here, can certainly improve, but I'm happ with this as a start especially since this was done with brush only, no drawing with a pencil folks, as that makes things too tight, and the point here is to get loose, which I succeeded in only partly, but it is a start!