creative jewish mom

Welcome To Craft Schooling Sunday!

Welcome to Craft Schooling Sunday, thanks so much for joining me here! With L'Ag B'Omer approaching in 10 days or so, now is a great time to think about bonfire crafts, or toilet paper tube logs or anything having to do with the great sage Rebbi Shimon Bar Yochai, and certainly my archives are full of all kinds of ideas, so get crafting! I have been busy keeping my counting the omer art journal up to date, and am so happy that I committed to something that I'm able to actually finish! I'll share my progress here soon, though in the mean time lets take a look at the features from last week's party, and I think it might just be time to get back into crocheting! Spring fashion is packed with crocheted items and my 20 year old daughter is begging me to crochet her a granny square skirt, imagine that! Okay, now for the features.......

Stunning Views From The Car On A Golan Heights Road Trip

Imagine seeing a snow capped Mount Hermon as you are driving down the road? Yes my friends, that was in fact the case on our road trip across the Golan Heights just before Passover, and there were so many great sights from the car window that I just had to share them with you! This was new territory for us, more or less, so it was also really exciting to be not all that far from home and yet see things that were totally different from anywhere else we've been in Israel. And in case you are wondering, spring is hands down the best time to visit Israel and especially Northern Israel, to experience the green hills, a bounty of wild flowers and blooming trees! Okay, lets take a little ride, shall we?

Today Is Yom HaZikaron, Fallen Soldier Remembrance Day

Today is Yom HaZikaron, the day in which we remember our fallen soldiers.......those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of our Jewish homeland and we are forever grateful. Unfortunately as a tiny country with enemies on all sides, military protection is a daily reality, and soldiers and army vehicles and war planes flying overhead are a part of everyday life. My heart goes out to all those whom have lost loved ones to this crazy game of defending ourselves, or to tragic acts of terrorism which are all too common.

The wild iris in the photo above was spotted in the Golan Heights on land where battles were faught and lives were lost, and it is a testimony to the fact that despite the tragedy of it all, life must go on, as we owe to those who are no longer with us. May the coming year bring peace and no loss of life, amen.

One Stroke Watercolor Flower Petals and Leaves

Watercolor is a wonderful medium to explore as it requires minimal materials, can be done with little set up and the results can be quite beautiful. One can use large puddles of color and big brushes, or go for something more delicate......you can layer colors or create blotchy backgrounds in one go. There really are so many things that one can do, ah yes, not to forget masking fluid, which i need to try soon as well. Of course, knowing how to simply paint lovely flowers and vines in very little time is a huge plus, as one can use this for so many things way beyond beautiful cards. Paint on fabric and make a tablecloth, make cutouts for decoration a cake, make large flowers to hang on the wall or as part of a garland......working with paper sometimes has its advantages, and of course one can take the techniques learned using watercolor and use them with gouche paint or acrylic paint as well as acrylic in and regular ink! Okay, lets learn how to make lovely flowers and leaves like the ones I've painted here, shall we?

Watercolor Art For Loose-Bound Art Journal Pages

Hello watercolors! It has been quite a while since I've touched any paint, so I decided to wade back in with baby steps by starting with watercolors, (mostly those in a tube) and then using those watercolors to make a new loose leaf art journal which I'll be using to count the Omer, the 49 day period between the second night of Passover and the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. Because I'm creating pages on which I'll add lettering I needed a variety of styles and backgrounds, some for lots of lettering and some for just a sentence. As I write this I've fortunately finished compiling the journal and am even caught up with adding the number for the day, which today is 18! So I'll be sharing spreads with you soon, but for now here are examples of some of the pages I've created. And friends, watercolor is truly a great way to get creative with virtually no mess, though I hope to be getting back to the mess soon! If you want to learn about my floral watercolor cutouts, which I created from all the practice painting, and have now used them as collage for the journal pages, check that out here.

Welcome To Craft Schooling Sunday!

Welcome to Craft Schooling Sunday, thanks for joining me here! The next Jewish holiday coming up in a little over two weeks is L'Ag B'Omer, which is the 33 Day of the Omer period which we started counting on the second night of Passover. This is a period of mourning with no music or haircuts, but on the 33rd day, those restrictions are lifted for a day of festivities in honor of the great sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who is buried in Meron. L'Ag B'Omer is a day for bonfires and barbeques and three year old boys get haircuts, among other things! While there are no weddings allowed right now, one can get married on L'ag B'Omer, and my niece is doing just that! So a busy few weeks preparing for family coming up, and I have created an art journal for counting the Omer, which I'll share this week. And now, for the features from last week's party, enjoy!

A Walk To See The Stunning Hilltop Views From Moshav Keshet, Israel

A stunning snow-topped mountain with a lovely pond and blooming fruit trees in the foreground, mingling with rolling green hills? It doesn't get much better than that, especially on a cool spring day with blue skies! A few weeks ago we were able to work really hard preparing the house for Passover and take a 3 night vacation for shabbos HaGadol, the shabbos before Passover. We choose Moshav Keshet in the Golan Heights, as a newish neighbor of ours had lived there for 30 years and it was totally unfamiliar to us. And wow, what an amazing location and change of scenery just an hour or so drive from home. The red bud trees were blooming on the moshav, and you can see that here, and we even discovered a very rare wild iris here, and enjoyed cyclamen (a flower native to Israel) blooming everywhere, here. And now I'd like to share with you some of the stunning views from a bunker hill just above our vacation rental......a hill that I climbed twice as I just had to make sure that all the family members got to experience it! Okay, join me, will you?

Today Is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and as always there are quite simply no words. We remember with love the men, women, and children, who were sons and daughters, husbands and wives, aunts and uncles, grandparents, close friends........and who were senselessly and brutally murdered in the Holocaust.

Watercolor Floral And Botanical Cut-Outs For Art Journals

This year as I count the 7 week Omer period, on the Jewish calendar, I've decided to work on two things as I create a brand new art journal dedicated to this important period of time. Can you guess what they are? Well one, yes of course is watercolor botanicals meaning leaves and florals, and the other is lettering! It is true, we are already two weeks plus into the 7 week period, so I have a big catch up game to play, but getting there, and hope to share the basic set up and style soon! And how did these watercolor botanical cut-outs come to be? Well, they honestly are the result of practice pages full of some successes and some that didn't quite measure up, so I cut out those that I loved, and reshaped those that needed a little bit of help!

And friends, while there are many free resources on the internet, sometimes the best thing to do is to take a class from someone whose style you adore in order to save time and achieve results that you love, or are at least going in the right direction. While this is generally the only time of the year that I do art journaling, I drool over the work of Wendy Solganik aka @willa.wanders all year long, over and over and over. So, taking my own advice, I signed up for her water color leaves and florals mini course, which led to these cut-outs and more, and am now also starting to tackle her huge hand lettering for art journaling course, called Love Your (Imperfect) Letters, about which I'm so so excited. (Though is does mean putting in the time to practice your lettering to develop muscle memory and hone your own style.....and it is great to have a coach to keep you going, as it is a course with 7 weekly units and then a 30 day challenge!) Okay, but first, want to make some watercolor cut-outs? Lets do it........

Welcome To Craft Schooling Sunday!

Welcome to Craft Schooling Sunday, thanks so much for joining me here! Phew we made it to the other side of Passover plus some, and now as we count the Omer leading us to L'Ag B'Omer and then the Jewish holiday of Shavuot we are preparing ourselves to receive the Torah. This is a great time to combine crafting with counting the Omer, and I've started painting lots of watercolor florals to make into a counting the Omer journal, which I will share with you shortly. Getting back into painting via watercolor is a great way to get creative with minimal mess and projects that can be done during small windows of time. I have a huge community garden to weed tomorrow with the help of two teen sons, but after that I hope to spend a nice chunk of time painting, at least watercolor florals! Ah yes and then there's the crocheted wedding present I promised, but it is just a two hour or so project, so painting it is! Enjoy the features from last week's party and stay tuned also for lots of photos of Northern Israel in the Spring, something I'm soaking up right now!