creative jewish mom

Mini Cardboard T-Shirt Memory Game Is Perfect For Your Family Get Together!

Making mini cardboard t-shirts is so much fun, I realized that if one makes say 24, 36, or 48 or any even number for that matter, you can easily whip up your own custom memory game! And making a memory game for a special occasion, especially if there will be kids (or grown ups who like to play games) on hand is such a fun way to make the get together even more fun and memorable. If you really want to go all out, you could even make custom memory games as party favors! Cover your mini t-shirts with family birthdays, little drawings, sayings everyone loves or go simple and draw flowers, plants and other patterns, like I have. And to add an activity to your party, you can even have guests create pairs of matching shirts when they arrive, which would also be fun! Are you ready? Lets make our own matching game with symbols and words that have extra special meaning for us!

Mini Cardboard T-Shirts For Birthday Party Decor!

DIY mini cardboard t-shirts are just the cutest for birthdays, anniversaries, reunions, graduation, baby showers, casual weddings, and to welcome guests or just because! Simply make some mini cardboard t-shirts, decorate them with the message or graphics that works for your party, and voila, you can hang them on a string with mini clothespins, attach them to skewers for cake decorations, add a ribbon to make gift tags, or even use them to make fun napkin rings! And that is just for starters, I'm sure you can think of some more great ideas! I just love drawing black line drawings of clothes on cardboard, and you may remember my recycled cardboard clothes on a clothesline stage set, or even my mini Purim costumes on a clothes line kids craft. Once you realize how quick these ilttle t-shirts are to make, and how adorable they are, you'll be hooked, I know I am! Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go make a whole pile of them to have on hand for every occasion! Of course this is a bit self explanatory, but let me give you a few tips to make it even more simple, shall we?

Cardboard Fish Centerpiece For Purim, Or Just For Fun!

The cardboard fish centerpieces I made for our community Purim party were a hit, and now I get to use them to decorate our house for Purim, coming up quickly next week. I don't think I'll use all ten of them, then again, a school of fish swimming down my Purim table could be lots of fun, right? I'll get out the blue tablecloths and take it from there.....maybe I'll make some milk carton boats or use some plastic ones and do a whole ocean themed table.......I guess it all depends on how quickly the costumes go this year, and how many guests we'll be having. At this moment I'm so happy to have some new decorations and a theme to work with, and Purim  isn't for another nine days or so (next Wednesday night, with the festive meal happening on Thursday.) And so for once the holiday may just come in without having to loose any sleep, yippee! Want to make some quick cardboard fish centerpieces? Lets get started......

How To Make Quick Birthday Cake Decorations

Let face it, life is busy and simple solutions to acknowledge family birthdays, or any special occasion, in a fun way are always great to have on hand. Personally, I'm not into spending hours and hours on a birthday cake that then gets eaten anyway, and over the years have mostly relied on simple decorations that can be made quickly and generally at the last minute.....so it goes around here! All you need are some basic drawing skills, a bit of an idea regarding scale and proportion, and very simple supplies. I have used this same technique over the years to make a Lochness Monster Cake, An Underwater Castle Cake, A Penguins Cake, A Merry-Go-Round Cake and many more, so use your imagination and just a tiny bit of time to make something adorable and memorable! Check out this round-up that includes all the cakes mentioned, plus a King Kong Manhattan cake, my favorite, right here.

No Bake Popsicle Cookies Are Simply Adorable

With everything looking pinker than pink in blog land this week, I thought I'd contribute with these super simple and beyond adorable no-bake popsicle cookies! And I'll just add that these are courtesy of my 16 year old daughter who is quite the expert at these kinds of things.......her mother would rather be painting, or making something healthy! Regardless it is great to have a trick like this up your sleeve when another neighbor's daughter is having an engagement party and the desert bar needs to be beyond gorgeous! Ah yes, and with Purim coming up, some of these presented with a summer theme could be an amazing mishloach manot! In fact I think that is what we'll do, just need to come up with the rest of the presentation, like summer umbrella, fruit punch, sunglasses..... stay tuned for that, in the mean time let's learn how to make these cuties!

Crocheted Cactus Applique To Use In So Many Ways

Crocheted cacti are just the cutest things, really, and despite my late arrival to the trend (Truthfully I made these a year and a half ago, just had no time to photograph them, sigh.) they still look great. This crocheted cactus applique can be used in so many ways, I actually used it as a birthday garland recently, and am hoping to make a dessert scene wall hanging in the future. I found the pattern on Pinterest and changed it just a bit to suit my personal aesthetic, namely I made the cactus taller and used two strands of green yarn in different shades to add texture. I just love the results, and you will too! Ah yes, I was just thinking you could use these little cactus appliques as napkin rings or stiffen them and even make key chains. Enjoy!

DIY Logo Cupcake Sleeve

If you are making cupcakes, why not make some DIY cupcake sleeves to honor your special occasion or that special someone? Cupcake sleeves basically cover the cupcake paper and make them look really fantastic, even if your icing isn't all that great. And best of all you can customize your cupcake sleeves to your occasion, which I did here for my son's bar mitzvah. Or once you get the hang of making cupcake sleeves, you can always make some using that great paper you happen to have on hand, sky is the limit!

Okay, let's get started!

DIY Logo Cupcake Toppers For Every Occasion

If you have been following my blog you may know that my son became Bar Mitzvah last week, and so of course part of the celebration included lots of baking (for my daughter) and lots of graphics and centerpieces for me. The theme for the Bar Mitzvah graphics was a hebrew letter logo that I designed using my son's initials and the theme of the holiday of Shavuot which occurs just five days after my son's birthday. For these cupcake toppers I simply removed the central symbol and replaced it with the number 13, since that is the age we are celebrating!

If you would like a custome hebrew letter logo, just shoot me an email and hopefully we can work together! As far as making some of these really simply cupcake toppers for any occasionion, keep on reading......

Royal Icing Doughnut Cookies Are Perfect For Beginners

Aren't these royal icing doughnut cookies just the cutest? I don't have the time or inclination to devote to royal icing, but my fiveteen year old daughter does, so I'm enjoying watching her progress! These doughnut cookies were made to give as part of the mishloach manot for Purim, and looked especially cute presented in boxes with a window. We did think of making coffee cup cookies to go with the doughnuts, or take out coffee cups, but we ran out of time and I don't really thing Israelis would get it in any case. So just doughnuts it was and everyone oohed and awed!

If you are thinking about givine royal icing a try, this is the perfect beginner's royal icing cookies, as it is really very simple and looks amazing. Keep reading for some important tips......

Royal Icing Clown Hat Cookies For Purim

Yes it is true dear readers, this year I have had to significantly lower the bar for my traditional Purim extravaganza as there just haven't been enough hours in the day. And you know what, it really is okay, and our holiday will still be wonderful and festive on account of buying certain things we would normally make, or using decorations that we already have on hand.

My daugher on the other hand did have time to continue with her royal icing cookie adventures, and for starters she made these adorable clown hat cookies which I have already wrapped up and will use as gift tags, if you can imagine that? They actually are perfect and will look super sweet hanging off the handles of the bright bags I've purchased to fill with edible gifts for the neighbors.