creative jewish mom

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.

Giant DIY Party Hats Centerpiece

Giant cardboard party hats are the perfect thing to make when you want to make a statement with festive decorations for a birthday party, or in our case the upcoming Jewish holiday of Purim, but you don't have a huge amount of time to invest. Make them in a few sizes, and place them in the middle of the table as a fun centerpiece. Next time I think I'll go with solid colors and huge white polka dots and a yarn or plastic bag pom pom on top.

I'll let you in on a little secret though, I have actually used these hats as Purim party decorations for our community party for the last five years gasp, can you believe that? We just had our party two nights ago, and out came the hats, and now they are hanging out in my dining room here and there as Purim approaches. Truthfully they were a bit squashed this year when I took them down from the attic, but still made a great statement. I ended up giving a few away at the end of the evening, as I really had thought that maybe their run is over, but who knows, after Purim they'll go right back up to the attic, and make the decision whether to use them again or not, when the time comes!

Of course I always do some new decorations too, but it is great to have something to fall back on, especially at a time when I'm already super busy with all things Purim and life in general! Want to make some too, let get started.......

DIY Corrugated Craft Cardboard Gift Boxes

Here's a super simple DIY gift box using corrugated craft cardboard that you can use to hold little prizes and treats (as I did for Hanukkah) or a gift of any size. Make a bunch of these little boxes to use as party favor boxes for weddings, bat or bar mitzvahs, or birthdays, and add your own special touch. I added strips of colored paper punched on a craft punch, you can add a fun gift tag, ribbon or even little pom poms. This is a great DIY gift wrap idea to have up your sleeve anytime! Let's do it......

Book Sandwich Cookies For Your Next Siddur Party, Book Club Or Graduation!

eWhile I can't take credit for making these adorable little book sandwich cookies, I did take the photo, and I am going to share with you how I think they were made, so that counts for something, right? And of course, just for the record, these "book" sandwich cookies are actually meant to represent a prayer book, a siddur, as this was a dessert bar celebrating the "siddur party" the very special event which takes place in Jewish schools generally at the end of first grade, when the kids have learned to read and are ready to receive their first prayer book.

So whether your specnial occasion is a graduatiom day  book signing, a book club party, a book themed birthday party, a siddur party, or even a library fundraiser, these book sandwich cookies are sure to please, and I've got some tips for making them.

And I just realized one could use these for Rosh HaShana as well, since we say "may you be inscribed in the book of life", how is that for a fun Jewish New Year's treat?