creative jewish mom

DIY Painted Paper Daisy Cut Outs For Holiday Decor!

The festive holiday of Shavuot starts Saturday night, so now is the time to get busy filling our homes with greenery and flowers, and I say go for paper! Whether you have time for a whole set or even just one sweet flower, give it a try, I'm sure you will love it. This post just shows how to create the flowers, in my other post, coming shortly, I'll share with you  one idea how to use them. Okay time is of the essence, lets get started! And of course, you can choose to do any flower, though keep in mind that Gerbera really works because it has a long stem without leaves in nature.

Stand Up Tulips Collage Is Perfect For Spring!

Sometimes crafting is really all about creativity and certainly crafts that marry "art" and craft! This craft started out as a painted paper botanical collage to add to the series I worked on last Fall, however, things did not go quite as I had hoped and the results were, well, just too cute. Oh dear, toss it, share it on Instagram anyway (no thanks....) then it occurred to me, just cut out the cute parts, and one I started cutting I realized I could make a cute stand-up tulips collage piece to celebrate Spring. Phew, so all the time I spend on the collage did not go to waste, instead my somewhat neglected (on account of all the art going on) crafting just got a boost, and at a time when the world could sure use something light hearted. Sweet collages like this are a great way to add festive touches to the home for the upcoming holiday of Purim, as well as to sparkling clean areas ready for Passover! While my stand up collage is quite small, as it was made on a 4" x 6" piece of paper, you could intentionally make this craft and go quite a bit bigger! Okay, lets do it!

Magazine Page Collage Vase Of Flowers!

With Purim just around the corner, now is a great time to start making fun decorations, which in my case are going to include a bunch of collages, vases of flowers, and maybe even some castles, which just occured to me as I type this!  I'll let you in on a little secret: I need to make some stage decorations for a Purim party, and I'm thinking that some large vases of flowers flanking the stage might work....okay, I'll keep you posted, of course! Using magazine pages as collage material gives any collage project so much depth and interest, and in this case I used only magazine pages, but one can certainly combine colored or painted paper with magazine paper, especially if the magazines you choose to cut up don't have any of the colors you love. Fortunately for me, one of the magazines that I am tearing up has been filled with full page ads with lots of solid color, so thanks so much to the designer who started that trend! Okay, need some tips for getting starting, lets do this!

Practice Painting Florals On A Milk Carton!

Want to make some fun art that stands up by itself and will always call attention to itself? Paint on a milk carton! If you've been hanging out here for a while, then you certainly know that I've had fun painting milk cartons in the past, here and here, and that I'm always keen on repeating a successful project when the need arises. "Need" in this case being that I'm spending the month painting flowers of all kinds, and slathering the left over paint on a milk carton is a great way to make a canvas that isn't precious! And that lovely green box hanging out with the milk carton, well that would be a tea box landscape, painted using only one color plus white! Around my house the craft project like to socialize with one another, so the painted apples came to play as well. And that friends is the fun of always having a creative project to display on your sideboard, and especially during the festive Jewish month of Adar, when we want to be smiling, as we get ready for Purim! Okay, back to that milk carton idea, keep on reading for a few tips, I would say I'm approaching expert status?

DIY Cake Toppers From Flower Sketches

Last summer I spent quite a few days honing my flower sketching skills by looking at free tutorials from a wide variety of sources, check out my previous posts here, and then I added watercolor to them here, just for starters! You can check out all the posts that show what I've been up to in my sketchbooks here. So, when my daughter's birthday came around, it was only natural to make some sketched peonie paper cake toppers that I ended up using in some fun birthday centerpieces (more on that later.....) I drew these from a tutorial that I saw on Pinterest, and it is truly addictive, because the flowers end up looking so well, perfect? Not that perfect is ever the goal, but with cut out sketched flowers for a cake topper or even to add to a plant or bouquet, that somewhat perfect look just plain works! And best of all, this is also a recycling craft, so keep on reading for the simple supplies, and why not spend a lazy summer day sketching some flowers to use who knows when? I am keeping my collection of these kinds of crafts in a box, to pull out when needed for birthdays, anniversaries, you name it!

A Festive Painted Cut-Out Bouquet For The Front Door!

The Jewish holiday of Shavuot starts on Sunday night, and our front door is ready! I just love painting flowers and cutting them out, as with the water color poppies cut outs, and am also really pleasantly surprised by how wonderful a bouquet of painted flowers can be as well, especially when you free it from the confines of the paper! Of course a bouquet of flowers drawn and then painted, like this one, is all about planning, and execution, so after all that effort, you will want to use it again and again, or even hang it somewhere in a frame, and you should! The more flowers the better, and painted ones add so much joy where ever they are hung! There is still time to make something similar for Shavuot, so get started, loose a little bit of sleep over it if necessary (that is the type I am, don't do if it is isn't you!) and most of all, have a wonderful holiday! Okay, lets get some more info regardng how this paper bouquet was created, shall we?

An Abstract Floral Painting On A Recycled Box

Since I shared with you some artful painted gift boxes made from upcycled boxes of all kinds, that have been adding cheer to our home this Chanukah, I just had to include this painted floral gift box that I actually made quite a few months ago. It is not part of the holiday decor, but may just see the light come Spring. That does not mean however that you should not paint flowers in bright colors on gift boxes NOW, as it is a great way to practice painting, a great way to paint without too much pressure, and a great way to force yourself to paint quickly and loosely. After all who would invest hours on a painted gift box? (Well, me maybe, but please don't!) Okay, lets take a closer look at this floral painted gift box!

Simple Watercolor Poppy Wall Art

After sharing a few posts last week showing the watercolor poppies I used to make holiday decorations I decided to hold off and publish this watercolor poppy wall art separately so that it wouldn't get lost in all the gorgeousness of the watercolor poppy cut outs and the watercolor poppies centerpiece! After making those watercolor poppy cut-outs with straight stems, I realized that I could paint a panorama (two sheets of large watercolor paper used horizontally) of curved stem poppies to fill the width of my kitchen picture ledge for some more lovely decor! And yes indeed, simply painting a long row of poppies with no added background looks quite good, and can be done fairly quickly. Best of all, flat art like this is certainly simple to store until you need to add a festive touch once again. Of course these poppies are so great looking you'll likely leave them up for a while! I have 3 picture ledges in my kitchen that are used to display art generally, and I love to change them up, so these poppies have been a nice addition, and quite a bit more calming than my flower paintings hung clothesline style! The great thing about watercolor paper is that I was able to simply stand the sheets on the shelf, and with just a bit of masking tape to secure them, voila, lovely art was born. Okay, I did have to paint the poppies first, but that was pure joy! Want to make some painted poppies to decorate a spot in your home? Let's do it!

Simple DIY Crepe Paper Flowers To Make Now!

I was just thinking that I should make some tissue paper flowers like those that used to grace our Purim table years ago, but it turns out so much time has passed that I actually just realized that the most successful flowers were made from crepe paper! Yes, tissue paper is wonderful too, and I have used it numerous times for flowers, but there is something about the crepe paper and its texture that just makes the whole project that much lovelier. I mean really, look at the photo, who isn't running to the store to buy some basic crepe paper? Confession: this photo was taken 9 (gasp) years ago, and that blue table was a little kiddie table that is long gone, it took me a moment to figure out what that was exactly!

Ah yes, and the crepe paper is reminiscent of Mexican paper flowers, so all the better is you need a food theme for your festive occasion, go with tacos? Boy, I sure am happy I didn't buy those two packs of tissue paper that were in my cart today at the art supply store the $8.50 seemed a bit too steep considering I was already buying large sheets of watercolor paper and other supplies for my latest painting adventures.....Lest I digress, i will go back and buy some crepe paper, and revisit this project, but in the mean time, lets learn how to make them! And do read the instructions very carefully please or your flowers may be a flop literally, got it?

DIY Cake Flowers From Plastic Straws

If you ever find yourself trying to decorate a cake in say ten minutes, you have come to the right place, as this is my quickest (and maybe even cutest) cake decoration idea yet! All you need are some plastic (or possibly paper) straws and some scissors and a few minutes, and voila, cute cake flowers can transform a simple cake into something gorgeous. I'm not sure how I came up wth this idea as I was literally sweating to get the cake decorated, but I think I must have been inspired by those little vintage style plastic flowers used to hold birthday candles! Now, as you may notice, I am photographing this cake after it was half was eaten, namely a full day after the party, so I put the flowers on the side of the cake for the sake of the photographs, when in actuality the flowers were on top of the cake, which looked a bit more sophisticated than this idea, so keep that in mind! Okay, lets make some plastic cake flowers that one could also use to decorate a fruit platter, or even cupcakes of course!