creative jewish mom

"Ugly" Holiday Sweater Craft Is Cute As Can Be!

After turning a color swatching exercise into striped dreidels, here, I just had to keep on going with some cozy striped sweaters! Are they "ugly" holiday sweaters, not in my book, because friends, when you mix your own paint colors using any red, yellow and blue, no matter what, the resulting colors will go together, like magic! Truly a wonderful realization, and a great way to minimize thinking too much about what colors to use, whether painting a painting or painting stripes on a mini holiday sweater! Yes, it is true these sweaters might look great with a star of David, or a dreidel, or a jelly doughnut on the front, but I think I'm going to leave them plain so I can enjoy them all winter and it won't look like I've yet to pack up my Chanukah decor! (Same goes for all the white pom poms I'm planning on hanging!) So friends, these "ugly" holiday sweaters are just beyond cute, and so simple to make, so let's get started!

Painted Cereal Box Dreidels For Chanukah Crafting

These striped dreidels painted on cereal boxes are looking so cute I just had to do a better job of photographing them to convince you that this is the thing to delve into this year! Make little ones, make big ones, just make a ton, and transform your home into a festive place for celebrating our wonderful 8 night holiday! I can see these hung vertically with some little pom poms in between to make a wall hanging, so simple, just tape a piece of thread or yarn to the backs and hang from a stick, a skewer, a long paint brush, a hanger, get creative! Or paint both sides and make some cake toppers, stick them in a vase or make a mobile. Get those creative gears turning and make memories for loved one, you won't regret it! And friends, no special supplies needed, right? Keep on reading for the link the original tutorial, and supplies!

Cute Striped Dreidel Craft With Color Theory!

Just when I thought I would not be crafting this year for Chanukah, I realized that just wouldn't do, and that I could combine my art endeavors with my crafting and do something festive, decorative and educational (for those doing the creating.) Introducing color theory dreidels, this years contribution to my ever expanding collection of artful recycling crafts for chanukah! Why color theory you might ask? Well friends, color theory in this case is about how colors look when placed side by side, but even more exciting, how to mix your own colors! All the colors you see here were mixed from just 3 colors, so that makes this budget friendly as well, not to mention that the base is cereal box cardboard! Okay, lets do this Chanukah is coming!

Watercolor Pomegranates Card Craft

We are ushering in the wonderful holiday of Sukkot tomorrow night, and I am still crafting (of course) so you may also be in need of a sweet way to make some holiday cards or placecards? My daughter made this for me as a Rosh HaShana card, and it is just so sweet I had to share it with you! A branch of apples and pomegranates could work for Succot, or even Tu B'Shevat, the new year for fruit bearing trees, so if you don't have time for it now, keep it in mind! I love the little touch of gold leaf, right?

Okay, lets get started on this, time is of the essence!

Rosh HaShana Symbols Mobile Or Wall Hanging Craft

Dusting this one off and sharing it again, just as I was thinking about painting a fish or two or three?

Rosh HaShana starts on Monday night, yet there is still time to whip up a few fun decorations to add extra meaning to your holiday. Or maybe you are celebrating at someone else's home and would love a fun way to add a special holiday touch to a bottle of wine or wrapped gift? Here is it my friends, simply paint some whimsical shapes that look like a fish, a carrot, a pomegranate, a beet, a gourd, and an apple for starters, and either use them together to make a mobile, or use them separately as gift tags, place markers, cupcake or cake toppers, or you name it!

As you may have figured out by now, I am all for crafts and creativity that use the simplest of materials and therefore the most creativity. And you know what, generally the results are also the most heartfelt. Got it? So get out those paints and enjoy, because quite honestly just applying color to paper is so very very satisfying and a great way to jump start your family's (or your) creativity!  Ready?.......

Painted Paper Apple Collage

How about an artful apple collage to celebrate fall, or maybe you need some fun kitchen art? Apple collages could also make great cards for Rosh HaShana, the Jewish New Year, or even fun place cards or gift tags. Keep it simple, and the results will be great! When collage is made using painted paper, and the collage pieces are well adhered, it almost looks like a painting, which is so amazing!

Collage using painted paper, and specifically painted tissue paper was made famous by the children's book author Eric Carle, who unfortunately passed away recently. I made this painted paper apple collage based on a class taught by the amazing Este Macleod, called Colour Collage 1 (which is not currently available), though you can certainly visit the hashtag #colourcollage1 on instagram to see all the student work.

I can not explain the process based on how Este taught it, but I can explain the process based on Eric Carle's technique, which is similar. Eric Carle, used painted tissue paper collage exclusively to illustrate his world renowned children's books and in fact kept huge flat files full of painted tissue paper sorted according to color! Okay dear readers, as you can likely imagine given the wide variety of projects on this blog, I could never limit myself to one technique, so I always find it quite interesting that artists are able to do the same thing for years on end! Lesson learned? Keep doing the same thing over and over to be successful at it? Hmmm, I do plan to try this same technique with some pomegranites, so that is a start? Okay, let's get to work!

Sketchbook Brushstroke Daisies Are So Much Fun!

Summer is a great time to start a sketchbook, and fill it up! The more you create in a sketchbook the more you'll want to create in a sketchbook, promise! A year ago I dedicated days on end to sketchbook drawing and later painting, and it was only through that process that I learned that I can make mistakes in my sketchbook and it is okay! During that time I also learned how to cover mistakes that bother me, and today, I have progressed to even leaving unsuccessful pages as is! And friends, my sketchbook is a regular drawing sketchbook, nothing fancy and not made for painting, and yet it works just fine with acrylic paint, and even a composition notebook with lined pages can be used as a simple sketchbook. The main thing is to start a sketchbook, with whatever you have and start the journey! If you feel like painting, so you can try painted circles with flower doodles seen here, or you can try these layered brushstroke daisies, though it does take practice. Okay, lets take a closer look and think about some helpful tips!

Daily Creating On An Index Card Produces Fun Results!

Daily creating on an index card, or index card size, is an amazing exercise that I greatly recommend! Just look at my results so far, and I'm one picky customer! As I was nearing the end of my personal challenge to make 100 oil pastel paintings I was starting to wonder what I would do when I finished that. And then fortunately, just as I was nearing the 100 mark this Index Card A Day challenge for the months of June/July came into my radar, and white I was hesitant at first, I decided to go for it, albeit with a simple theme that would hopefully be low stress and high success! And phew, it was such a great decision, because just as I finished those 100 pastels I had another something to jump into to keep myself a bit focused and moving forward in my art journey. So friends, it is not too late to join the fun, and you can do it with whatever medium you choose. The majority of the thousands participating are collage/mixed media folks, so choose your potion and go for it. Just image your own little gallery of tiny art after just 16 days, as I'm sharing with you here! Check out my instagram account @sara.rivka.dahan and look at the hashtags to see where everyone is sharing their results. And just by the way, this is also a great thing to do with kids, a little summer creativity can go a long way!

Simple Doodle Flowers Are Perfect For Summer!

Summer is the time to spend time drawing and painting and doodlng in a sketchbook! It is so very relaxing, and a great project to take on the go! Last summer I drew in my sketchbook for days on end, and this summer, while I'm involved in other art practices, I finally found some time to get back to my sketchbook for a little colorful doodling, and guess what, NOW it feels like summer to me! So friends, develop your art skills, keep an art journal, learn some new doodles, learn how to draw flowers......whatever it is that interests you as far as a sketchbook, do it! And to get started, how about some sweet doodle flowers that are simple to draw and look amazing! Okay, lets do this!

A Make 100 Oil Pastel Paintings Challenge!

Back at the end of February I decided to embark on a journey of using oil pastels to hone my landscape painting skills, and took upon myself to create 100 5" x 7" pieces! There is a huge benefit to creating 100 of something, and there are many 100 day art challenges out there that folks do regularly on instagram. 100 is enough to really sink your teeth into something, and yet not too much that it becomes overwhelming. I have to say, that making 100 was a much greater task than I had imagined even though the pieces are small, and it has been so helpful to have the support of my followers on instagram @sara.rivka.dahan and to be accountable somewhat to the task I took upon myself! As I write this I have 9 to go, and starting to plan my next steps to develop my art.

What else can I say? Most of the pieces I created ended up being shared on instagram, while a small portion, maybe five or so, went into the garbage, as should be expected. Truthfully some of the pieces were a good three paintings in themselves and would have gone in the garbage if not for my dedication to just keeping at it, even when it seemed hopeless! Additionally, most of the pieces were intuitive, or started off with inspiration of some kind but then veered to something else altogether, which makes the process much more time consuming and at times frustrating, but in the end rewarding when the end result comes to life.

What is the lesson here? If you dream of honing your art skills, of being able to call yourself an artist, of really creating something you could be proud of, you have to invest in it, and for most of us that means investing in it big time! Make art, make art, make art! Make art that you don't show anyone, make art that gets painted over, make art that gets torn up, make art that is made for the sake of the making, not the result, and THEN you might just be ready to start making art that you can give as gifts, hang on your walls, and who knows? In case you are wondering, I certainly have done all of the things I've listed before starting this oil pastel challenge, so do keep that in mind.

Okay, want to have a closer look, come along with me........