creative jewish mom

Toilet Paper Tube Castle Craft

We are on a roll with the recycling crafts for Purim, and I couldn't be more pleased, especially since we still have a week to keep on crafting for the festive holiday! Introducing toilet paper tube castle craft, which you can make to use as a centerpiece, a scene on a sideboard, or even as a simple toy. I generally save toilet paper tubes for crafting, but this time only had five on hand, so may castle is considerably smaller than I would have preferred. I'd love to see a castle that is a few stories high, and maybe with some little rooves and flags, but with the lack of supplies on hand I went for something very basic, which is also good! What do castles have to do with Purim? Well truthfully European castles do not have anything to do with Purim, since the Purim story took place in Shushan, Iran, but certainly there was a palace where our hero Queen Esther resided, so you know anything loosely castle/palace is relevant to Purim. Now that we have clarified that, lets get crafting!

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......

Recycled Cardboard Fish Are The Perfect Purim Craft!

I'm loving crafting with recycled cardboard boxes lately, there is something truly satisfying about creating something new from a cardboard box (hopefully) bound for the recycling pile. And to top it off, there is just something about black and white paint together with the cardboard box color that looks amazing. Enough said, introducing my recycled cardboard fish, just in time for Purim, and the Jewish month of Adar, which is the sign of the fish! You can use these fun cardboard fish in so many ways, and this can be a craft for all ages if one makes fish shapes for everyone to paint and/or decorate. Even a collage of findings on a fish shape could be amazing, or a fish shaped welcome sign for your Purim party! I actually made these fish to use as centerpieces for a Purim party tonight, and I'll be sharing the tutorial for making stand up fish centerpieces with you shortly. In the mean time, get inspired by my fun recycled cardboard fish, and enjoy!

Paint A Garden On A Milk Carton Craft

Not every craft has to have a specific end point in sight, sometimes just getting out some milk cartons and painting gardens on them can be a great creative activity that leads to? And actually, now that Spring is in the air, a row of milk carton houses with blooming gardens could be a fun craft. I'll admit, when I painted these milk cartons with a little friend I had in mind making a Chanukah village, but that never happened, so now the milk cartons are hanging out waiting for their future use, maybe a village filled with greenery and flowers for Shavuous?In any case, just getting out the paints and paint brushes and painting on a 3D object is a great way to loosen up and have some fun, I know I did!

Keep on reading for some tips for painting milk cartons.....

DIY Cardboard Roosters That Can Stand Up

Ever thought about using some recycled cardboard to make some fun cardboard roosters? Truthfully, I hadn't either, but after making a black rooster and a white rooster, well I just want to make some more. I made them to use as stage props in a school play, but they'd look great in a child's room, or even in your kitchen, so have some fun and make a cardboard rooster, or two or three! Assuming you have a bit of paint on hand the rest of the supplies are basically free, so this is a budget friendly craft project as well......ah yes, and with the Jewish holiday of Purim coming, well filling the house with roosters and chickens could be quite festive, and certainly sure to bring a laugh. Okay, lets get started.......

A Few New Paintings In My Clothesline Gallery

Finding the time to invest in my painting process is the biggest challenge at the moment, and I have not added to my kitchen wall gallery in the last two weeks or so, waaah. The thing about painting, or deciding to try your hand at a creative practice of any kind is that it truly requires consistency, time and producing enough so that your skills improve over a shortish period of time. Slaveing over one painting isn't going to make you an amazing artist unless you happen to be Leonardo DeVinci, who carried the Mona Lisa around with him for years, though of course he was making lots of other art as well. As far a my goal of 100 floral paintings on paper with acrylic paint, I am now at #77 or so, and some landscapes have snuck in there as you can see, but I think I'll have to just let them. Hoping to find some more time soon to paint another 25 floral/landscape paintings, and then I'm going to delve into painting clouds! Maybe 100 of those, and then who knows? And just by the way, of those 77 paintings, many were painted over twice, a few went into the garbage, and most of them will look like the work of a beginner in another year or so, and that is exactly how it should be!

A Fun Craft For Tu B'shevat: Paint Blooming Trees With Q-Tips

The Jewish holiday of Tu B'Shevat, which is the new year for the trees, is on Sunday night, so now is the time to whip up some crafts to celebrate! Ah yes, and in case you are not familiar with this lovely holiday, which marks the cycle for fruit bearing trees, then you might be interested to know that it includes a Seder, which like Passover, includes four cups of wine! Of course one does not have to drink four cups of wine (while one does for Passover) as that might be a bit much, but rather the seder includes red and white wine and mixtures of the two. Okay, enough about that, before we get into the holiday where we love to eat as many types of fruit as possible, lets paint some pretty pictures! The almond trees here in Israel are the first fruit bearing trees to bloom, and generally bloom right around Tu B'Shevat, but since this year is a leap year and we are adding a whole extra month into our calendar, I'm guessing the trees won't be blooming just yet. Plus we've had a really wet and sometimes cold winter, which I believe keeps the trees dormant a bit longer, that means that this year we need to paint some lovely almond trees,and it is so fun you'll want to fill the walls, Let's get painting, with Q-tips........

Acrylic Floral Painting With Pastels

Yes, it is true, a bit less crafting going on around CJM headquarters lately (though still more than anyone else I know) because I have been fighting a little war with acrylic paint and a paintbrush....and let me tell you, it is not so simple to try and realize those dreams of painting real paintings, you know the kind you'd want to hang proudly on your walls, or even sell! Apparently one has to paint 500 paintings to start mastering the paint, so I am working on paper to make it less precious, less expensive, more space friendly and hopefully quicker! My brother told me "real artists don't worry about these things, just stop making excuses and paint." Funny guy, not as easy as it sounds, but I'm giving it a run for my money, and if you hang around here for another year or so you may just see the results, and hopefully it'll be great. If not, then I'll start making quilts, since I've always dreamed of that as well. Or even if the painting adventure does result in some huge gorgeous semi-abstract floral paintings that I'm dreaming of, I think I'm going to need some quilts to complete the look, you know in that large stone house, or white industrial space, either one is just fine, of course a yurt would work too. Enough babble, keep on reading if you are interested in learning how this painting was made......

Picture Ledges For Displaying Art In Progress

Since I have now officially been brave enough to share my floral paintings,  I thought I'd show you where they sit in our home. Well at least the current favorites, as there is only so much space. I just love these picture ledges from Ikea, and they are great for displaying not just pictures or art works in progress but also little items of interest. If you want to know what holiday is coming up, generally these shelves will clue you in, well except for this year as I've been busy learning to paint rather than making Chanukah decorations, which I'm actually really happy about, as i've been wanting to do this for so many years and never quite got there.

These shelves sit over the kitchen table at the end of our kitchen, so while I'm cooking up a storm or washing dishes I can look at my work and decide what changes to make. Or not to make. The paintings shown here are mostly done, namely I'm not going to touch them anymore as they'll likely end up getting worse not better. And some of them are already the third painting done on the same sheet of paper, for the sake of not being wasteful as art supplies here in Israel tend to be pricey.

Painting Loose Florals With A Mystery Underlayer

Yes indeed, the secret in now out as to why there is a serious lack of new Hanukkah crafts here on CJM: I have been painting loose florals for the past month, and that together with a ton of graphic design work has left no time for Hanukkah crafting. Of course I plan to remedy that this week with some large paper decorations, and re-using some of the best projects from previous years, but truthfully I really feel like just concentrating on painting, as at long last I'm getting into it and getting better, yippee!

For years I have dreamed of painting large canvases of loose or abstract florals, and while I won't get there for quite some time, I have at least begun the process, and this is really thanks to the amazing Amanda Evanston and her online painting class called The Secret Garden. Totally recommend it to anyone itching to paint in a creative way, and you can watch the videos over and over and over (as I have) and learn something new every time. I have heard that to master anything one must spend 10,000 hours doing it, or paint 500 paintings, so that is where I'm headed, right not I'm on #32, which is a good start. The paintings here are mostly #28 and higher, as the previous ones are just at this point too bad to actually share, Can't wait to see what the future brings!