creative jewish mom

Plastic Canvas Hanukkah Crafts To Make During Hanukkah!

With Chanukah quickly approaching now might not be the time to actually make plastic canvas hanukkah decorations, but now might be a great time to buy the supplies in order to enjoy making some during hanukkah! These decorations, well, last literaly forever, so they make great family keepsakes and are just as cute as can be. So no stressing with intricate crafts like this right now, save these projects for chanukah, what could be better? I fortunately do not know where my plastic canvas supplies are at the moment, or I might be tempted? Okay, here is my post from two years ago:

This week I shared with you a lovely eco-friendly way to make glitter snowflakes from recycled plastic berry baskets, and now while it isn't in keeping with my usual recycling crafts, I'm sharing some really festive plastic canvas crafts for Hanukkah. And just to clarify, plastic canvas is certainly not eco friendly, but it can be enjoyed for years and years to come, so while buying it does encourage the manufacturing of it, sigh, at least one doesn't have to be wasteful with it, right? The pleasure of embroidering on plastic canvas is an experience unto itself, and maybe that is in fact how my crafts ended up looking so very happy!

I truly believe that one should indulge in the joy of crafting, and now is a great time to do that, with winter holidays and family time quickly approaching! Spread some love this season with handmade crafts, and if you do that I think buying a bit of plastic canvas is also giving back to the world. Okay, enough said, take a look at these projects and come up with some of your own!

Plastic Canvas Crafts For Hanukkah

This week I shared with you a lovely eco-friendly way to make glitter snowflakes from recycled plastic berry baskets, and now while it isn't in keeping with my usual recycling crafts, I'm sharing some really festive plastic canvas crafts for Hanukkah. And just to clarify, plastic canvas is certainly not eco friendly, but it can be enjoyed for years and years to come, so while buying it does encourage the manufacturing of it, sigh, at least one doesn't have to be wasteful with it, right? The pleasure of embroidering on plastic canvas is an experience unto itself, and maybe that is in fact how my crafts ended up looking so very happy!

I truly believe that one should indulge in the joy of crafting, and now is a great time to do that, with winter holidays and family time quickly approaching! Spread some love this season with handmade crafts, and if you do that I think buying a bit of plastic canvas is also giving back to the world. Okay, enough said, take a look at these projects and come up with some of your own!

Recycled Berry Basket Snowflakes!

Okay dear readers, let the Chanukah crafting begin! Due to my computer still not back home from the repair shop, I've been crafting like I used to, and wow, it is so rewarding to come up with all kinds of ideas, some of which actually make it to the finish line, and others, well......Making snowflakes from the bottom of plastic berry baskets is not my idea, I found an unattributed photo somewhere, but I realised yesterday that this is basically an eco-conscious way of making snowflakes from plastic canvas, which is totally a "thing." Plastic canvas snowflakes are often embroidered, which one could also do with these berry basket snowflakes, and I believe they are also covered in glitter at times, which I will share with you soon!

Now that I've realised that the bottom of the berry basket is like plastic canvas (though with cross bars that do limit the design) the gears are turning! Or maybe I need to get out the plastic canvas once again and use it all up? Check out my plastic canvas Chanukah star ornaments, my plastic canvas Hanukah menorah, and my plastic canvas dreidels, if you are in the mood for some embroidery. Then again rather than buy supplies, use recyclable to create fun decorations for your home, it feels great! Okay, lets make some plastic basket snowflakes, shall we?

Plastic Canvas Hanukkah Garlands

Wishing you all a very wonderful Hanukkah filled with light and joy! This year I can honestly say, that the creative life I try to encourage here does not always allow time for things like blogging! So just popping in to share just a tiny glimpse of what is going on in our home during this festive week of Hanukkah. My duaghter is on vacation all week, while the boys have half a day of school, which is really wonderful this time of year. We have been having serious winter weather with pouring rain for days and we are all wearing layers of winter clothes to keep warm and cozy. My usual Chanukah gifts to the kids of warm pajamas, neck warmers, scarves and hand crocheted booties are especially appreciated this year!

Ah yes, and the Hanukkah decorations? Well I didn't get around to exactly everything I had envisioned, but am loving my plastic canvas hanukkah garlands that I have strung from Ikea picture ledges over our kitchen table. We will certainly enjoy these for years to come, which menas that if you have a bit of crafting time on your hands, you could certainly still enjoy this craft, or just make something similar from paper!

This garland was made using plastic canvas star ornaments with tassels, as well as plastic canvas embroidered dreidels, plastic canvas star medallions, and a plastic canvas menorah.

Plastic Canvas Star Ornaments With Tassels

As you may have noticed, I have been having lots of fun making Hanukkah decorations using plastic canvas. And now I present to you an obvious addition to my plastic canvas dreidels and  plastic canvas menorahs, ta da, plastic canvas Jewish stars! Just for the record I thought you might be interested to know that truly the idea of using the Jewish star to represent Hanukkah is a commercial invention of some sort, and you won't see any such stars here in Israel being used for Hannukah. People would wonder if you were trying to possibly recycle your decorations from Independance Day! I just had to laugh as I was typing that, but it really is true, that together with the fact that the color blue has nothing to do with Hanukkah (really spelled Chanukah) either!

That said, the Jewish star does represent Chanukah for so many folks out there, so we've got to make some, right? Keep on reading for the number one most important tip for making these guys....

Plastic Canvas Dreidel Ornament Craft

This Chanukah is turning out to be a plastic canvas craft extravaganza! Yes just a bit odd for someone who prefers to craft with recyclables, but hey, sometimes I just want to make some great looking crafts from store bought suppiles, can you blame me? I will say that all the supplies for these plastic canvas Chanukah crafts are things that I already have on hand, and I have been using up little bits and pieces of yarn, and even unraveling swatches to get enough of the colors I desire!

These plastic canvas dreidels were actually the first thing I made, just somehow decided to share them with you last, which is a good thing as they look great together with my plastic canvas snowflake medallions, right? These embroidered dreidels are simple enough to make even for kids say around seven or eight, so get the whole family stitching and you'll have enough for a garland or fun wall hanging in no time. Shall we get started?

Plastic Canvas Snowflake Mandala Ornaments

What can I tell you today? I'll admit I don't always love the things I make, but I am totally in love with these plastic canvas snowflake medallions, or maybe they are really more aptly called plastic canvas mandalas, I'm not qui9te sure! Something about them reminds me of the lovely small details in Fair Isle sweaters (that I do not plan to knit in this lifetime) or maybe the 70's style embroidered appliques I've had my eye on, either way I really enjoyed making these three versions and hoping to have time to make some more. They do look very sweet with my plastic canvas chanukah menorah, as well as part of a whole plastic canvas chanukah look that I'm in the middle of crafting. I'm not exactly sure how it will all come together, but very likely as some fun garlands to hang this year and for years to come.

If you are familiar with plastic canvas, then you already know the secret to make these beauties, but if not, so do keep on reading for some helpful hints so you can get started making some of your own.

Plastic Canvas Chanukah Craft: A Needlepoint Menorah Ornament

I just love embroidery and needlework of all kinds, but with my generally hectic crafting endeavors there usually isn't time for small detailed work. But this year my friends we have an entire month until Chanukah, and with a huge roll of plastic canvas sitting in the corner of my studio and as you can imagine, no shortage of yarn, well I just had to indulge myself in a little bit of chanukah needlepoint of sorts, yippee! Yes it is true, plastic canvas isn't what I'd call refined needlework, but it sure is great for making fun decorations, perfect for kids and well, there really are so many creative things one can do with it, right? And a great excuse to use up some of those bits and pieces of yarn you've got hanging around, at least in my case!

One of the great things about plastic canvas is that one doesn't have to stick with small stitches, so filling the canvas with colorful strokes of yarn can be done relatively quickly. Here I choose to fill the ground of the piece with the traditional needlepoint stitch, but tomorrow I'll be sharing with you another plastic canvas chanukah craft where I did just the opposite, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, here's how I made this sweet little menorah......

Plastic Canvas Envelope Memo Holder

If you are looking for a sweet little plastic canvas project, i will modestly suggest that my plastic canvas envelope memo holder surely fits the bill. In fact, because this project requires very little embroidery but rather relies on the plastic canvas as is, you could surely make quite a few of these as little gifts, and of course my addition of the heart is a sweet touch but for a more masculine version one could certainly replace the heart with an initial.

Little Plastic Canvas Houses

I'll admit, I never thought I'd be sharing plastic canvas crafts with you, but never say never! When the lightbulb moment happened and I had the idea of making little minimally embroidered houses out of plastic canvas, well I just couldn't resist, and here they are. Truthfully I went on to make a bunch more plastic canvas crafts some of which I will be sharing with you, and some of which I'm hoping to turn into patterns to put in my shop. Time will tell, as you may know, these crafty blog endeavors take soooooo much time, anyone got some to give away?