creative jewish mom

Goodbye To Our Morocco Meets Recycling Crafts Succah, Until Next Year.......

Today is the last day of the Jewish holiday of Succot, here in Israel, where we celebrate the holiday for 7 lovely days. Elsewhere the holiday is 8 days. While I am always a bit sad to say goodbye to the succah, we actually can't take it apart until Saturday night/Sunday as the holiday goes right into another holiday, called Simchat Torah. Our succah is constructed in the entrance courtyard of our home, so truthfully I still get to enjoy it for another day or so. While this year has been a quiet and restful holiday, I somehow did not find time to photograph my succah properly! I did of course take photos of all the crafts that I wanted to share with you, and last night I quickly took a few more, so I now present to the world my Morocco meets recycling craft Succah! Yes indeed, many succahs do look alike, decorated with crafts kids make in school and traditional posters, but that certainly need not be the case, and of course is not the case here at CJM central! Okay, lets take a peek inside!

Golden Doves Henna Party Centerpiece

First of all, it is now the month of Adar, a month increased joy and happiness, and some sillyness to boot, so you don't need the excuse of a neighbor's henna party to make some fun Moroccan doves like these! Did you know that doves mate for life, and they also share the duties taking care of the young ones? I know this since I've had many doves nesting on my window sills over the years! So it is no accident that a pair of doves is often used as wedding symbolism. I happened to have large number of white doves that I used as centerpieces for a different kind of occassion, but thought I'd upcycle some of them to use as centerpieces at the henna party we threw for my neighbors daughter as a part of their engagement party. Maybe painting the doves gold would have been enough, but I just had to add some Moroccan touches, little Moroccan hats for the male doves, and a crown of sorts and jewelry for the female doves. Maybe a little too cute for a super elegant occassion, but this was Israeli budget style with disposable tablecloths and dishes, so cute works just fine!

Simple Moroccan Theme Centerpieces For A Jewish Henna Party

A Jewish Henna party? Yes indeed dear readers, Jews from places like North Africa/Morocco, Yemen, and even Iran do have the tradition of a henna ceremony sometime before the wedding. The main difference between the Jewish henna ceremony and the henna ceremonies I've seen from India is that the Jewish ceremony does not involve drawing designs, rather a large round mark is made on the hand with the henna, and there are even little round badges with ribbons that are used to tie the henna to the palm as it must be held in place for a while in order to leave a mark. The three hebrew letters that spell henna are chet, nun and hay, and those are the first letters in the words that spell the three mitzvot that are exclusive to women. These three mitzvot are Challah, Niddah and Haladkat Neros, meaning taking the challah portion (with a blessing), observing family purity, and lighting shabbat candles.

My neighbor's daughter got engaged last week, so I was recruited to help with decorations for the Henna portion of the evening.......needless to say I had everything on hand and everyone was thrilled with my efforts, which I'll be sharing with you here, well a few photos in any case. Before I realized that I needed a largish centerpiece as the tables at the hall are huge, I came up with the idea for this sweet centerpiece, and truthfully you can take this idea and use it for any theme you like. Let's get started shall we?

Exotic Hostess Gift Idea — Go Moroccan With North African Delicacies And More

Growing up I witnessed first hand that the lovely tradition of gift giving varies greatly from culture to culture. My father had many visitors from around the world, and as I recall the visitors that always, always arrived with interesting gifts were first and foremost from Japan. Our Japanese visitors just wouldn't have dreamed of coming to our home without a gift in hand, and consequently our living room cabinets seemed to be full of interesting curios from Japan and around the world! Fast forward to my life now, and I can tell you that the Moroccan gift giving tradition  is alive and well, and I am more than happy to be on the receiving end, lucky me!

We had a guest from Casablanca, who was to stay with us for just two nights, and would you like to know what he brought us? In addition to the Moroccan food items shown in the photo, there were quite a few other gifts as well.........I'm sharing this with you as a great example of how you can make your hosts feel really good by simply showering  them with interesting gifts!

Moroccan Style Candle Vase Centerpiece

I happen to think that Moroccan style looks great just about any time, so when I had to whip up some centerpieces for a neighbor's bar mitzvah I was very happy to have some golden coins trim on hand to dress up these glass vases! 

And when we added candlelight by way of wicks floating in olive oil, the effect was amazing. Though I do have to warn you, I used 5 wicks and the heat was so strong that it melted some of the trim on some of the vases! I was getting a little worried, so I drowned two of the wicks in each vase. Hmmmmm.

You'll Need:

• cylindrical glass vase
• two colors of disposable table runner material, sold in rolls in my town for 20 shekels for 5 meters
• golden trim, preferable with gold coins for maximum effect
• hot glue and/or double sided tape

How To:

Cut silver table runner fabric such that you can wrap it around the vase with about 1 inch overlap. With hot glue or double stick tape, secure the fabric where the beginning and end overlap. Cut gold fabric in length to wrap around the vase. I folded the told fabric in two vertically so that the color will be more intense. Before folding in half I placed a strip of double stick tape at the bottom and sides to secure the fabric once folded. Wrap gold fabric around vase and secure. Cut trim in length to go around vase and secure with hot glue. 

The safest thing to do may be to place one candle in the center, or fill the vase with water and use either floating candles or wicks with olive oil. Enjoy! These candle jars would look great any time this holiday season!

Moroccan Mosaic Tables and More

Last week I found myself in Rosh Pina, which is just down the highway from my favorite Moroccan Bazaar, so I had to hop on over there for a little refresher course in Moroccan style. This time around I found myself attracted to clean and simple designs, as opposed to the painted Moroccan furniture I posted about previously here. I do love this Moroccan table top....gorgeous right?

 The little table tops are wonderful too, but I now have my eye on those pots in the background.....

A Moroccan table top mosaic detail, love the blues......

A Moroccan leather pouf, 22o shekels, which means you could get it for less than say 200 shekels, which translates to fifty two dollars, just in case you were wondering.......I'm sure they're quite inexpensive in Morocco!

 Ahhhh, white pottery with chrome details.

I'm loving this painted Moroccan pottery style.......

And I have my eye on these natural wood Moroccan stools, I think I'm gonna grab two next time, 50 shekels each (13 dollars) before bargaining......and by the way, this wouldn't be a real Moroccan store if the prices marked were really the prices, I mean who pays the full price in a place like this? Certainly not someone like me who knows better from previous purchasing experiences! And of course the element of mystery as to what the price really should be, makes the place seem all that much more like a real Moroccan souk! And since you asked, the store is in the industrial section of Chatzor HaGlilit. See ya there!