creative jewish mom

Cross Stitch Apple Embroidery Recycling Craft

Here's a fun apple cross stitch craft that is fun for all ages, and is a recycling craft to boot! And with Rosh HaShana in less than a week, well a few of these cross stitch apples, that can be whipped up quite quickly would be a great way to welcome the new year! Not to mention of course that apple themed crafts are always perfect for teacher appreciation gifts and Fall. So gather your supplies, and if you don't have a recycled styrofoam tray on hand you could even use a piece of cardstock, a piece of foam core, or even a paper plate! Time is of the essence, so lets get crafting!

Pineapple Embroidery On A Recycled Styrofoam Tray!

Okay dear readers, I have to admit that I just love my little pineapple embroidered on a recycled styrofoam tray, that actually held some precious passion fruit! Who can resist a tray that is this color and shape? Certainly not me, and with pineapples being all the rage at the moment, well this little project seems just perfect right about now! And best of all, you can whip it up quite quickly on account of the large stitches and easy to draw motif. Pair it with my geometric string stars embroidered on styrofoam trays, and you've got some great decorations to hang in the succah or anywhere that could use a little dose of creativity. Shall we get started?

Styrofoam Tray Recycling Craft: Embroidered String Stars

I have been saving these little square styrofoam trays as I had a feeling that would be great for a fun recycled craft project! And the a few days ago the idea came to me, embroider them! For starters I gave my geometric string stars a try, and I just love the results, don't you? You can use these little works of art as is hung on the wall (or in the succah!) or make some shapes to hang form the bottom of the piece, dream catcher style! So gather soem styrofoam trays, or even a piece or cardboard or foam core, and lets get started.

Spring Gift Baskets From Embroidered Styrofoam Bowls

Aren't these embroidered styrofoam bowls great? With Purim coming up and Spring on our doorstep, now is the time to make little baskets, right? And really, embroidering on styrofoam is just too much fun! How about washing out a large coffee cup from your last coffee run (try a little bleach to get rid of the coffee stain?) or trying this idea out on some take out containers if bowls like these don't happen to be on hand. And do take a look at my post, embroidering on styrofoam trays for some more inspiration.

A few months back I caved in and bought my kids an unhealthy dinner treat, namely instant Chinese noodles, as I was going out for the evening. When I returned, the bowls were just screaming "save me, save me" so I did, and am happy to have found a fun use for them! So if you're gonna eat something not so healthy, as least do something great with the container!

You'll Need:

• recycled styrofoam bowls, these were from instant noodle soup
• a flat piece of styrofoam from a recycled tray or take-out box
• yarn 
• a large yarn needle, the large ones are quite dull, or use a plastic yarn needle for kids
• paper or felt 
• high tack craft glue (not hot glue, it will melt your project!)

How To:

1. Embroider simple designs on your bowl, either by planning ahead or doing something random. If you plan ahead, so make holes in your bowl with the needle to guide the embroidery. The star bursts were done randomly and are quick and look great....I'd recommend those if you're making a bunch.
2. To make the cover, trace the rim of your bowl on a flat piece of styrofoam, adding a little pull tab to your circle. Cut out and trim to desired size, and embroider. 
3. Cut a handle from paper or felt and glue to inside of bowl. If you'd like to cover the inside to finish off your basket nicely, cut a piece of paper to wrap around the inside, and affix with glue.
4. Make a few and enjoy! 

And, to give credit where credit is due: the inspiration for this project came from a recent Craft Schooling Sunday contributor from Sweden, Pysselbolaget. I took the general idea of embroidering on recycled containers and came up with something related of course, you know like cousins or something. Where will the inspiration you've gotten from my project take you?

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Embroidery On Recycled Styrofoam Trays

Embroidery on recycled styrofoam trays is just too much fun, and I'm already envisioning a whole series of mini embroidered pictures. Embroidering on styrofoam trays is a great way to introduce the art of sewing to young kids or take a little time out for yourself to make a small whimsical embroidered picture.

You'll Need:

• recycled styrofoam trays, cleaned well and sanitized with soap and hot water if they held meat or fish
• yarn
• a large yarn needle, or even a plastic yarn needle for kids

How To:

Figure out your design before you start embroidering, mark lightly with a pencil on the back of the tray. I of course did it on the front, silly me, totally not necessary! Make holes with your needle along the lines of your drawing. Make sure holes are not too close together. Thread your needle, tie a knot in the end of the yarn and go to town!

Of course, if you'd like to do something just a bit more sophisticated (and time consuming), by all means, why not use a regular sized embroidery needle and embroidery thread and practice some more complicated stitches? 

Stay tuned for a fun way to use embroidery on styrofoam for your Purim gifts (can you guess?) coming up tomorrow!

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Recycled Styrofoam Tray Craft With Paper Mache

Yes, you can make a gorgeous, artful and even useful tray from a recycled styrofoam meat/fish/food tray. I have a little secret to share with you all, and that is that with just a few crafty moves on your part, you canmake a stunning tray worthy of holding your fine jewelry, among other things. And how is that exactly, you may be thinking? Well, my friends the secret is simply combining two techniques that I mentioned yesterday in my post about DIY baby blocks, namely paper mache plus decoupage. Yes, meaning strips of gooey newspaper and then a finishing touch with a top layer of some beautiful decoupaged napkins, or any other paper that you'd like to use. And there you have it!

 And of course, your creations may just turn out to be so lovely that you'll want to use them on your dining room table, which is certainly fine as well.

 

You'll Need:

• recycled styrofoam trays
• newspaper and a flour/water or glue/water paste, plus my paper mache tutorial
• white acrylic craft paint (optional, not necessary if your last layer of paper mache is with white paper)
• beautiful napkins and mod podge or any decoupage medium, plus my  napkin decoupage tutorial

How To:

Cover tray with several layers of paper mache and set aside to dry. Either apply a layer of paper mache with white laser printer paper, or paint your paper mache surface white or cream. Apply a decorative layer of decoupage using images from the very delicate top layer of napkins, or just about any paper or imagery that suits you. Enjoy, and or course these would make great gifts, so be sure to make a bunch of them!

 

Styrofoam Tray Printing Re-Visited (For Rosh HaShana Cards?)

On a recent visit with some of my nieces and nephews in the US, I was looking for a quick craft project to do with them. Then I spied some styrofoam trays about to go into the garbage, horrors of horrors, so I rescued them and spent half an hour or so teaching the art of printing!

The most important tip for this project is to keep the designs very simple, and to make sure that the paint is neither too thick or too thin. It may take a few tries to get a nice print, but it's worth it. And in any case, you can always cut apart your prints and collage the best results together. (Which is what I did with the blue Chamsa shape below.) And it's important to remember that part of the beauty of this project is the imperfect results! For complete instructions, and some more techniques, see my post from last year here.

Oh and by the way, Rosh HaShana is just a bit more than three weeks away, so how about using this technique to make some  unique  cards to send to relatives and friends? And if you make prints on water color paper, or card stock, you can also go over your prints with a light wash of color, which can look gorgeous!

 

Make Festive Chanukah Bunting And Chanukah Cards From Styrofoam Prints

Here it is finally, the first actual Chanukah themed craft project! Phew I was feeling a bit behind, given that Chanukah is just 25 days away, which is not much time for the creative jewish mom to get it together. Plus I wanted to make sure you'd have some time to do some crafting too. Last night I sat down with my 6 year old son and we made these prints together, using the technique I taught you in the post about printing with recycled styrofoam trays. You can find that post and a complete tutorial here.

I just love how all the prints look together, they remind  me of  vintage Israeli graphics from the 50's.

I had planned to use the prints for Chanukah cards, but today it occurred to me that they'd make great bunting! And for some unknown reason I printed all the images with a substantial border at the top, perfect for folding over a ribbon and securing with tape!

And here's the first Chanukah card I've made. It looks great with the home printed wrapping paper that we learned how to make in this post! I simply cut out the print, pasted it to a piece of yellow paper, trimmed the yellow paper to size, and adhered that to the orange card. Simple enough!

I have to say, I feel much better now, knowing that there are three projects in my Chanukah category! It's certainly a start and I hope to bring you lots and lots more great projects to help you and your friends and family celebrate Chanukah in a meaningful way. So stay tuned!

 

Recycle Styrofoam Trays and Make Artful Prints

One of the most satisfying craft endeavors is to take something that would have gone into the garbage and use it to create something beautiful! This gives me a great excuse to behave like a pack-rat, and my kitchen cabinets are filled with empty containers waiting to assume new roles. With the help of this blog I feel quite confident that I'll finally have  incentive to put to use my stash of jars, cans, boxes and cartons!

This is the very first installment of many craft projects to come using recycled materials. I hope you will join me on this exciting journey. And maybe find an out of the way place in your home to start collecting all the supplies we are going to need: food boxes, medicine boxes, cereal boxes, tea boxes (all boxes can be stored flat), cardboard tubes from aluminium foil and toilet paper, cans with lids, interesting glass bottles and jars, wine corks, plastic spice bottles, milk cartons- small and large, large round bleach bottles and detergent type bottles, and anything else that looks like it might have some purpose!

Printing With Recycled Styrofoam Trays:
This is a wonderful project for all ages, and a good way to teach children that perfection in art is not always the goal. The imperfectness of these prints is what gives them their charm! The basic idea is to use pieces of styrofoam as printing blocks. The image is drawn onto the styrofoam, the styrofoam is painted,
pressed down on to a sheet of paper, and voila! you've made a print.

You'll Need:

• Styrofoam trays, or any other source of hard styrofoam, such as cups, or the containers holding those delicious ice cream mini bars (here I gave you a good excuse to buy some, don't you love this blog?)
• Acrylic Paint, or any paint that is stiff — if you can shake the bottle it's too runny!
• Paper: nice cardstock for you to make beautiful cards, something simpler for the kids, can be white or colored
• Scissors and ball-point pens

How To:

1. Cut off sides of trays to obtain a flat piece of styrofoam, cut cups in half and cut off bottoms
2. Draw a design or picture onto the styrofoam piece using a ball-point pen, and applying pressure so that  your drawing causes an imprint in the foam. Alternatively, cut shapes from the styrofoam and use those for printing (top image in this post was done that way)
3. Paint a thin coat of not-runny paint to your styrofoam piece, carefully place on paper, press down with your fingers, gently lift from paper to see your print. It takes a bit of practice  to get the  right combination of amount of paint and how much pressure to apply, but don't get discouraged the results are worth it! Note:If you are using pieces of styrofoam cup that aren't totally flat, print using a rocking motion.

Draw on pieces of styrofoam using a ball-point pen

Apply paint to your pieces and print! The 5 1/2 year old on the  right was able to make multiple prints with no assistance from mom. You will need to apply a new coat of paint for each print.

Printing with styrofoam is a simple way to introduce the concept of printing to your children. There are so many ways to use this technique: cards, gift tags, wrapping paper, stationary, envelopes etc. You can even write a message and print it, just remember to write backwards!

Oh, and one more thing, any project with paint generally involves some mess, so be prepared and when you are cleaning up after those too tiny to do it themselves, just remember you're investing in their future as creative beings! What a great mom you are!

Mess is part of the fun for little ones. The foam pieces you've created are themselves a work of art and can be saved for future use.

Did you and your kids enjoy printing? Me too! I'll be posting some more printing projects over the next few weeks, so stay in touch. And by the way, is any one out there? I'd love to hear your thoughts!