creative jewish mom

Stand-Up Cardboard Dreidel Craft For Chanukah!

The wonderful thing about Chanukah is that it is eight days long, so we can make crafts during the holiday as well as leading up to the holiday! And of course simple recycling crafts that pack up well to save for next year and years to come are truly the best! One such craft is these stand up dreidels which can be used as place cards, or simply as a touch of something festive anywhere! Two years ago I shared my painted cereal box dreidels to use for Chanukah crafting, but I didn't actually share with you how I used some of them, so now I am doing just that, and truly friends, this one is a keeper! If you want to make some tiny puffy origami stars made from strips of quilling paper, check out my paper stars tutorial, another keeper! Okay, tonight is the 4th night of Chanukah, so lets get crafting!

Rustic Wire And Fabric Flower Craft

I saw this idea for making a rustic wire and fabric flower sculpture with a wine cork base on our travels just a few weeks ago, and I just had to share it with you! The idea of stitching fabric scraps onto a wire shape can be used in so many ways, to make flat ornaments for a wall hanging or mobile or to get a bit adventurous and go for something with dimension. I love the looseness of the results, and a flower sculpture like this one is not only a perfect summer craft, but also would be great moving into fall.

As far as taking this idea as a project for kids, I think it would be a fabulous way to introduce the idea of abstract sculpture. Give kids some easily bendable wire, and at least four wine corks, and have them make a three dimensional wire doodle.......sounds great to me! To add color glue or sew little scraps of fabric or colored paper to some of the resulting shapes.

Sorry, lest I digress, back to the specifics of this sweet little flower.......

Popsicle Stick Sailboat Craft For Kids

Ahhh, wouldn't you like to set sail on a popsicle stick sailboat over the clear blue ocean right about now? Well we certainly can dream can't we? And especially if we gather together a few simple supplies and make our very own sailboats from popsicle sticks and some recycled materials! Four years ago we also made something similar, so do check out my wine cork sailboats as well.

These little rainbow striped sailboats, or possibly rafts with sails, can be made in so many ways, the main object being that they actually float when placed in the water, which these surely did. Oh, and of course using materials that won't fall apart when exposed to a capsize here and there certainly is a good idea.

You'll Need:

• popsicle sticks
• wine corks
• a milk carton or milk jug
• wooden skewers, both flat and round
• a hot glue gun

How To Make Popsicle Stick Sailboats

There is really no right way to do this! My daughter glued the popsicle sticks directly to the corks, while I would have glued the posicle sticks to two parallel skewers, and then attached the corks to that. Have an adult cut a slice of a wine cork, and make a hole in the middle of it with a sharp object in order to serve as a base for the round skewer mast.

We cut open a milk carton to make our waterproof sails, and attixed them to the mast with hot glue. You can also use a piece of plastic from a large plastic jug of milk or juice, or a piece of craft foam.

Put your boats in the water and enjoy!

And as you may suspect, these little boats were just the beginning of our adventures with boat making, so stay tuned for some more boats from popsicle sticks and recycled materials, just as soon as we figure out how to add the sails!

 

Miniature Swing Set Craft From Recyclables For Creative Kids

Summer is here, which means longer days and more time to spend on creativity, yippee! This summer I am buckling down and getting the kids involved in the kind of creative activities that we've been missing over the past six or so very busy months. We're starting with this fun miniature swing set craft made from recyclables, that is just the first step in what I hope will be an entire playground.

Swing sets and fun play ground equipment are every child's dream, so do check out the budget friendly swings, slides and seesaws from tesco to add the real thing to your own backyard, and for some quiet time, building a fantasy park for little plastic people (ours are Playmobil) can be a fabulous creative activity. Plus, make it strong enough and the kids will spend hours playing with it afterwards!

You'll Need:

• foam core or cardboard for the base, 1/2" thick foam core or dense foam of some kind would allow you to attach things by poking skewers and toothpicks into the thickness of the board.
• skewers, our flat ones miraculously were exactly the right size for the Playmobil people's hands!
• wine corks
• bottle and small container tops
• string
• a sharp yarn needle or metal skewer for making holes in plastic tops
• a hot glue gun
• decorative tape
• water color paint or guache

How To:

Step 1: Cut a piece of foam core for your base. Paint the base with water colors in a sweet little pattern to represent grass or that speckled foam surface you'll find in parks. (above)

Step 2; Assemble your structure using skewers and wine corks. Cut slits in wine corks if desired to insert skewers, though also secure with hot glue. Adhere structure to base.

Step 3: Make swings by threading string or yarn through holes you make in the caps with a sharp yarn or upholstery needle. Tie swings to your structure, balancing them of course as needed. Add some decorative tape, and viola, a fun swing set has been made!

Step 4: Make a plan regarding making the next piece of playground equipment together, and slowly add to your park until it is something which will make everyone proud. And don't forget to take good photos of your creation, this is the kind of stuff that childhood memories are made of!

 

Chanukah Kid's Craft: Dancing Figures With Wine Cork Feet Are The Cutest!

Fun crafts for Chanukah are a perfect way to get kids excited about the upcoming holiday, just one week away! A great chanukah kid's craft is making these dancing chanukah figures using very simple supplies together with just a bit of creativity. The figure you see here (which looks like a flamenco dancer, funny enough) is called in Hebrew, a pach shemen, namely an olive oil flask, a symbol not generally seen in American Chanukah decorations, but actually one of the most important, as the miracle of this one remaining flask of olive oil is what the holiday celebrates. (A bit sad to see that one of the most important points gets lost in the commercialization of a holiday. Oh, but thats why I'm here, to light up the darkness, right, back to work got a huge job to do!)

I think you'll agree, the results are just adorable! We have ours displayed in the kitchen on those thin Riba shelves from Ikea, against a white wall, and the entire collection (which I'm not showing you here, on account of lack of time) is just so much fun.

And look at these two doughnuts eyeing one another, what better way to get into the Chanukah spirit?

You'll Need:

• colorful card stock
• black markers
• wire (not too thin) mine is florist's wire
• wine corks
• tape

How To:

Draw figures on paper and cut them out. Cut wine corks in half lengthwise (adults only, please!). Attach arms and legs by taping lengths of wire to back of drawing. Poke bottom of legs through top of wine cork foot and fold under so it can't slip out. That's it! Make a bunch and get ready to celebrate! We enjoyed this one so much I know we'll be making even more in the next week.

Note: To give credit where credit is due, the general inspiration for this project and the idea for the wine cork feet came from this post, which also shows using pipe cleaners. Honestly, I'm glad I couldn't put my finger on any pipe cleaners, as the thin wire lends a very artful, sculptural touch to this project which I just love.

 

Wine Cork Stamp Rosh HaShana Cards

Wine cork stamps are super simple to make and a great way to make some quick and sweet Rosh HaShana cards. With the Jewish New Year just around the corner in three weeks, now is the perfect time to make cards so that one can even send them to friends and relatives near and far. The apple is one of the traditional symbols for the Jewish New Year, and the perfect shape for making a wine cork stamp!

You'll Need: a wine cork, a sharp knife, a red stamp pad, a black pen, some card stock.

How To: Using a sharp knife or a craft knife, simply remove from the cork two notches, one for the indentation at the top of the apple and one for the indentation for the bottom of the apple. That's it! Stamp carefully, with a towel under the cardstock to enable a better print, and set aside to dry before adding details. 

And of course you can certainly use your little stamp to make gift tags, napkin rings, treat bags, you name it! And if you'd like to explore some other methods of stamping, you can see my previous posts here: potato printing, craft foam stamps, styrofoam tray printing.

 

Summer Craft: Wine Cork Boats

I've had the idea of making wine cork boats on my mind for quite a while, and at long last we had a few minutes to pull out that bag of recycled wine corks, and make some little boats to try out in our wading pool. After my boys saw how successful these boats were, and that the wind even carried my little sailboat version across the pool, I think we'll be making some more soon! Next time we'll plan ahead and use silicone as our adhesive, as the hot glue did not hold up after prolonged exposure to the water. However, with hot glue there's instant gratification, so take that into consideration, or use wire or string to bind your creations together!  And for another blogger's adorable take on this project, complete with a cord for not loosing the little boats in the stream, check out the post, here.

You'll Need:

• recycled wine corks
• tongue depressors/popsicle sticks
• small pieces of wood
• skewers or some odds and ends from a pick-up sticks game
• craft foam
• hot glue or preferable silicone, though you'll have to allow a least a day for the silicone to harden

How To: Kind of self explanatory right? Glue everything together. Stick the skewer into the wine cork for the mast. Draw some sail/flag shapes on craft foam and cut them out. Find the nearest body of water and enjoy. Ahhhhhhh. Just looking at these photos is refreshing!

 

 

Kid's Crafts For Pesach: Krias Yam Suf (The Splitting Of The Red Sea) Diorama!!

Yippee! The Red Sea has split and were going through! Phew, that was a close call with those Egyptians right on our tails! But who can think about that now, this is amazing!

We're so happy, what a miracle! We're on our way to freedom from slavery in Egypt, that's one of the reasons we're smiling, the other is that we're thrilled to be here on creativejewishmom.com! And though we don't need to know how to swim to cross the Red Sea, it just might help that we're made from wine corks!

Where do we go now? Oh right, we almost forgot, we need to get ready to receive the Torah on Har Sinai in 43 days! Can't wait, maybe we'll see you there? It's gonna be great, we're the luckiest corks in the world if you ask me!

You'll Need:

• recycled white cardboard
• recycled regular cardboard
• tissue paper in water like colors (two shades of blue, or blue and green etc.)
• wine  corks
• bottle caps
• felt and yarn
• permanent marker
• glue gun
• white glue/water mixture or modgepodge
• glitter glue, beads, plastic gems etc. (not shown here)

How To:

1. Make a tissue paper collage on a large piece of white cardboard. Use a brush to apply glue solution to cardboard, working on small areas at a time. Lay torn pieces of tissue onto glue and then carefully smooth with fingers or brush.
2. Cut a piece of regular box cardboard for the base.
3. Cut wave shapes from your dry tissue paper collage, you'll need at least 6 waves, but more is good too, as well as a variety of sizes.
4. Cut slits in the base cardboard where you'd like to position your waves, and cut horizontal slits in the bottom of the waves, a fixed distance from the bottom. Insert wave into slit on base and affix with hot glue on the underside of the base. This results in an elevated base and a neater appearance since the glue is on the underside, but you can certainly choose to do this another way!
5. Now for your people! Affix bottle cap hats and yarn hair with hot glue. Cut small pieces of felt for clothing, and draw on a simple face with a permanent marker.
6. Though my version is plain, you can certainly add sparkle (and how about some fish?) to the water with glitter glue, and some "jewels" on the shore! Tell your kids the story of the splitting of the Red Sea and let them come up with some more things to add!
7. If you just can't get your hands on any wine corks, so try making little people from just about anything— pipecleaners, toilet paper rolls, hmmm got any other ideas?
8. Send me photos of your creations, and have a great Pesach!