Denim tote bag

I love the combination of denim and reds, when I saw this tutorial I knew I was going to make one using these colors. The step-by-step tutorial is very simple to follow therefore highly recomended and I love the way the tote came out. I used interface only for the cotton lining as I think denim is quite firm and doesn’t need it.

Friday market

On Friday we drove into Tel Aviv, we love walking through the artist market in Nachlat Binyamin. I do like creating all kinds of things by myself but nevertheless I get great pleasure in purchasing art and crafts from others.
Last time we were there we met Rachel Sidi, she makes stuffed dolls, and her stand is right next to the stringed instruments quartet. Rachel’s dolls are the old fashioned kind; she makes them from cotton, fleece, fur, and more. They are all in beautiful natural colors and they remind me of my childhood.
Guy wanted the olive green and white checked teddy bear; we call him “Pasim”, which means stripes in Hebrew. Raz chose the grey fleece hare, we call her “Shuli”. This time we visited we bought presents for friends.
Rachel encourages the children that pass by her stand to come over, touch, hold and play with her dolls, while you listen to music by Beethoven and Shubert.

On our way back to the car we purchased fruit and vegetables in the market. Winter is over and the strawberry season is nearly gone, we purchased sweet and wonderful organic strawberries so I can make jam and we can preserve this winter fruit we love so much.

It's PURIM!!

Purim is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people of the ancient Persian Empire from Haman's plot to annihilate them, it's celebrated annually and is characterized by giving mutual gifts of food and drink, giving charity to the poor, a celebratory meal, and other fun customs that include drinking wine, wearing masks and costumes, and public celebrations.
We like to make our own costumes, it's usually the kids that come up with ideas and I carry them out into something they can wear.
Besides my 3 kids, I usually also create a costume for Tamara, Guy's friend ever since kindergarten, as they dress up as a pair.
This year Raz wanted to dress up as a tea bag (-: I made it from paper cloth as it's quite see-through, there are 3 layers of the material, one for the back whereas the other 2 are sewn together at the bottom and filled with little pieces of black wool to create the tea leaves effect. All 3 layers are sewn together on the sides and shoulders. The tag is made from paper and cardstock to resemble the real labels that are interwoven in her hair.

Guy and Tamara wanted to dress up as a painter and his palette. To create the palette I used an old cotton sheet and sewed pieces of colored felt onto it.

For the painter we took an old shirt from daddy and smeared it with acrylic colors, painted a canvas the same colors that are on the palette, put a French baret hat on his head (thanks Ifaat!) and drew a black mustache on his face. The paintbrush is made from a black colored cardboard cylinder stuffed with newspapers on one side and a real paintbrush glued in the other side.

Each year I think, WOW we did it again, what will they think of next year? They always manage to surprise me. Last year they dressed up in a costume we named "crazy chef frying a sunny-side up egg".

This is Guy and Raz when they were 3 years old.

And as I'm in a nostalgic mood today, this is me and my brother, 38 years ago in costumes my mother made for us.

Happy holiday to all those celebrating!!

Japanese Knot bag

Every day when I go out of my office to have lunch I take a few necessities with me, I'm a woman what can I say, my men colleagues just put their wallet in their pocket, I need my cellular phone, my wallet, my company name tag and Kleenex as I’m forever with a cold or some kind of allergy. Some of the above I put in my pockets, some I carry by hand, when I’m wearing a dress and have no pockets I have my hands full, this has been going on for years until I came across this fabulous tutorial for a Japanese Knot bag, just what I need!
Adilee posted the link in one of the forums I participate in as part of the bags swap we're having.
I love it, it’s just what I was looking for, my new “lunch bag”.

Kids birthday

My 11 year old twins celebrated their birthday in February, birthday morning I left a track of red and pink hearts from their room to the dinning room where they found balloons, each had a voucher connected to it, a voucher for a kiss and hug, a voucher for hot chocolate and brownies in our favorite coffee shop, a voucher for a present etc.
What’s a birthday without a party? Guy had his friends over for a pajama party two weeks ago and today Raz celebrated with her friends; we had a scrap party and altered coffee tins (all of them almost identical, I created one as and example and most of them copied it, girls…), had too much pizza and popcorn and watched a great movie, Bridge to Terabithia. Photos aren't that good, there is something wrong with the camera...
Special thanks to Ruthi for helping out with the girls, to Yafit for the paper and to Tzik for the internship (-:
Birthday project 2008 is officially over! This week, now that my sewing machine returned from repair I’m going to dedicate to sewing their costumes for Purim.

Tote fever

Spring is in the air (-: It’s 26 degrees Celsius today, the citrus trees are in bloom and the smell is magnificent, all the shop windows are full of spring and summer clothes in bright colors, black is out, yellow, green and white are in!
I made 2 totes, the first one is quite big 53X48cm’ (21X19 inch), fabrics are in my favorite combination of pink and green pastels, it has an outside pocket with a satin pink ribbon, the matching lining inside has another big pocket, one never has enough pockets for keys, cellular phone and such.




The other one is in black, white and red, it’s much smaller 39X25cm’ (15 X 10 inch), it also has a big pocket inside and the one on the outside is suitable for sun glasses, told you I was getting ready for spring.

This is so much fun, the only reason I stopped is because my sewing machine is making a most frightening noise and I must take it for repair )-:

Pillowcase bag

I saw a pillowcase bag on Maya's blog (in Hebrew), it's one of Martha Stewart's classics (this one is in English of course).

My mother has a shelf full of pillowcases she brought from the USA thirty years ago, they are quite old fashioned but I thought with some embellishments this one could work as a bag. The basic bag is very easy to make (see Martha's illustration) and I suppose if you make it out of a gorgeous pillow case it wouldn't need any embellishments at all, mind you if I had a gorgeous pillow case I'm quite sure I wouldn't want to cut it up and make a bag out of it (-:

The henhouse met on Thursday and it was a good opportunity to try it out, thanks girls for your support as always, the laughs and the excellent food!

As the pillow case I used needed additional zest I created a pocket in front and added some ribbons and a gigantic button that did the trick and gave it the look I was looking for. I also created longer straps as I think it's more convinient.

I'm pleased, it will make a sweet summer tote, now I have an urge for some more totes, comming soon (-: