AD creates, a craft blog

Softie swap continues

2008-05-17T21:26:00.007+03:00

Today I received my softie swap! It’s not that I was surprised that my partner is Tzik as my daughter pulled names out of a bowl to make partners and I arranged the swap, but I didn’t have a clue what she was going to make and boy did she surprise me.
It arrived by special delivery, she came over with the kids, a jar of freshly baked home made health cookies and this:

Accompanied by this fabulous card, it’s not stamped, it’s drawn by hand, well copied from somewhere but as she says one has to know how to copy properly, which is true, this one is perfectly done and embellished.

Inside the box I found not one but a pair of softies!

This gorgeous creature, my kids call Harry, all dressed up with a tie and all.

And his companion my kids call Hermione, all fancy with her pearl necklace

We decided they were going to be door keepers, Harry is watching our front door while Hermione will watch each bedroom door for a week. The kids originally suggested that I sew a few more for each bedroom door but very quickly I told them this wasn’t going to happen, so Hermione is going to travel from door to door.

On top of all this, I also received this gorgeous Amy Butler fabric which I already have plans for.

This is what I call a good day! What a way to spend one's Saturday morning and this is the cutest softie of them all, her 11 months old son and his 6 teeth.

Softie swap

2008-05-06T09:37:00.014+03:00

I led a softie swap in one of the forums I take part in, I don't really have any real experience with making them but I thought I have enough sewing experience to try. I wanted to make an original and unique one, I didn't want to use a pattern from a book or from the Internet so I started out sketching what I wanted my finished softie to look like and it came out quite masculine looking.
I knew I wanted to use fleece for the body as I love it, it's soft and warm and compliments a softie don't you think?
The face elements are made from felt and sewn by hand, when I was finished embroidering it I noticed that my softie has a girly expression…

At that stage I accepted the fact that my HE was going to be a SHE, so I decided to dress her in overalls instead of the shirt and tie I planned at the beginning. My life story by the way, I always end up with something different then the original plan and I always find myself improvising.
Last time I made trousers I was pregnant with my eldest and that was almost 16 years ago, so I searched the Internet for patterns and changed the proportions to fit my softie; they are made from a cotton fabric with suspenders connected with buttons on both sides and as she’s a happy sort of softie she’s holding a pink felt heart.

She is 40cm' (15.5 inch) long from head to toe. Speaking of toes, she has pink "shoes".

I was so happy to send her to Hagit, a very talented woman who's art I appreciate, her work can be seen on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hagit/
I usually have no problem sending off what I make for swaps but my daughter had quite a problem parting from this one so I'm going to have to make at least one more which isn't going to be a problem as I really enjoyed this project.
Here she is:

Hagit I'm so glad you like her, hope she makes you happy and you live happily ever after (-:

Wedding greeting card

2008-05-03T19:32:00.003+03:00

Vinny got married on Friday! In a special place by the pool surrounded by grass and trees, a beautiful bride dressed in an exquisite dress, wearing red lacquer sandals, holding a unique bouquet. The music was great, lunch was fabulous, the barman was cute and very helpful, surrounded by great friends and a lot of love.
A wedding calls for a wedding card!
The base of the card is a 21.5X14 cm’ (8.5X5.5 inch) double sided cardstock in black and white flower pattern, the one side has a black background with white flowers and the other side is opposite. The center flower is made from ribbons connected in the middle by a button and the stem is sewn with a sewing machine.

The second layer is glued with little foam squres to give it dimension. I sewed around the card using black thread on top and white thread in the bottom spool so that the black thread will show on the white background of the cardstock and the white thread will show on the black background on the other side.

The back of the card has a little envelope in which I put their wedding present.

Vinny dear, I wish you and your husband all the best!!!!!

I love IKEA continues...

2008-04-26T18:24:00.009+03:00

Last week I used IKEA pencils for my greeting cards, this week their measuring tapes, I hope that there are no IKEA employees reading this blog… I’m not much of a collector but I’ve had these for ages and I hardly ever use them.
I inked the measuring tape with Stazon ink as they have a waxy texture and every other ink would smear, I used Basic Grey ‘Infuse’ line paper for the background and sewed the margins of the card as well as the flower stems with a sewing machine.

The top part of the card is glued with foam squares to give it some volume.

I also made a sweet bunny card to go with the pink baby booties from my previous post; the template is from "Paper Creations magazine", spring edition, that I purchased a while ago, I love this magazine. Here’s a scan of the magazine page

This is my interpretation

I also added a tail in the back

There is also a wedding card but I can't show you that one, I will next week right after the wedding!

Baby booties

2008-04-22T13:00:00.006+03:00

Who said baby booties are only for winter? It’s freezing inside air-conditioned places during summer isn’t it? These are made from 100% organic cotton fiber, using crochet knitting needle number 2.5.

I once wrote a tutorial for knitting them, it’s still available on YNET craft forum only in Hebrew, I can translate it to English, just email me if you’re interested.

Here they are all wrapped up in a little box, it's 8.5 X 11.5cm big that's about 3.5 X 4.5 inch.

I received the tin box with a disk on key as a promotion, this is what it looked like before I embellished it with Basic Grey paper, ribbons and a congratulations rub-on.

I thought the little tin containers were so cool that I collected a few when these disks on keys were distributed, most of the people that received them were ready to throw the tin away, and wouldn’t that be a waste?

I love FUCHSIA

2008-04-21T17:22:00.004+03:00

I put my eyes on Basic Grey’s new paper collection a while ago, it was February, the middle of winter, right before the Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) convention and I saw the ‘Sultry’ line, such vibrant, fresh, summer looking colors, my favorite greens, pinks, browns, and fuchsia, my absolutely favorite color, I always feel it’s such a happy shade of pink isn’t it? There it was in the middle of winter....
So the first day of my Spring vacation I took out the Sultry pad and created these 2 new friendship greeting cards. The pencils are the ones from IKEA that I dyed with some pigment ink, I love these little pencils and measuring tape they have so I help myself to some every time I visit.
I was so overwhelmed by fuchsia that I went out and bought myself a fuchsia shirt, something that I wouldn’t normally wear as it’s so noticeable but I just couldn’t help it…

Vinny's birthday

2008-04-16T12:20:00.006+03:00

Vinny's birthday was celebrated yesterday, it's a special birthday as in less then 3 weeks she is also getting married!
I had so many things to write and wish her for both events so I ended up making 2 cards and 2 presents.
I made her a scarf suitable for spring and autumn as it's made of cotton fabrics. I always find it to hot to use a wool scarf in these seasons but still feel the chilly air in the morning round my neck so I thought it's a perfect solution. I made a similar one in winter using cotton and fleece, both inspired by Aliner’s one .

And here it is wrapped up

And the card that went with it

And the second card

And the scrappy cubes I made for her using the couple's photographs, sorry it's all blurred but I'm not sure they want their faces on the Internet.
The cubes are made from solid wood and are 9X9cm', I purchased them at a Netanella's scrap party that was so much fun!

I now have 10 new cubes to embellish, 3 for my desk at work and 3 for each grandmother, the last one is for a test project.
If you create such a project note that gel glues are not recommended, as the wood absorbs all the moisture in them and the paper tends to separate from the cube, rather use double sided tacky tape, mod Podge or rubber adhesive.

Vinny IS GETTING MARRIED and she has a birthday and she's looking so radiant and happy and in love! I'm so excited for her...

Look what I got!

2008-04-11T18:34:00.003+03:00

Laurraine (patchworkpottery on Flickr) is such a fabulous and talented creator and is also the sweetest person. I swapped my polymer clay buttons with her and received this amazing pouch in return accompanied by lovely fabrics she brought back from her trip to Japan, isn’t it perfect? I LOVE it! THANKS Laurraine!

Flip flops

2008-04-11T18:32:00.001+03:00

Don’t you love flip flops in summer? Give them a special touch, embelish! (-:

Bag swap

2008-04-11T18:23:00.007+03:00

The bag swap was a great idea, I love bags and it’s always nice to receive one. When Lori notified me I was preparing a bag for Keren I started laughing, from all the ladies participating I get to make a bag for a woman that sews great bags herself, quite a challenge I must say. I had a few ideas and eventually decided to knit a bag in spring pastel colors, I started off making one thing and ended up doing something else as always (-: It's my own design, has a fabric lining inside and is made of a fiber that's 70% organic cotton and 30% bamboo.

Added a card as well

Have a great summer Keren, I love the bag you made for Nili, it's gorgeous!

Hosting living room

2008-04-05T21:58:00.005+03:00

We had six 11 year old from my daughter’s class at school for an afternoon called “hosting living room”, the kids in the 5th grade are divided into groups and each group visits the home of one of the volunteers. We always volunteer, my kids love it as we get to send out our personal invitations, decide on where and when, choose whatever activity we would like to have and there are no rules except mine (-:
This time we decided to have two activities, a creative one and a game, as it’s a mixed group of boys and girls and we wanted to please them all.
For the creative activity we chose to make eraser pencil toppers from Sculpey eraser clay.
The kids had a great time, they made all kind of funny little monsters and as they were working we were talking and saying that there are no rules for monsters, they don’t have to be pretty, they don’t have to be symmetrical, you can just go wild with your imagination and I think this is why they enjoyed it so much as they didn’t spend time making it as it should be or as expected, they just let their creativity go.
I took a picture only of the 3 my daughter made as I didn't have time to take a picture of all their cerations while they were here, I was busy entertaining...

There are fantastic other projects on the Sculpey web site, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Thanks to Michal for the idea and to Ruthy for buying the clay for us!
While the eraser toppers were in the oven (30 minutes, 100 degrees Celsius) we played a great card game called ‘Pit deluxe’, it’s such a fast-paced game that encourages shouting and yelling, You have to be well prepared in order to play it especially with kids (-:
Oh BOY the neighbors will never forgive me because the noise was unbelievable but the kids had a great time and that is what’s important to me after all. I think that most kids hear most of the time grown ups asking them to be quiet and here they were asked to make a noise, they appreciated that! Thanks to Koby for introducing the game to us.
They each left when the afternoon was over with a huge smile on their faces and my daughter was so happy and when she’s happy I’m happy.

Denim tote bag

2008-03-29T20:34:00.004+03:00

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

2008-03-22T11:42:00.002+02:00

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!!

2008-03-19T14:24:00.010+02:00

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

2008-03-15T10:48:00.005+02:00

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

2008-03-14T22:42:00.008+02:00

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

2008-03-09T11:57:00.007+02:00

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

2008-03-07T18:16:00.005+02:00

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 (-:

Vegetables

2008-02-29T11:37:00.006+02:00

Friday morning is my cooking time, I love my cooking, the only thing I would like someone else to do for me is peel the vegetables, I have vegetables for the soup and vegetables for the stew and vegetables for the meatballs and usually a trash can full of vegetable peels at the end but luckily throwing out the garbage is someone else’s chore.
I love the color of the fresh vegetables and their smell and to think that before I was 16 I refused to even taste them.

And when I'm finished I forget how I hate peeling vegetables until the next Friday (-: This weekend we're having meatballs in tomato and beer sauce with peas

And a beef stew with root vegetables in red wine sauce

I worked quite an appetite writing this post, going to have something to eat (-:

My own ETSY!

2008-02-25T14:45:00.012+02:00

I finally have my own shop on Etsy. Etsy is an online marketplace for buying & selling all things handmade, I'm so excited! Come and visit me at http://adcreates.etsy.com/

Thanks for all your support and encouragement, I couldn't have done it without you all!
I have a new line of sweet pictures created from felt on canvas available, here are some samples:

You can see the whole collection on my Etsy and my previous wall art work on my Flickr - wall art collection.

Saturday morning

2008-02-16T17:22:00.003+02:00

The weather was playing with us this morning, the sky was clear blue, the sun was shining but it was freezing! Nevertheless we went for a stroll by the sea side, did I mention freezing??... (-:

We had a great time
The Iris is in bloom
One more...
Family, friends, smiling kids, what more can one ask for?

Winter sleep

2008-02-15T18:43:00.007+02:00

It happens to me every year in winter, like the bears, I need my winter sleep only I don't actually sleep, I just loose my inspiration and anything I manage to create I'm usually not altogether happy with, I get so judgmental.
Today I thought I'll sit down and play around, something must come out... Took out my beloved Basic Grey paper, ink, ribbons and actually managed to create something (-: Yafit, my good friend gave me this sweeeeeet stamp set by Inkadinkado as a promo for my birthday, it’s a modular one, you can create your own images, stamp and color with aqvarel pencils, isn’t is fabulous? If you live in Israel you can get them at Artishok.

And this is the card

My personal snow man

2008-02-15T18:39:00.009+02:00

Next week is my birthday; I told my 15.5 year old this week that I'm going to be 42 in a week and he said, "mom you're 30 with 12 years experience"... I like the way he thinks.
At the "Frida&Numa" forum I participate in we take turns sending each member a birthday card and present, I got mine from Yama, my personalized birthday snow man, a beautiful altered paper bag and a Bday card of course, I love it!

Almond tree

2008-02-01T14:29:00.000+02:00

Isn't it fabulous?

Embroidered handwriting

2008-02-01T13:34:00.001+02:00

Print your text using your chosen font on a piece of paper.

Trace on wax paper.

Place the wax paper on you fabric and pin together.

Start embroidering over the wax paper.

When you're finished tear the wax paper off, do it by pulling it very gently.

All done!

Needles notebook

2008-01-24T21:30:00.000+02:00

I sent a birthday present to T42 from one of the forums I take part in, I love her creations and especially the way she combines needle craft in many of them, that's why I chose to make a needle notebook for her and took the opportunity to take pictures of the process so I can post it here. It's the same as the black and white one I gave to Michal and posted last week.
T42 is the one that took the picture of the completed notebook as I sent it off before I had the chance to take a proper picture so thank you T42!
First choose your patterned fabrics, I like using 2 different ones, one for the outside and a different one for the inside but you can use just the one pattern.
Start out by cutting out 2 pieces of fabric, size 15X20cm (6X7.8inch) each.
Cut one of the pieces in half, now you have 1 piece size 15X20cm’ (6X7.8inch) and 2 pieces 15X10cm’ (6X4inch).

Cut out relatively thin and light iron-on interface, a piece for each piece of fabric, cut the interface a little bigger than your fabric to make sure it’s all covered. The interface will prevent the fabric from fraying at the edges.

Take out your ironing board, lay out the fabrics on the interfacing, note the glossy glue on the one side of your interfacing, you need to have the sticky side up and the left side of your fabric on top of it.
Iron just enough to make the fabrics edges stick to the interface (5-10 seconds), now flip and iron from the back side. Do the same with all your fabric pieces.

After it cool’s off trim the edges of all 3 pieces.

Take your 2 small pieces and sew the length just on one side. I used a dark color thread so you can see it better but rather have your thread the same color as your fabric.
Lay both small pieces on top of the larger piece (the right side of the fabric on the right side of the fabric) their sewn side turning inside and sew all round.
I added 2 pieces of ribbon on both sides before sewing together so I can later close the notebook by tying a bow.

Now turn it over to the other side, you will get 2 pockets.

Iron both sides, inside and out to flatten it.

Cut out 2 pieces of double sided thick interface and place each piece inside each pocket.

Iron from both sides until it sticks; this will create a harder cover.

Inside your notebook sew a piece of felt; I used the blanket stitch round the felt.

Embellish your cover and there you have it.

Next time I’ll show you how I embroider letters.

I'm going away for the weekend so if you have any questions I'll be able to answer in a couple of days. Have a great weekend!

A present for a dear friend

2008-01-18T08:05:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we celebrated Ruti's and Michal's birthdays. For Ruti I made a fleece blanket and knitted round it and forgot to take a picture.... For Michal I made a pin cushion with pins decorated with polymer clay flowers, a matching needle book in a black and white matching fabric bag. So many birthdays in winter, the next one is mine (-:

Michal's card

And Ruti's card

Saturday morning

2008-01-12T19:07:00.000+02:00

It was a freezing morning but the sun was shining and the birds were singing so we put on our hot clothes, fleece accessories and went hiking in the Jerusalem area with friends and then had a picnic. The rain in the area at the beginning of the week and the cold temperatures brought out the Cyclamen, isn't it beautiful? We had a great time.

Fleece & fabric scarf

2008-01-11T18:15:00.000+02:00

How about a project for the weekend? It's the coldest day of this winter so far and is there anything cozier than fleece? You already know I am crazy for scarves so a combination of the two suits me just fine (-:

A few weeks ago I made a fleece scarf with fabric on both sides

Then I saw Aliner’s scarves, and I was inspired to make one using more than one fabric. Aliner creates the most magnificent things from fabric, I love her work visit her ETSY and her blog in Hebrew, even if you can't read it just look at the photographs of her work.

Start out measuring a 1.50m’ X 35cm’ (60 inch X 14 inch) piece of fleece, you can use a few colors of fleece; here I combined a piece of cream color as well as the main olive shade I used.

You can make it wider if you like wide scarves; take into account that the width measurement divided by 2 will be the final width of your scarf. Lately I like my scarves not so wide…
Choose your patterned fabrics, I purchased mine at Artishok, you can use as many as you like.

Cut out relatively thin and light iron-on interface, a piece for each fabric, cut the interface a little bigger than your fabric to make sure it’s all covered. The interface will prevent the fabric from fraying at the edges.
Take out your ironing board, lay out the fabrics on the interfacing, note the glossy glue on the one side of your interfacing, you need to have the sticky side up and the left side of your fabric on top of it (don’t you just hate it when you end up ironing the sticky side and it sticks to your iron?)

Cover with a thin cotton cloth and iron just enough to make the fabrics edges stay on the interface (5-10 seconds), now flip and iron from the back side. Do the same with all your fabric pieces.

After it cool’s off trim the edges.

Assemble all the pieces together with pins any way you want just make sure you lay the right side of the fabric on the right side of the fabric beside it.

Sew all the pieces together so you get one long piece.

Iron the stitches open, do it with a relatively cool iron and keep the iron mainly on the fabric and not the fleece as we tend to refer to fleece as fabric but it’s not, no fibers there, it’s closer to plastic then it is to fabric, it’s synthetic and can actually melt from the heat of the iron.

Now fold your scarf in half, all length, making sure you lay the right side of the fabric on the right side of the fabric, so that you get a long scarf about 17cm’ (7 inches) wide.
Sew all the way around leaving the bottom part open so you can turn your scarf to the right side.

Now turn it.

Cover with a thin cotton cloth and iron gently just to flatten it a little.

Now hand stitch the bottom part you left open.

And there you have it.
Good luck and enjoy (-:

Baby blanket

2008-01-09T20:13:00.000+02:00

My friend's daughter gave birth to a baby girl, second granddaughter to grandma (-: I made a fleece blanket for the baby. It's made of 2 layers of fleece to make it nice and cozy, one with a teddy bear pattern and the other a plain red, I added a little teddy to match and tied a red bow to his neck, I just love teddy bears!
Grandmother Gila (she'll probably kill me for calling her that) is a very talented woman, she creates the most exquisite tiaras, fabulous hair jewelry for brides and today she is participating in her first fashion show!! She has a magnificent product and she's a very special woman which I love very much and wish her all the success in the world! I'll post pictures of her tiaras soon.

Winter indulgence swap

2008-01-02T10:23:00.000+02:00

The greatest swap we ever had in the forum! Each was supposed to create for her partner something as a present and add a do it yourself craft kit with material and instructions and something to warm the throat, could be a hot drink or a winter recipe.
I prepare my package for Maya (nickname: Boten) a dear woman! I started out making a scarf in browns before I knew who I was making it for and when I found it was Maya I realized the only color she doesn't like is brown...So it was back to square one for me. I made another 4 scarves before I was satisfied and eventually couldn't decide which to send so I ended up adding 2 to the package, 1 made from a combination of fleece and fabric in Black and white which is one of Maya's favorite color combinations and the other knitted with my favorite broomstick pattern in ceram colored wool which is one of my favorite colors (-:

I created a craft kit containing wool, a felting needle and instruction how to create a wool fairy and added a fairy I created and a voucher she could use for a wool fairy workshop at my home.

For the throat warmer I added my recipe for hot chocolate for two accompanied by 2 mugs and dark chocolate.Then, as I still had space in the box I added a fabric covered notebook, a pair of nice warm socks (that I forgot to take a picture of) and a ring (-:

I wrapped everything in a colorful box, added a cute card and sent it off by express mail.

I had a great time preparing this!

It's birthday season!

2008-01-02T10:18:00.001+02:00

So many birthdays during winter! Last night us girls celebrated 2 birthdays, Orit's and Ifat's. Orit received a long long scarf made from 15 granny squares and Ifat a felt covered notebook and a fabric bag. As usual we had to much to eat and then had the birthday ceremony, there were 10 of us, each presented her card and gift, and they received such gorgeous gifts! My birthday is right around the corner (-:

The maze book

2007-12-31T19:45:00.000+02:00

Hila was the first to introduce the maze book, a wonderful mini album, with a tutorial available on craftweekly. The whole album is made out of 1 12X12" (30X30cm') cardstock, the final size of the pages inside the album is 3X3" and the finished album is a bit more than that because of the cover which is slightly bigger.I created one for a swap, it's stamped with Stazon Timber Brown ink using Tim Holtz and Uptown Design Company stamps. I think I have a growing fetish for wings, actually I think I'm going to create a deco with wings as a theme, maybe get it out of my system (-:
I love this album it takes only 10 minutes to create the cover and pages, and ages to embellish but the possibilities are endless, check out Hila's Flickr.

A new felt covered notebook

2007-12-31T19:41:00.000+02:00

I created this one for a swap in my favorite combination of pinks and browns. The brown lace on top is from the pile of scrap fabric that Ifat brought from the sewing workshop, I could see the potential immediately and fell in love with it after I ironed it.

Felt Box

2007-12-28T11:31:00.000+02:00

Last night Neomi taught me how to make these lovely hand stitched felt boxes. They are great for storing soft things such as socks or tissue paper or even cotton-wool in the bathroom.
Measurements of this one are 20X20cm (8X8inches) but can be made any size.
Thanks Neomi and thanks to Maya for hosting the noisy group.
Tzik if you read this, I'm going to test you on this one (-:

Strawberry jam

2007-12-28T08:06:00.000+02:00

I love the smell of freshly picked strawberries, such a sweet irresistible smell. There’s an organic field of strawberries next to my house, my kids love them with sprinkled sugar on top, I love them as is, this week I made jam.
So easy to prepare, all you need is 1 kg’ strawberries cut in half, 700 grams plain white sugar, 2 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice that acts as a natural pectin.
Wash your strawberries and remove the hulls.
Put all the ingredients in a pot, bring to a boil then turn the heat down and simmer for 30-45 minutes.
Skim any excessive foam, no need to get it all, it’s harmless, just tastes better without.
To test if your jam is ready just pour a teaspoon full of jam to an ice cold plate an run your finger through it, if the gap you created with your finger remains this is when your jam is ready.
Get your jars and lids sterilizing by putting them into a pan of hot water for several minutes.
Pour into your jars, I decorate mine with a piece of cotton fabric and string and attach a little tag, then I share it with my family and friends.
Enjoy!

Indulgence

2007-12-21T09:34:00.001+02:00

I fear this is becoming a new fetish of mine, fabric... All projects are top secret at the moment (-:

Teddy bears

2007-12-21T09:21:00.000+02:00

I took some lessons to learn the one stroke technique, we painted a few kinds of flowers and teddy bears. I must admit I think the flowers are so kitsch I'm not even going to share their photographs, I do like the teddy bears though, they are so sweet!
Painting is probably not one of my talents, I found the whole process quite exhausting but I finally managed to complete it and here it is, size is 27X9.5 inches (25X70 cm').
I once heard a saying "Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely", I hope to use the experience wisely.
I want to thank my dear friends Michal and Orly who sat by my side for their support (-:

Mini accordion album

2007-12-17T07:45:00.000+02:00

I took part in a mini accordion album swap. Every participant sent the swap organizer 3 topics that he/she would be interested to receive a book about.
I was happy when I found out that I will be preparing an album for Maya (Yama) as I really appreciate her art. The topics she suggested were magical creatures, birds and journeys, I only had to choose one out of the three so I chose journeys as you can see.
The album is quite small, only 5cmX5cm, made of cardstock, stamped with See D's Clear Stamp Rubber Images-Travel by Sugarloaf Products Inc, using Stazon ink and colored with Aquarelle colors, I opened it and took a photo of both sides.
The deadline is at the end of the month but I finished early for a change so I'm going to mail it tomorrow, clearing my desk for the next project (-:
The topics I suggested for my album were nostalgia, black and white and wings, I wonder what I'll receive.... Swapping can be so much fun, I really enjoyed creating this one.
You can see more of Maya's art at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayac72

Wondeful rings

2007-12-14T11:30:00.000+02:00

Michal, a dear friend, taught me how to make these wonderful, simple to create colorful rings.
I hardly ever wear rings, not even my wedding ring that has been in the drawer for years but I loved these so I made a few.I'll probably give them away to others that will show them off and in the meanwhile created a tutorial just in case you decide you want one yourself.
Jewelry wire is available in many different colors and is sold in several sizes, called gauges, with the larger gauge wire being smaller in diameter. Use a 20 gauge wire (In Israel it's referred to as "Alpaka")and I must warn you that it hurts a bit to bend the wire round the bead, but it's only for a few minutes so it's worth it (-:
You'll have to Click every image to enlarge it.
Thanks Michal!
Enjoy!

2007-12-14T11:29:00.001+02:00

A recipe card and a coffee flavor cake

2007-12-11T18:51:00.000+02:00

A recipe card I prepared for a swap size 3"X5.5".The recipe I used is one of my favorites, coffee flavored cake. Here's the recipe:
Mix 1 cup self raising flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 spoonful butter and 2 eggs until all ingredients are combined.
Pour batter into a 26” baking pan and bake in a preheated oven at a temperature of 180 degrees Celsius approximately 15 minutes, until the cake gets a golden color and a toothpick comes out dry.
Mix in a bowl ¼ cup milk, ¼ cup sweet wine, 2 table spoons granulated coffee.
Pierce the cake with a fork and pour the liquid evenly on the cake.
Whip up ½ liter cream, 1 cup of milk and 1 package of vanilla flavored instant pudding powder.
Spread evenly on the cake.
Heat in a small pot 1 spoon of butter, 2 spoons sour cream, 4 tablespoons of sugar and 2 tablespoons of granulated coffee until all the ingredients are combined.
Pour on top of the cream and move the baking pan from side to side until the glaze is spread evenly.
Cool in the fridge for at least 24 hours for the cake to set.
Enjoy.

My champions

2007-12-09T19:59:00.000+02:00

The Israeli Taekwondo championship 2007-2008 for cadets took place today and my 10 year old twins participated.They both fought like little lions, made the finals and both received silver medals.
I'm a proud mother today. Actually, I'm always proud of them, today I'm proud of their accomplishments.

Felt covered notebooks

2007-12-08T18:04:00.000+02:00

My daughter is writing a diary so I made her a felt cover for it, her only instructions were no flowers as a main theme and not too much pink. She actually likes flowers as well as pink but I tend to overdose both, I can't help it I'm a declared pink addict, I admit it, so I have an excuse...

As the diary is top secret I could only take a photo of the cover, then she took it away and as I might never see it again I made some more. Here's another attemp to take it easy on the pink (-:

And then I heard a little voice inside me saying PINK, PINK, PINK.... When it comes to pink I'm too weak so I gave in.

Most of the work is done with a sewing machine with a touch of embroidery done by hand.

Here's another one I made for a dear friend's birthday a long time ago.

I love felt, it's warm, versatile, easy to use, friendly, the perfect material.

Scarves made by my daughter

2007-12-01T22:00:00.000+02:00

My 10 year old daughter started crocheting, she already made 2 scarves and she's so proud of herself and to tell you the truth so am I....

Snails

2007-11-30T11:16:00.000+02:00

We had a forum workshop last night, we created snails according to Tilda's pattern. It was great fun as always, great company, good food, plenty of carbohydrates that I just couldn't resist, I'm taking advantage of the fact that I now fit into my winter pants so I allowed myself...Here's the snail I made, I used one of the fabrics I purchased last week.
The stitches are all made by hand so it took quite a while, the next one I'll sew with the sewing machine.

Paper Doll

2007-11-25T19:17:00.000+02:00

I have been planning to make one of these for ages and finally sat down to create one.
She is 25cm' high from toe to the tip of her crown.
If you want to create one of your own all you have to do is follow these simple instructions:

Print the template

Put it over the cardstock you want to use and trace using carbon paper.

Cut out all pieces, you need 1 of each. I used black and white cardstock for the legs and arms and plain white for the face and body as they are covered.

Punch out little holes where indicated the size for your brads to fit in.
Print out an image of a face, I used this site.

Use chalk to create a blush look and a red ink pen for a lipstick effect.

Glue the face to the face template and assemble all parts using brads.The brads enable motion so if you don't want your paper doll to be able to move her body parts you can just glue them together instead of using brads.

Now you can start to dress her, you can really go wild here, I cut out a dress shape from fabric textured paper and glued a piece of lace to the bottom of it.I then attached a ribbon to act as a belt with a bow shaped charm in the center and I also used fibers to act as a scarf, I just tied them round her neck.

Now glue the clothing you made to the body of your paper doll.

The crown is made of gold color cardstock cut into shape and I used crystals to embelish it.

I then gave her a key and glued a sentance from a book I liked:"I think this is the real key, to love what you do, it is often very difficult to know what you love to do because you want to do so many things" (see picture at the top of this post).

What can it be used for? I think I'm going to frame her and take her to work, can also be used on a greeting card but then you must make it smaller.

I will love to see yours!

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Inspiration

2007-11-24T10:24:00.000+02:00

My husband is away for the weekend, bike riding in the desert with friends, I have some time on my hands so I planned to sew but inspiration has a life of it's own and as inspiration is not easy to come by I decided to take advantage of what I have and found myself elsewhere.
I decided for a change to add the envelope to the photograph of the card, usually I only take a picture of the card but realized the envelope is also part of the design.
The flowers in the flower cards are doodled by hand accompanied by a button or brad in the center.

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More fabric

2007-11-23T13:21:00.000+02:00

Yafit from Artishok, an online art store in Israel, had her end of the year sale today so I pampered myself to some new stuff - cardstock, inks, rub-ons etc. She received some new fabrics to try out and I just couldn't resist the black/white and pinks, aren't they gorgeous? I think they are going to be a success and how do I know? Nothing left...
I know what I'm going to be doing this weekend (-:

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Granny squares

2007-11-22T08:59:00.000+02:00

I love granny squares, when I was a child my mom made me a poncho from these granny squares, isn't it amazing that more than 30 years later I still love them and so does my daughter?A few days ago my friend Michal told me she took all her wool leftovers and started making granny squares for a scarf. As I have plenty of leftovers to say the least I began knitting, I use the following pattern, it's basic and simple, can change the color of the wool every line or every 2 lines or not at all.10-15 of these and you have a scarf, for a poncho it depends on the size, here's a diagram how to form a poncho shape.

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Fabric

2007-11-22T08:42:00.000+02:00

I was looking for fabric in order to sew a Tilda snail, I saw a couple that Keren created and just couldn't resist. It's amazing what I find lying round the house when I just look...

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My sewing machine

2007-11-21T16:08:00.000+02:00

Many years ago I used to sew, when I was pregnant with my eldest son I designed and made almost all my pregnancy clothes by myself.I haven't touched the sewing machine since he was born, he's 15.5 years old already and until today the sewing machine was stored on the top shelf of my wardrobe.
Every once in a while I thought of taking it down and opening it up but I never got round to it, I actually started thinking that it's intimidating.
Today I had the courage to finally take it down, open it, clean it and remarkably found that I still remember how to sew in s straight line.I think this is going to be the begining of a renewed beutifull friendship.

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Cornflour cookies

2007-11-20T09:51:00.000+02:00

What can be more fun on a rainy day than hot tea and crumbly cookies? These cookies take exactly 10 minutes to make. My family and I love this simple recipe, it's being used for a few generations, my grandmother and mother baked them the same way. The dough is so tasty that every time I make these my children insist on tasting some of the dough before it's baked, so I make them a small ball of dough, they even have a name for it, they call it "goolgool". When I was a child my mother said I will have a stomach ache if I eat unbaked dough but I couldn't resist so I would sneak into the kitchen and take some and never had a stomach ache...

The ingredients are:
350 grams (2.5 cups) self rising flower
1 cup sugar

200 grams butter

2 eggs

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice and the zest of the lemon

1 table spoon vegetable oil

2 teaspoons cognac

1 cup cornflour

Mix all ingredients together to form the dough, I use my Kitchenaid but you can also use a foodprocessor or mix by hand.
Form little round balls of dough or use cookie cutters to form shapes to create your cookies.I keep it simple and just divide the dough into 4 parts and flatten it on the baking pan with my fingers, then I use a sharp knife to cut the dough into finger like shaped cookies.
Put into a preheated oven, medium temperature (180 degrees celsius) until the cookies are nice and golden (approximately 20-25 minutes) be carefull not to over bake.
If you use my method of flattening the dough then after the cookies are baked, use your knife again or spatula to space between them and spread them in the baking pan and return back to the turned off oven so the inside part dries out, in this case leave inside the oven to cool.
Let's see you resist the fantastic smell and wait for them to fully cool, mission impossible! Enjoy!
Keep in a dry tin or glass jar.

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Mom's patchwork

2007-11-20T07:43:00.001+02:00

All of a sudden patchwork is back in fasion together with embroidery and sewing. I love textiles, they give such a warm, homely feeling.My mom created these more than 20 years ago.

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It's finally winter!

2007-11-19T13:32:00.000+02:00

The temperatures dropped from 26 to 22 degrees celsius and it's raining outside, I love the smell of rain but only when I'm inside, nice and warm...

Is it finally winter?

it's mid November already, it's about time.

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Crisscross scarves

2007-11-19T12:41:00.000+02:00

I love winter, it gives me a chance to knit and the scarf is certainly THE winter accessory as far as I'm concerened. This year I created a few of these simple crisscross scarves, I gave a couple as birthday presents and made 2 for my private collection.
If you want one just follow these easy guidelines:

You will need a #5 hook and 1.5 packs of single color wool (100gr packs) and 1.5 packs of a thicker, more colorful wool for the crisscross.Chain about 300, it depends how long you want your scarf as this scarf is knitted across.

First line: sc in each chain (you can skip this line and start from line 2, it gives the scarf a nice finish but I created a few without this line and they came out just fine.

Second line-the end: chain 4, skip one sc from the first line, dc in next sc, chain 1, skip one sc from the first line, dc in next sc etc until the end of the line.

Turn over and repeat line 2.I like my scarves nice and wide so I knitted 17 lines but I found that you can make do with 12-13 lines, If you want a throw you can knitt 30 lines.

You basically get a net pattern.

When you reach the width you want, take your colorfull thicker wool (suitable for hook 8) and crisscross across the net. Start the first one from the bottom of the net and the second from the top.Crisscross 2 rows in every dc line.

Make a knot at the begining and end, you can either tie the 2 to one another or tie each to the first dc in the row.

Leave the wool hanging on the sides to act as a fringe, I like it when it's not symmetrical, but if you want you can always cut them to the same lengh.

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"Face" cards

2007-11-18T18:16:00.000+02:00

These are so cute and so easy to create, I saw something simillar in a magazine named 'You go girl' a few months ago and I can't get enough of them. What I like about them the most is that they can suit every ocasion so they are great to have around the house. Every once in a while I need a card NOW, a last minute party or occasion I forgot about... When I create these I keep them blank without the stamped wording and at the last minute I can add (or not) an apropriate line.
All you do is divide your card into 2 parts, each part a different color, I like the use of black and white. Take a ribbon and adhere it at the center of your card all across.
Take a silk flower and cut it in half, you can adhere both parts together to get a puffy look and you can use just the one half, adhere it above the ribbon in the middle of your card.
You can also stick a bow or button or any embellishment in the middle.
Now all that's left is to doodle the face, you can draw any expression, a smile is always nice but other options can be an O shaped mouth for an astonished look or a curved mouth for a sad effect, play and experiment with it, it's fun!

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Congradulations!

2007-11-18T18:08:00.000+02:00

I have been dreaming of my own blog for ages now and finally I sat down and created one, I'm proud of myself for that.