Israel- Art is Everywhere

Today I was thinking about what to post.  I have some really awesome posts coming up, but they are all in the works.  I don’t have any tutorials ready for you today.  Just one little thought.

Art is everywhere.

I was looking through all my pictures today trying to find a picture of my yummy Sausage Tortellini Soup and instead came across my pictures from Israel.  I haven’t gone through them or even shown them to my husband yet.  I got busy with our move, then just busy with life, and I kinda forgot about them.  I could not find any pics of my soup to share with you today, so here are some of my pictures to share.  Not only are there art galleries all over Israel, espcially in Jaffa where we stayed.  But, there is art in the fences, on the building, on the sides of buildings.  It is beautiful there.  I would love to go back someday.  I loved the people I met, I loved the Mediterranean Sea, and the sunsets.  I loved the food

There are a few pictures I could not find that I wanted to share, but here ya go.  A few pictures from my trip to Israel.

My sister road this guy.  He’s handsome alright.

I can imagine this little guy was singing, “If I were a rich man…” lol sing it brother

There markets there are awesome and lots of fun.  I especially love the lines people you to try and get you in there store.  “Oops..you missed me.”  Said the old man with a  smirk and a wink.  Or the man that yelled to us that we dropped something, only them to be told…wait for it…”My heart!”  lol!  My sister and I laughed all the way down the street, totally caught us off guard.  Good one.

a fence

Pretty much just walk and no funny business.

Garden of Gethsemane

Dome of the Rock

A window

Jersualem

I am excited for the next time I get to travel and see more of the beauty that is in the world.

Pottery Barn Inspired Thanksgiving Advent

Two years ago and few girl friends and I set out to re-create a Pottery Barn advent calendar that we all liked.  Actually, to be honest,  it turned into about 20 or so church lady friends.  It was a blast, a lot of work, but fun.  I liked seeing how everyone’s turned out.

We loved how ours turned out.  Now I am sharing it with you

Here are some pictures of mine and one of my girl friends.   All the dimensions, supplies, and patterns are below the pictures.  Enjoy!

These pictures are from my friends calendar.  I like how she used the same color and font for all her numbers.  She also made her pockets bigger than mine.  I will be giving the dimensions for her pockets, because they work better bigger.

Her husband has a b-day in November so she added some candles to on of the days, very cute.

And maybe my favorite thing on hers is the  cooked TURKEY.  I love her turkey, I wish I put that on mine.  I don’t have it in the directions, so you will have to figure that one out by looking at the picture. It’s on the 21st, a little hard to see sorry.

I also love her apple basket on 1 and fence on 18

Her and my top is different.  There were two different Pottery Barn calendars, she chose the more classic one and I did the more funky mis-matched one.

Here is mine-

I so added room at the bottom of mine for our last name.  The directions include space for that.

You will need:

Two pairs of scissors- regular and a small sharp pair for intricate cutting

embroidery needles with a medium sized hole

embroidery thread

felt- lots of felt!

mini pom-pom balls

tweezers

Paper cutter with wavy blade or pinking shears

felt glue or tacky glue that dries clear

A piece of ribbon 1 1/4 yards long-to hang from dowel

Ribbon or Rick Rack for the sides

Dowel with end caps

Optional- a electronic cutting machine.  I used my Cricut to cut the letters and numbers out of felt.

Directions and Dimensions-

Cut One piece of felt 39″ long by27.5″ wide

Cut the inner piece of felt (the off-white on ours) 39″long by 23.5″ wide

Lay the smaller piece down on top of the wider piece and sew down both sides.  2 inches should be showing of the bottom piece on both sides.  Can sew ribbon or rick rack down the side on the inner piece of felt.

Create a space for the dowel at the top by folding back the top 1-1 1/2 inches- depending on the size of the dowel you buy.  Sew across top.

Optional, but looks nice. Fold bottom back about 1/2inch and sew across the bottom.  You could also glue all of these if you aren’t into sewing.

We cut our squares 4″ wide by 3″ tall.  We cut them with a paper cutter that had a wavy blade.  You could also get that edge with pinking shears.  We then did a running stitch around the sqaures.  This does take a while, watch a moive while you do this part.

The squares are in rows of 5.  About 2.5 inches from the edge and 4-5 inches from the top.  They are 1/2 inch apart from side to side.  And, the rows are about 1 inch down for each other.  You will want to lay it all out before you start gluing them down.  Make sure to leave room at the bottom for your name and a turkey if you want that.

To cut felt on your Cricut there are a few steps.

First, just like cutting fabric you will need to iron on some heat and bond on the back.  This helps it to stay in place while cutting.  Next make sure you use a deep cut blade, this is different then the blade that it comes with.  Cut as deep as you can and slowly.  I used blue painters tape to help hold the felt around the edges. It was a process, but if you are doing it just for your self and a friend or two it will be great.  I did all the numbers and letter for about 20 women.  It took me three days to cut the felt!  With the help of my mom.  I went into labor a week later lol  Good times. 😉

Patterns

Click below for the pattern for the little pieces on the squares.  This link will take you to Box.net where you can print out the pattern.  And, sorry they are not the most well organized patterns, but they get the job done.

Pattern Page 1

Pattern Page 2

Pattern Page 3

Pattern Page 4

Pattern Page 5

I know it is a little late in November for this calendar, but start now so you can have it for next year!  😉

Feature Friday- Plum Street Prints

Today I am happy to feature a company called Plum Street Prints.   This fun company was started by two friends Lori and Shannon.

These hard working moms have created a beautiful line of prints for the home and a mix of  funky, sophisticated, stylish phone cases.  I love all of their stuff and hope that the hubs gets me one of their cases for Christmas this year when I get my new i-phone  (Hint hint Dev)

Here are a few pictures of their cases.  AND!  This weekend they are offering 20% off in celebration of their new website.

Check it out.  This Peacock one might be my favorite.  I am not sure though because they are all VERY fun.

Click over to Plum Street Prints to check out all of their products.

Plum Fruit Leather

You can make any kind of fruit leather following these simple directions.

We have a plum tree in our yard so we used our beautiful plums. FYI- all pictures after this one are slightly blurry.  Sorry

So easy to make fruit leather.  All you need is SWEET, RIPE FRUIT.

We cut the plums in half and let Charlie, our 3 year old, pull out the pits and sort them.  She thought it was great to help and she was crazy fast at it.  We are always looking for an easy safe step Charlie can help with cooking.

After pitting the fruit,  then place in the food processor till it is pureed nice and smooth.

Spray Pam on your dehydrator sheets.  Then pour the pureed plums onto the sheets and turned it on the fruit setting.  (Make sure you pray Pam or you will not get the fruit leather off the sheets.)

Place the lid on and let it do it’s thing.  Leave it there until it is firm enough to peel about 12-16 hours, depending on your dehydrator.

Enjoy!

Yarn Turkey -Free Pattern and Supply List-

I wanted something for my table that was exciting for kids to look at.  I saw a few people wrapping yarn around styrofoam to make a turkey body last year and came up with this idea.  I love my turkey and so does my two year old.  It’s a pretty simple/fast craft after you buy all the supplies.

Here’s the supply list-  You can print it out if you click on this picture.

To get started PRINT out the pattern for feathers, beak, and gobble here. Click on pictures below to download.

Cut these out and then cut out felt.  Then do a running stitch around the 2 large pieces of the feather to hold them together(and to look cute).  DON’T GET GLUE IN THE MIDDLE OF FEATHER.  The wire hanger goes in the middle.  Glue the out side/decorative piece in the middle of the front of the feather.

After your felt is ready, now you are ready for the easy part.  You might want to get your kids and have them help you with this part.  Wrap the dark yarn around the body, gluing the first piece to the styrofoam  ball if needed.  Secure ends when covered ball.  Then wrap the egg shape with the lighter yarn.

I then figured out where I wanted my head to be placed on the body.  I stuck a four inch piece of the wire hanger in the body(about 2″ sticking out) glued it with hot glue and attached the head to that.  Sorry I didn’t take more detailed pictures.

Now you will need to make the feet.  I cut two 4 inch pieces and six 1 and 1/2 inch pieces of the dowel.  I stuck the 4 inch pieces- 1 inch into the large ball.  Prop up your bird at this point and set it on wax paper.  Then take your six 1 and 1/2 inch pieces and hot glue three to each 4 inch piece.  I just glued like crazy.  I put a huge blob of hot glue down and stuck the pieces in that.  Sorry again I don’t have a picture.  After that is all dry wrap yellow ribbon around the feet and legs.

I then cut and shaped my wire hangers into a long u-shape.  Stick both ends into the bird.  Slide feathers you make on to those.

After everything is done add your face and side wings.  Cut out your felt beak and gobble.  Stitch the fronts and backs together.  Glue both pieces on.  Add hat and eyes.

Kids Leaf Place-mats

This is a great Family Home Evening idea you can do tonight with the kids!  It requires little to no prep and is easy for all ages.   And your kids can use these at the kid table during Thanksgiving

After dinner onE night we went for a walk around the block and collected leafs.

Then we went home and laid them out on our laminating sheets.

The kids loved watching it go through the laminator.

If you don’t have a laminator just glue your leafs to a piece of paper.  Add some stickers and glitter too.  You can then take it to any Kinko’s, map store, office supply store and they will laminate it for you for a small price.

They are so happy with their work!

Get crafty with your kids…they will love it

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