Birkat Chaverim Blog

Wishing you and your family a happy, healthy and meaningful new year!

Its a bit late for Rosh Hashana crafts, but, as you can see above, we made Pomegranates which are equally good for Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot.

They’re made out of styrofoam balls, glue, glitter, feathers or pipecleaners, and plastic pins. After Rosh Hashana we’ll add a ribbon to hang them in our sukkah. We did a few experiments with glitter versus glitter glue and also coloring the ball first. It was a fairly easy project for three-four year olds but can also be done with older children.

To make: Cut the ball in half making sure to leave some crevices to make the ball seem more like a cut pomegranate. If desired, color the ball with a red-ish shade first. Choose whether you want to use glitter glue, glitter or both and slather your ball with that media. Let dry.

Next take little plastic craft pins in a complementary color and randomly stick them into the cut side of the ball to mimic pomegranate seeds. Stick a feather or folded pipe cleaner at the top of the cut ball and you are done. The pipe cleaner method makes it a bit easier to add a ribbon later for hanging in the sukkah.

I was going to post a bunch of Rosh Hashana crafts here but they’ll have to wait until next year. I did see a cute Tashlish yarn art picture from Creative Jewish Mom which would be fun to make.

Usually you send Rosh Hashana cards before Rosh Hashanah, but if you make a Yonah in the big fish “popup style card.” You should be ok. I made some years ago with this design. Basically Yonah should be on a pull tab  and an opening should be left in the fish’s mouth so that you can see Yonah entering the fish.

A few crafts from last year:
Rosh Hashana Soap
Simple Craft for Sukkot
Yom Kippur Scale Craft

Here are a bunch of projects we’ve either made in our class or I’ve posted about that would be great for Shavuot

Some flower ideas from previous posts: Continue reading »

I didnt post this in time for yom yerushalayim, but here’s the project nevertheless. We made it on Yom Yerushalayim without the chug because I canceled the class so we could do Yom Yerushalayim activities. Continue reading »

Here are som other examples of omer calendars using the scratch and win method. The top picture is a photo of the underlayer of the calendar.

Here’s the calendar with the paint on top. Its hard to see in the photo, but there are also little hearts cut out of contact paper and taped on top of each number. The idea was to remove them and put another color here instead but it was a bit of work. Next time I think using stamps for another color might be easier.

You can make your own scratch and win calendar using the templates attached to this post.

Last week we made candy flower arrangements in honor of the upcoming holiday, Shavuot but it works equally well for Mothers’ day. All the supplies can be found in your local dollar store and even around the house.

Supplies:
Small glass bottles
Dowels cut to desired height
Wire or tape
Candies
Lucky bamboo
Ribbon/buttons/decorations
Pebbles Continue reading »

Its getting a bit late to post these but here they are anyway- Omer calendar templates that can be used with the “scratch and win” omer calendar idea (or with any other idea.) If you use them please share your omer calendar, I would love to see how they get used.

Continue reading »

I keep meaning to post these and not getting to it so here goes. Here are some omer calendars we’ve come up with this year:

Continue reading »

Here are some ideas for Yom Haaztzmaut in no particular order.

For the younger set:

A memory game using whatever Israel themed stickers you have on hand

Continue reading »

The current holiday season has given me a great opportunity to talk about the new edition of The Szyk Haggadah. Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) originally published his haggadah, a richly illuminated edition in gouache and watercolor, in 1940. It was printed in an edition of 250 and signed by Szyk and the historian Cecil Roth, who also provided an introduction and commentary. Subsequently the haggadah was reprinted in less expensive editions in Israel and could be found in many Jewish homes throughout the world.

Recently, Historicana, under the direction of Irvin Ungar, created a new edition of the haggadah with permission from the collector who owns the original Haggadah artwork and Arthur Szyk’s daughter, Alexandra Szyk Bracie. This version of the Haggadah uses current technology for extremely vivid illustration photos, and includes a new translation and commentary by Byron L. Sherwin, and a companion volume, Freedom Illuminated: Understanding The Szyk Haggadah.

I had the privilege of speaking with Professor Shalom Sabar, from the Jewish Folklore and Art History faculties at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, who is one of the contributors to the companion volume, and in interviewing him, by email. Continue reading »

This project is similar to the felt latkes we made for Chanukkah. Easy to do by hand or by machine. In the case of felt matzot, matzahs or matzos (choose your  preferred spelling ), they also need to be “browned”. We did this with brown felt marker but I kept thinking about using rectangular erasers and paint.

These are pretty self explanitory- cut matzah to taste (round, square, misshapen etc.) sew to taste (only around edges, in a spiral, whatever), decorate to taste, refine to taste.
See also:

Make your own Haggadah

Other people’s Pesach ideas