Birkat Chaverim Blog

If you are looking for a project for a Bat Mitzvah around Shavuot, you could try floral arrangements with old nylons. Nylons can be dyed using store bought dye or food coloring and vinegar. There are a variety of examples on the web for inspiration and tutorials, or you can get a copy of The Art of Handmade Flowers.

For online tutorials and examples of nylon floral arrangements see:

Ehow tutorial with picture
Get Crafty blog with several examples
Creation Blog with small purple flowers
Flowers that Last store which has a photo gallery of examples

Our own modest example with pipecleaners as seen in the post Tu Bishvat flower ideas.

One idea for a Bar or Bat Mitzvah is to learn about the Haggadah and create your own commentary and illustrations. A useful resource for this is the Open Source Haggadah project. Although the project is officially over, the website still provides access to the Haggadah text as well as extra resources that may be useful in creating ones own haggadah.

Updated: I just noticed that Graphos has a special promotion for Pesach. You can create your own Haggadah with your own pictures. They have a one free per family promotion. The coupon code, 4701C20333 is good through March 15, 2010.

I like the idea of the Areyvut Bnai Mitzvah Video Essay contest and thought it would be relevant to some of the blog readers. I like the idea of turning family celebrations into meaningful experiences which give back to the community. A while back I requested readers to let us know how they made their family celebrations meaningful. I felt that it would be helpful to others planning celebrations to see what other families have done (I’m still looking for submissions so feel free to comment or post on facebook.)

This contest is basically doing the same thing. Contestants are asked to submit videos of how they have or will incorporate the values of chesed (kindness), tzedakah (charity), and tikkun olam (social justice) in their rite of passage celebrations. The winning video will be posted on the Areyvut website. I like the idea and bet that there will be some interesting submissions.

The contest is open to grades 5 through ten and closes December 25th. See the Areyvut website for further details. Areyvut also has a database of over 200 Bnai Mitzvah mitzvah project ideas that can be incorporated into a Bnai Mitzvah celebration. This resource can be accessed here: Bnai Mitzvah mitzvah project ideas

Bubble Soap from soapylovesdebbie

To wash away sins how about giving or making soap?

Givers log blog has a tutorial on making pretty soap lables as teacher’s gifts. Easy to convert to wedding/bar/bat mitzvah favors or to make with families using children’s artwork. As an activity I would suggest printing on clear lables rather than transparencies.

Instead of liquid soap try hard soap. Here are a few tutorials for hard soap:
Lavendar soap from the Soap Queen
Loofa soap recipe
Snow Globe Soap Instead of animals you could use pots of honey.

Soapylovesdebbie photo stream on flickr from lets get soapy also has links to tutorials on how to make a soap making party. Note her copyright on the image:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/soapylove/ / CC BY 2.0

If you are looking for a neat activity to do for a Bar or Bat Mitzvah that has both an element of fun and mitzvah, why not try a clothing swap? This idea has gained popularity due to the swap o rama rama type swaps where people bring clothing and then professional sewers, screen printers, embroiderers  and others volunteer their time to help people reconstruct clothing out of  pieces they wanted to throw away.

This could be a fun way for families to make some new clothing items for themselves, as well as for others. In addition, leftover clothing items can be donated to a local gamach or charity.

For instructions on how to set up a clothing swap visit the Future Craft Collective website for a  tutorial.

The naked Barbies was point A. Then my niece N was sick. My daughter and I went over to visit and do some projects with her for her Build a Bear. She’s pretty creative and the result of that was a really cute outfit out of a black sock and a sock flower embellishment.

In our neighbourhood, Build a Bears are pretty popular and clothing out of scraps from home was a big hit with parents, so our class was born. So far we are all enjoying it and everyone comes up with great ideas. I actually find it relaxing. Some of the girls are really getting into it and liked the idea of documenting what we were doing. They would also like to sell clothing that they make. I think it would be a great party idea with some clothing being made for hospitals or families in need.

I mentioned in an earlier post that when we started this site we envisioned sponsors to help pay for the site that hosts the Bnei Akiva birkonim. One of my favorite sponsors is the Oriental Trading Company because it fits right in with our customers’ needs. Why? because they provide party supplies and shtick! Plates and so forth as well as masks and bubbles such as the ones you can see below.