Birkat Chaverim Blog

As school is approaching here are some related projects. Above is a desk organizer made out of plastic bags and clear tape. It was made by a student in my chug/class. Also useful for school are notebooks. Another participant made this notebook cover: Continue reading »

I made this one with my daughter (she chose to do a cat) but prior to that we made some of these in my chug/class (I havent found the pictures yet! When I do Ill post them.) Continue reading »

Summer is a good time to post these two projects made by two girls in my class. First is a water scene made out of plastic bags and fimo. I thought it was really neat. She tested what happens when you iron plastic bags a little too long and then made use of the piece as the ocean. She didn’t have to. You can actually iron other pieces together but she liked the effect. The fimo was shaped using a mold I bought that made sea animal shapes. Continue reading »

Tomorrow is my daughter’s last day in gan for the year and today is her end of the year party. We decided to give the four teachers gifts each one gift from the whole gan. Part of the gift is something returnable and part of it is something from the children.

I asked all the parents to send a photo of their child and a quote “What is your favorite thing about gan?” Its a good thing I asked for this a few weeks in advanced, because the main gannenet (pre-school teacher) asked for quotes for the other gannenot and it might have been difficult to get the materials we needed given the additional requests. Continue reading »

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 »

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.

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 »

Adar means Purim and Purim means megilla, seuda, and mishloach manot. Mishloach Manot, of course, require containers to hold them in and that’s what this post is about. The hand made sort of course. Continue reading »

Tu B’shvat is really about figuring out a date for terumot and maasrot-tithing (old fruits versus new fruits, which year they are from so the fruit could be given to the correct recipients.) In the Bnei Akiva bencher, we actually do include the blessing recited when taking terumot and maasrot, but I didn’t really want to do a post about that. Its not very crafty. I also wasn’t really interested in doing something about Tu B’shvat seders or dried fruit. Instead, I’m thinking about flowers. Before fruits become fruit they start as flowers, so there you go.

My daughter and I made pipe cleaner flowers with stockings as a very simple no sew project. We did some experimenting with coloring the stockings but mostly we used the stockings as-is.

In the chug we also seem to be focusing on flowers lately. Here is one flower barrette one of our participants made.

She chose to make this barrette after we looked at a bunch of different designs and styles online. I found a tutorial of how to make this one (and of course I’m having trouble finding it again to post a link to it now.) The idea behind this one is to make four flower shapes with six petals, fold them over and attach them in the middle. That provides the depth. This participant chose to use two colors for variety. Other floral barrettes that have been made recently include another flower made of felt, but using overlapping flowers of different sizes and a large fabric flower for a headband. I’ll post images of those soon.

Here are two other sources for flower ideas:

Do it yourself alternative flower arrangements

And this youtube video on how to make flowers from dryer sheets:

Tutorial for a really cool tree and swing card made of paper discovered via Whipup

See also: Dried fruit “trees” and “flowers”