Felt Flower Centerpiece

Although it's hard to feel it with temperatures still in the 30s some days, Spring is right around the corner. And with that comes the holiday of Passover (and Easter) - time to gather with family and celebrate. We are once again hosting a nice size crowd for the seder and I wanted to do something different from last year's centerpieces. I saw some tutorials of how to make a felt flower centerpiece (here and here) and decided to give them my own little spin.

Here's what you'll need (the sizes and amount will depend on how big and how many you want to make, I listed what I used): 2 4" clay flower pots, 2 4" foam balls, 12 pieces of 9x12" felt (6 per flower pot), pearl-head pins, and tacky glue (you could also use hot glue)

Start by tracing circles onto your felt (I got four circles per sheet). You can use the flower pot or any other small bowl or plate. After you cut them out, cut the circles into a sprial shape. They don't have to be perfect (as you can see), and in fact, the irregularities are what make each flower a little different so I didn't even try for perfection.

Starting from the inside of the spiral, twirl the felt around the center until you get to the end, keeping the flower fairly flat on the bottom. This is what it should look like:

Use just a small line of glue to seal it closed.

Make sure you're watching something good on TV while you're doing this, because it might get a little tedious after the first two 10. Repeat and repeat until you've created flowers out of all of your felt circles.

Next, take your pearl-head pins and push them through the center of each flower.

Place your foam ball in the flower pot and you can now start pinning the flowers right into it. No need for glue since the pins are long enough to keep the flowers in place.

Just put them in any random order. I tried to make sure no two of the same color were touching, but the truth is that it doesn't really matter if they are.

And now you've got two beautiful spring centerpieces. The great thing is that since you didn't glue anything together (besides the flowers), you can reuse the flower pots and foam balls for another project in the future!

Happy Passover or Happy Easter to you and yours. See you after spring break is over!

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Autumn Garland

Here's another great DIY project for fall that can really be adapted to any season or decor. I actually got the idea for this from my daughter's Highlights magazine. Go figure!

I adapted it somewhat and this is what I and my daughter created. Start out with these supplies that you probably have already.

Supplies: one piece of craft foam in color of your choice • tissue paper in a variety of colors • yarn, sisal, jute or any type of string of your choice (not shown) • craft glue (not shown)

Start by tracing circles across the entire piece of foam and cutting them out. I used (the inner circle) a roll of masking tape for mine.

Then cut your tissue paper into 1 inch squares.

Crinkle up the tissue paper as small as you can.

And glue them on to your circles in any shape you want. Since we were planning on hanging this in honor of Sukkot, we made fruits and vegetables on each circle.

You can use any other type of embellishments to enhance each circle.

We used pipe cleaners for the stems on many of ours.

After you've created the designs on each of the circles, use a hole-puncher to make a hole at the top of each one. Then string the sisal (or whatever you chose) and tie a knot after each circle so they stay in place.

Then hang it up wherever you'd like! Here it is hanging over our mantel-less fireplace.

And outside in our sukkah:

All in all, a great, easy project that even a seven-year-old can do did it!

Happy Fall!

p.s. See you after Sukkot!

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Flower Ball Tutorial

I don't really do all that much seasonal decorating in the house and since we don't have a real mantel, there's not a whole lot to decorate around. However, the Jewish holiday of Sukkot is coming up next week and it is a tradition to decorate the sukkah with produce, flowers and all things from nature. This is a great and easy autumn or Thanksgiving craft for anyone and it can modified to any season or color scheme.

This is all you need:

Supplies: foam ball (I used 6") • assortment of faux flowers, leaves, fruit, etc. in coordinating colors • 1 yard of ribbon (optional) •  hot glue

(I don't normally decorate with faux flowers, but since this is going to end up outside, real flowers were not an option since it has to be able to hold up against the elements.)

This first thing to do is wrap the ribbon around the ball and use your hot glue gun to glue it to the bottom and sides of the ball. If you will not be hanging it, you can skip this step.

Then use a wire cutter to cut all the flowers off their stems, leaving about an inch remaining.

You can get rid of the stems and you'll be left with a bunch of flowers like so:

Then comes the fun part! Just stick all the flowers in the ball with any random pattern that you choose. Try to space out the flowers and colors so you don't have a big spot of flowers that are the same type or color. Keep sticking them in until you can't see any of the white ball through.

You only need to use the glue for the leaves, fruit or anything else that doesn't have a real stem.

Here it is from another angle:

This is another one that I made last year.

And here it is hanging in our sukkah last year.

This is a pretty inexpensive project to replicate because you can get the flowers and foam from almost any dollar store. This can also become a beautiful Thanksgiving centerpiece. You can make a large one for the center of the table, or a few smaller ones to line up down the middle of the table. Just place the ball in a candlestick holder or rest it on a small clear plate.

Happy Fall!

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Oreo Balls

The Jewish holiday of Shavuot is coming up and it is traditional to eat dairy foods over the festival. My sister found this great recipe and asked me to make it when she hosts the family for one of the meals.  I modified it a little, based on the reviews, and it was SO easy and came out great (shhh, don't tell her I tasted some one)! With only three ingredients, you can't go wrong.

Ingredients:
1 package Oreo cookies
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

Instructions:
1. Put cookies in a bag and crush them into crumbs. It doesn't need to be as fine as flour, but there shouldn't be any big chunks.

2. Empty contents into a medium size bowl and add cream cheese.

3. Use an electric mixer to combine the cookie crumbs and cream cheese until it is evenly mixed.

4. Put the mixture in the fridge for an hour or so. (The original recipe said to put it in the freezer, but I found that it got too hard and I had to wait a while for it to soften up enough for me to work with.)

5. Put confectioner's sugar in a shallow bowl. Roll cookie mixture into one inch balls and roll it in the sugar. Place on a piece of parchment paper to harden.

6. Keep refrigerated. (Can be prepared in advance and then frozen.)

7. Try not to eat too many at once! If you make them, let me know how they come out.

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Purim is Coming!

Sorry for the slow posting, but I have been crazy busy! I don't expect this to be a holiday that most (or any) of you are familiar with, but the Jewish holiday of Purim is coming up this week. (For a detailed explanation, check out wikipedia.) In a sentence: we commemorate the salvation of the Jews from the evil decree of Haman, which was brought about through Queen Esther. The story took place in Persia, around the 4th century BCE, but it is a miracle that we have celebrated ever since.

One of the customs of the day is distributing "mishloach manot," loosely translated as gift baskets of food, to family, friends, neighbors, teachers, etc. and that's what I have been working on. My son is dressing up as a police officer/detective so we got these cute "briefcases" to use as the basket. Assembling them all was a job, that's for sure!

Thanks for sticking around and I'll be back with more great posts soon!