MADE

How did I never see this before, great fun DIY stuff.

MADE

sukkah

Sukkot has come and gone. I had so many ideas for sukkah decorations this year but in the end only had time to make a few. Y and I sat up late the night before sukkot began finishing up a few decorations.

My inspiration came from:

The Modern Baby Shower


Ribbon Mobile

Felted Bird Mobile

And these last three came from Creative Jewish Mom!

But as you can see I only really ended up using ideas from Creative Jewish Mom. Here are a few shots of what our sukkah looked like.

plastic bottles, plastic bottles, and more plastic bottles

I have found my new obsession, plastic bottles!

So many plastic bottles are wasted and thrown away, some recycled, but mostly thrown away. I recently started to cut them in half and use the bottom halves as planters to transplant my growing jalapeno plants. I was saving the tops and have come up with a few ideas of uses for them like:

• tea light lanterns...filling them with and and putting a tea light in them and hanging them in my back patio
• cutting them up and turning them into hanging deocrations
• cutting them in shapes and and creating mobiles

I began to search for what other ideas are out there and came across all these cool sites...

Re-Nest
Crafting Green World
Dollar Store Crafts

Enjoy!!!

Reduse, Reuse, Recycle

so many plastic bags

I have so many plastic bags every time I go to buy something I get an other bag. Its just part of the culture, here so much so that when I say I don't need a bag I get a funny look. For years now I have been wanting to make a reusable plastic shopping bag our of old plastic bags. Recently I had the idea to make a basket for toiletries our of plastic bags but couldn't find a pattern. Two days ago I came across AltUse and the daily product was plastic bags and one of the uses is little storage baskets.

On AltUse they have a link to NezumiWorld with many uses for plastic bags. What a good way to reuse these bags, besides of course trashbags!

vestish

I love this look, I tried it with my own brown scarf which I can buy here for about 15 Shekels = $3.75. Everyone loved it and couldn't believe it was a scarf just tied around my kneck when i showed them!

In the same spirit I found this pattern on knitty.com and can't wait to make it. Knitty.com has great patterns, always something fun to knit!

Green Thumb

Recently I have been really working on growing plants around my house.

My neighbors have created a garden and a few weeks ago I went out with the wife to have a tour of their garden and she gave me a bunch of her plants to see if I can get them to grow in front of my house. I started with keeping them in water to get their roots to grown before planting them.


I really liked the way they looked so I started picking a bunch and putting them in various size and shaped vases and glasses. And they looked so great on my recylced plastic bottle green tablecoth and infront of our window covered in passion fruit vines.

I am also keeping fresh lavendar flowers in jars around the house. And am also attempting for the second time to grow my own lavendar. Along with the lavendar are tons of organic jalapeno sprouts that I really need to transplant into a bigger container, I can't wait for them to started growing peppers!!

I started giving them away I have so many seedlings. I am now searching for cute pots to put some of the seedlings in to give as gifts.

Lupin has her plants potted in great ways, if I could only find vintage pots like her.

This growing passion really started with the herbs from the centerpieces from our wedding. I have them growing above my sink in the kitchen: parsley, peppermint, nana (spearmint), zatar (hyssop). I've been loving pinching some off and putting it in my cooking.

A few weeks ago i added a few zatar leaves to my hummus I was making and it really added such a great taste!

Next I am hoping to start growing basil and cilantro, I tried cilantro but I think I used the leaves in cooking to soon after transplanting it so it didn't last.

The green around the house is so delightful that I even put plants in the bathroom, bamboo above the sink and 3 small succulents on a shelf in the shower.

3 weeks

Its hard to believe I have been married now for 3 weeks! Me a wife, a married lady! It is still a bit surreal. I am definitely enjoying it and it and I keep finding myself saying that it just feels so normal.

We had such an amazing and beautiful wedding. People are still telling us how it was one of the best weddings they went to and how special and spiritual it was. We broadcast the chuppa live on the internet so our friends and family abroad could watch it. We got married in Jerusalem and one friend who couldn't make it actually watched it online. The chuppa ended up being and hour and a half, we couldn't believe it was that long but it was so beautiful no one really noticed.

Here you can see the hair vine I made and my bouquet I ended up getting. The woman who did my hair couldn't believe I made the hairpiece myself, and she wants me to sell them, she said she has a lot of brides who would be interested in a hairpiece like what I made. So I guess I have a new little side business. That's what life in Israel is all about, piecing together jobs to make up one.

There ended up being possibly 400 people at the wedding, 300 intended guests and 100 more that came to celebrate with us. We couldn't believe how many poeple were able to come it was truly amazing! There were a lot people we missed but will BE"H be seeing soon in April when we go to North America. This will be my first trip to Toronto and meeting alot of my husbands family and friends who were not able to make it to Israel for the wedding. Husband, hee hee, I still have to get used to that part. More adventures to come...

about a month to go...

I can't believe it, in two days it will be a month until my wedding! This is such an exciting time, we have been accomplishing so much in such a short time. Today we started to begin deciding on centerpieces and flowers and all that fun stuff. We are going to have centerpieces that are plants that people can take and plant. There will be a mix of herbs and flowers. This is a great way to be more environmental as well as it goes with the fact that we are getting married on Tu B'Shvat, the Birthday of the trees!

I am looking at having a bouquet of orchids. While looking for pretty bouquets I came across some really interesting bouquets and this was just one I thought was really interesting.
I will probbaly be going with something a little more like this one though.
My DIY roots are coming through...I am not so into the idea of wearing a tiara but I did want to have something in my hair. I found some really cool and amazing tiara and tiara alternatives online and many on www.Etsy.com I decided to make my own thing to wear in my hair. In my search I came across a bunch of "hair vines" so I decided to make my own out of pearl beads, I am excited to wear it, I think it am eout pretty good. I showed it to a friend of mine yesterday and she couldn't believe that I made it. Way to go DIY roots, I knew all that craftiness would pay off one day!!!

Wow 32 days to go...

LoBot

My brother lives at a place called LoBot. Lobot is this very cool live/work space warehouse in West Oakland. They have a gallery and sometimes have shows. I had been there a few times before my brother even lived in the bay area and some a some bands play. It seemed like a cool place in a not so nice industrial area of Oakland, California. Each person that lives there has their own room, I spent most of the time in my brother's room...

...or in the kitchen. The kitchen ins a big space a with a couple refrigerators and lots of cabinets and a nice big table with lots of fun chairs. Through the doors where it says "enchanted forest" is a fully equipped screen printing studio. I wanted to use it but never got around to it. To the left of the studio is the "hang room" a large space with sofas and games and to the left of that is the "music room" a sound-proofed room full of instruments and equipment where anyone can go in and jam or record or practice or whatever they want to do.

Some of the instruments look like they haven't been touched in a while. There was one guitar covered in dust and had no strings, but don't worry there were plenty of functional instruments. Recently my brother and a couple of his roommates have been playing reggae and one night we stayed up late in the kitchen discussing reggae and ska and if they should be a cover band playing reggae songs or covering songs and turning them into reggae.

When you go past the kitchen you walk back into a long curvy hallway covered in art and posters with various looking doors off to the sides. Sometimes a door is open and you get a peek into one of these doors and get a small glimpse into the life of the person that lives on the other side.

This is my brother's door, I love that it's pink. Above his door to the right is a huge pink painting of Willie Nelson. I'm a sure someone who once lived there made it. All of the people that live there are artists. There are 13 people that live there give or take a few because there are always sub-letters and guests.

A few weeks ago there were so many people staying there that they put up pictures with each persons name, so that everyone knew who was living/staying there. I think this was while this group of Germans part of a German art collective were there. It is not uncommon for them to have visiting artists stay with them, there is even a "visting artist's studio" for them to work and live in that is right of the gallery. While I was there there were two guys from Seattle visiting.

luggage

Luggage seems to be the theme of my life today. I have been trying to sell two pieces of luggage for my step dad on Craig's List. It has also been suggested to me recently that I should get a new very very large suitcase to use for my move to Israel. So today I bought myself a nice and used very large suitcase from a very nice lady who told me her life story i9n a series of phone calls and in person. I bought her suitcase for $5 although I was a little concerned with her Craig's List ad:

Giant suitcase with expansion zipper. Used to transport child to school and back. Outside pocket zipper is off track, but suitcase itself is solid.

She seemed nice so I don't think she actually put her child inside of the suitcase, but it is mine now, so either way her child will be safe!

I went and sold clothes today and along with these clothes I also sold this little girl's Strawberry Shortcake suitcase. I have had it for a long time and I just hope that it goes to a good home! I really love little suitcases I have a few other vintage ones that I am not sure if I will sell yet. Maybe I will put up pictures of them another time.

So this $5 suitcase I bought today has a small piece of crochet chain on it I am assuming as an identifier, which made me think that I should knit or crochet something to put on my suitcases. i have always loved luggage tags and thought about making my own before but as like many other craft projects, I just never got around to doing it. Then I started to think of what would be fun to put on my suitcase I thought maybe flowers but I couldn't find a pattern that I liked. I thought maybe an airplane, seemed to make sense putting an airplane on luggage. Then I thought RAIN CLOUD, that's it. I have always had a weird fascination for rain clouds, I am not really sure why, but that's it and then I found this pattern on a blog called Knits and Knots. So in a few minutes I think I will begin my little luggage rain clouds. I hope that these rain clouds will be the only rain clouds to join me on my travels!

zines

I have come across all my old Riot Grrrl and Anarchist zines from way back when. This is just a small sampling of the zines I found. It's been fun reminiscing and thumbing through these zines from across the country and a few are even from out of the country. Most rant and rave about modern pop culture and praise the underground whether it be music, clothing, people, or activism.
Here are a few of my favorites. One is a DIY (Do It Yourself) craft guide with sample on the inside. Another is a collection of poems and photographs that are made to look like they are in a composition book some copied onto lined paper. Another has cool screen prints and includes stories, poems and yet more art. An other is full of short stories, the cover is made out of a brown paper bag and includes "A Pirate's Guide To Vancouver".


And yet an other is a limited edition signed piece of art. Every edition of Hello Nothing. is different and is signed and is a limited edition series. This one is 29/99 and is made into a small little envelope that holds a canvas patch and small little strips of paper with different quotes. These zines are each unique and much blood and sweat went into physically cutting and pasting the pages together and then going to Kinkos to make photocopies or steal photocopies as so many zinesters did. Oh the days of Kinko's copy keys and cards.

So much effort went into making a zine as well as distributing it and advertising it. Many zines and distro catalogs included small little bits of paper sometimes copied onto the back of some other paper that was an ad. Each little ad contained so much information and was almost a mini zine itself. Sometimes a distro, record label, or zine would put all these little ads together and cut and paste them on a regualr size piece of paper.
Even I ran a short lived distro, here is my ad on one of those cut and paste ad sheets. Along with all of the paper waste that went on with making a zine there was so much thought that went into using the least amount of paper for ads and even reusing old paper to copy ads onto the back to cut down on paper waste.

Every time i recieved a zine it felt so personal. some would personalize the zine for you by hand writing your name onto it some where. All were always hand addressed. And sometimes zines would be accompanied by a hand written letter or note from the author, editor or distro. A zine was like a persons baby, holding so much of themselves inside of it.
Zines in the 90's were full of people speaking out and speaking their minds. As well as sharing ideas and propaganda and personal life experiences. Zines offered individuals with a forum to share what was on their mind and who they were.
Zines seemed to have become so popular that even clothing companies were making their own "zines". Amongst my zines was this FOXY "zine". I don' know if I would call it a real zine since zines were much more DIY and usually much more rough around the edges. But I guess Foxy wanted to jump on the underground bandwagon and make their own.

When I was looking through all of these zines I realised that blogs are really just the new zine, with a lot less paper waste. Blogs offer anyone and everyone to speak there mind, share pictures and stories and anecdotes, write short stories, share art or speak about whatever seems important to share with the world. Just like zines it is hard to know who actually reads them or if anyone really is. What is it that makes us feel that we need to have a forum to share our innermost thoughts with perfect strangers. Why do we even want to share? And does anyone actually read it anyways? Do we really need the validation? Is this a way to get validation? I don't think we will ever know the answers to any of these questions.
So I write on and read on...