Burlap baskets

 Hello dear readers

Although I'm teaching how to make miniatures, I still don't have enough pupils to justify spending funds on craft materials.  I spent a lot of time trying to come up with ideas on how to use available cheap stuff for crafting and recycling. 

Here is what we managed to create last week, at no cost, except for the white plastic glue that I supplied from my own stock. The burlap was a left-over scrap, also from my stock.

I forgot to take photos of the way the baskets were made. You can figure it out for yourselves, or if anyone is interested, I'll make a step-by-step tutorial.  All the baskets in the photo are made out of glue stiffened burlap. We pulled out lengths of threads before stiffening the burlap to make the handles and for trimming the ends.  The knitting needles are tiny colored foam balls pierced into straight sewing pins.

Remember the poster from my previous post here? There was enough card paper left to make 10 more pitchers.

I wish all my followers and readers a happy, enjoyable weekend with blessings.

A very rewarding cause

 Hello dear readers,

Working with old folks is very rewarding.  I now have four ladies who very enthusiastically follow my tutorials and together we managed to create these miniatures within a few meetings.

All the flowers were made by the a/m ladies. I showed them how to stiffen the green crochet thread with glue, cut it into stem lengths and, then glue on the sepals and the flower petals.  (see my tutorial here).  All the pitchers were made by me recycling advertising posters.

The stand was also made by me.  I hope it will attract some of the gentlemen to make the next ones. So far, I supplied all the materials, from my own hoarded piles. An opportunity to get rid of a little trash for a good cause. Three pairs of chopsticks, 6 lollipop sticks.  

Our next project is going to be a knitting basket.  I made this one as a sample. 

June became a difficult month for me.  On the 26th of June 2020, I lost my beloved husband,  The 4th of June is my birthday.  I am not ready yet to celebrate my birthdays without my partner, especially this month that I became 90. Life goes on, I don't feel my age and I can only count my blessings, still on my feet, able to do some volunteer work, surrounded by a loving family and friends. I have a great supply of books to read and miniatures keep me busy and interested.  I don't drive a car anymore,  twice a week I go to a gym, exercising to keep fit. And yes, although I always found it hard, I still cut and saw wood for my crafts. 

I wish you all, my readers and friends, a lovely Sunday with blessings.

sunday 

Working with elderly people

Hello dear readers,

Sorry for having neglected my blog and for not visiting many of your blogs for a while.

Shortly after the corona restrictions were lifted, another trouble landed on us here in Israel.  Missiles were fired from Gaza in all directions, regardless of children and elderly people. Alarm sirens sounded at all hours of the day and night. It was necessary to go down to the shelter or stay in a protected space within the building. There are no protected spaces in our building except for an underground shelter. Since the elevator must not be used during an alarm, and of course, going down from the top floors down to the shelter in 3 minutes with babies and small children on our hands is an equally dangerous operation, most of the tenants, including myself, preferred to stay in the apartments and hope we would get out of it safely.

I started working with people at the daycare for the elderly center in May.  There was very little interest at the beginning. I brought along some of my miniature items that I found easy to create, but they couldn't believe it possible for them to learn.  So I took out some pipe-cleaners and began to make tiny puppies and kittens.  This was a huge success.  Now even the gentlemen want to make them.

It took a few weeks and here I can show what we already finished.

The pitcher is recycled from a poster advertising apartments sale which I found hanging on my door. These posters are ideal for pitchers since they are already colored and shiny. 

After noting that the flowers were really not difficult to make and learning to use paper punches and how to shape and cup the petals they became very enthusiastic and we were able to fill recycled poster pitchers with dozens of flowers. I was too busy to take photos. I'll do it next time I'm at the center.

A very warm welcome to the new followers of my blog. Thank you for your interest.

I wish you, all my dear readers, a very nice and safe weekend with blessings.

Nina's surprise Easter gifts

Hello dear readers,

I received a wonderful surprise from Nina in Germany, a large parcel containing easter gifts. Nina is a lovely person who collects and writes stories in her blog, all about a community of Sylvanian families residing in Riverside. Nina's blog will be celebrating its 10th Anniversary.  There is a giveaway for this occasion, the link is on the sidebar of my blog.

Very delicate little Easter eggs and birds with a beautiful Easter card.

Mozart chocolates, no traces left. (except in this photo.)  

Three Lindt chocolate sheep-shaped chocolates that will make the kids very happy indeed, as well as a lovely egg-shaped candle.

A notebook., very useful for absent-minded me. Now I can note down all my important resolutions and ideas for future works.

A Riverside 2021 Calendar with beautiful photos 

THANK YOU, DEAR NINA.  YOU MADE ME VERY HAPPY WITH YOUR VERY GENEROUS AND  LOVELY GESTURE.

I'm very excited about working at the day center for the elderly.  I've been researching and collecting materials for workshops and found something that may be very suitable for them to make.  Actually, I got the inspiration from Tiina who posted about skeins of wool.  I saw many of the ladies doing beautiful knitting items in real size.  I'll try finding instructions for mini knittings somewhere in my stash.  Maybe we can make one like the one in the photo below. (I created it seven years ago for an exhibition that displayed the works of several Israeli miniaturists.)

Again, I wish you all a very happy Easter holiday with blessings!

Passover and Easter 2021

Hello dear readers,

We are right in the middle of our 7-days holiday, Pessah (Passover).  It is also the end of the first term in school with a 3-week holiday and we get to enjoy our young ones visits.  Although we still expect some rainy days, spring is here in full splendor.

I had a wonderful family Pessah dinner at my daughter Galia's home. I made little gifts for my beloved family members.

I made 6 of these bunnies in a nutshell tiny scenes.

At a local disposable dinnerware store, I found these transparent egg-shaped boxes which help keep the little scene dustfree.

I also made about a dozen flower arrangements in little blue clay vases. 

Another transparent box, the only shape left at the store but serves well as a dust cover.

Yesterday a new surprise Easter gift arrived from a very generous sweet blog friend.  It made me very happy.  As soon as I take photos, I'll post about it.

I wish all my Jewish friends a marvelous Passover and all my Christian friends a marvelous Easter!

Happy Holidays with blessings!

 

Volunteer work

Hello dear friends.

The daycare centers here for the elderly have reopened. Being an elderly person myself, I can understand the need to be busy and volunteered to work at one of the centers twice a week starting in April, after the Passover holiday. It will be good for me to have something I love to do. In the meantime, I am preparing a few workshop plans, considering that the center has a very limited budget for creative supplies.

I'm thinking about small attractive scenes that people love to make and receive as gifts. for example, stands.

This one only uses two pairs of chopsticks, two bamboo skewers, and acrylic paint.  It can be displayed for shoes or cakes, etc.

This stand is also made from scratch. Some pieces of wood scraps, a few thumbtacks, and acrylic paint. The baskets are very easy to make, especially the ones made from jute. The ladies I met are great knitters and also do very fine crochet works.  The gentlemen will be happy to do some wood cutting.

For the next few months this will be enough.  Later on, I hope I'll have more plans.  Any ideas for easy beginners miniature crafts will be very welcome.

After the long months of the epidemic enclosures, when it was impossible,  I managed to get a very nice maid to help me with the house chores.  Together we have been spring cleaning and throwing away tons of junk. She will be with me once a week and slowly the house will return to normal. I am also happy to see more of my family. The grandchildren seem to have grown up all at once.

There was very little time lately for minis except for visiting and enjoying the new posts in my favorite blogs. 

I wish you all good health and happy crafting with blessings and hugs.

The miniature shoe collection

 Hello dear readers,

Way back in the late sixties of the last century, when most of you were not yet born, my miniature shoe collection started. Those were the years when family members or friends returning from a trip abroad always brought little souvenirs back. My friends and family knew about my passion for r/l shoes,  so my gifts were souvenir miniature shoes from all over Europe.  Not wanting to offend the people who gifted them to me I displayed the shoes on a shelf. Those were also the times before online blogging, f/b, twitters, p/c smartphones, etc. There were only penpals from abroad with whom to swap hobbies and gifts. The penpals soon became good friends, some visited and stayed in our home here in Israel. Slowly and steadily more items from our own travels around the world were added to the collection, and it began to grow until it reached a monstrous number of hundreds of shoes most of them in pairs. 

A large part of the collection is now on permanent display in special glass cabinets. The rest kept in card boxes and hidden away.  Although I stopped collecting mini-shoes once there was no end to the variety, new and very cute ones still keep coming in.

Ten years ago I posted about this collection with more photos, (link below http://drorasminimundo.blogspot.com/2011/03/miniature-shoe-collection.html). I made one more shop facade for some of the hidden-away shoes. The shop is called in Hebrew "One small step"  I used a shallow wooden box for the interior and covered it with cardstock on which I glued self-made ceramic tiles, burned in my daughters' kiln. The faux windows and door are from craft sticks and bamboo skewers.

This is how it looks from the back. I glued on (to hide the check painting from the quarter part of the original wooden backgammon box and also to save scratches on the wall it hangs on.  This is also the way I usually add rooftops to the square boxes when I want the shops to look like country-style ones.

These are shoes from the display.

I wish to welcome all the new followers of this blog. Thank you for following.  If you have a blog please let me know so I can follow back.

Please take care of yourselves and stay safe and healthy.  Thank you for your visit and blessings!