Hello dear readers,

After an unexpected absence of a few weeks from this blog, I am back with you. 

My faithful but very old Mac computer was infected with dangerous viruses. I didn't trust myself to work on it or contact friends through it in order not to transfer the risk to other computers. being the last woman who considers herself  a computer technologist, and because of the risk I also was afraid of saving data to a disk-on-key. 

In the end the computer was sent for repair but it was too late to save it. Fortunately, my eldest grandson helped me purchase a new computer. My genius 18 year old great-grandson was the one who assembled it for me at home. In the meantime, an expert tried to save the data, but a large part was lost, including the addresses of friends and some very important photos.

Now I have to practice and get used to the, fully protected new (Sadly, not an expensive Mac), but a reliable computer with Windows 10. It takes me time to load photos and find where exactly they are in order to transfer them to the blog. The lesson I learned and shall hopefully remind is to save my data every few months.

I already visited some of your blogs and left a (safe) short comment.  I shall visit the rest of my favorite blogs and leave comments as soon as possible.

Does anyone remember this pizza savers potion table?

I have a new "waste to best" idea for these throwaway pieces.  Below are my photos of round and corner ones.

We'll be celebrating our Hebrew New Year at the end of this week and I'm busy preparing miniature gifts for the family.  I'll show these in my next post, after the holiday.

I wish all my Jewish blog friends a HAPPY NEW YEAR!  I wish a wonderful crafty rest of the week to all my readers with hugs and blessings.

 Dear readers

It's me, Baalatova. Believe me, it wasn't me who sent the terrible heat wave that suppresses any desire to create something new to be shown here. I do everything in my power to make Drora work. She just finished reading a stack of books, practiced playing the electric organ, received a heap of plastic vials collected by the women at the day center, and will finally start to make something out of them.

I took care of the air conditioner.  It works full-time, and because of my spells, there is no electricity cut off in our area. As you see, Solly and Kitty are in my good hands. They don't complain about the heat like my lazy Drora.

My advice to you all is to spend as little as possible time outdoors, keep cool, and don't forget to drink enough water.

Have a pleasant weekend with blessings.

tutorial for making a urn planter.

 Hello dear readers

Before I'll let you know who the winner is I'll show you how easy it is to make these planters with one of the most common household items.

Materials and tools:

Tools are what you see in the photo.

Materials: A small bottle of eye drops or vitamin D drops. Narrow trimmings or lace. 

Tucky glue, Acrylic paint of your choice. A narrow masking tape for covering the rough edges of the brim. 

I'm keeping the other parts of the bottle to see what can be done with them.  

To enable the trimming will stay firmly glued on plastic,  the brim has to be covered with masking tape.

A piece of lace is glued to the urn in the middle.  I wonder what it will look like after being painted. 

All three will be painted after the glue is completely dry.

I used materials that I had at hand for embellishing this part of the bottles. I ordered a silicone mold from Aliexpress. I hope to get it soon so I can make more versions.  The people at the Center were excited to see the first urn and started bringing all kinds and sizes of empty plastic medicine containers. I'm sure they can help me to decorate the bottles.

Not surprisingly, several comments were very close to the solution. The winner was the first with her comment. (Freethinker please contact me by email, at drorahed@gmail.com). 

Thank you for your much-appreciated and most welcomed comments.  

This is a list of participants in my second giveaway draw. The winner can choose one of the planters shown above after I make a slight change by gluing the plants inside the containers. 

1. Jodi, 2 Anisnofla. 3. Jenevieve. 4. Ram. 5. Betsy. 6. Alex. 7. Birgit. 8. Isabel. 9. Brigett.10. Brit. 11. Amary. 12. Gonda. 13. Marian 14. Fabiola. 15. Sheila.

Congratulations, dear Ram.  

I wish all my readers a lovely weekend with blessings.

New Giveaway

Hello dear readers,

Making miniatures out of waste material is one of my favorite pastimes.  I realized that for a very long time, I didn't make a giveaway, so I'm using my Birthday (4, June) to make one.

This little flower planter urn in the photo below, is my latest "best out of waste." creation. The first follower of this blog to guess what the urn is made of will get it, if no one makes the right guess I'll just riffle it between all your comments, or make a new one for the riffle.  I hope you like it.   

This little pipe cleaner kitten tries to jump up to smell the flowers.....

The time for comments is from today until 15 June 2023.  

I wish you all, dear readers, a lovely creative week.

 

A garden for Solly and Kitty (Final)

Hello dear readers,

The garden project took a long time to be completed.  Everything you see in it is made from scratch except Rosa's beautiful birds in the bath and Jodi's lovely little birdhouse (On the tallest fence post), a gift that inspired me to make more birdhouses.

 

The garden between Kitty's and Solly's houses.

The garden on Solly's lefthand side.

The garden on Kitty's righthand side.

Kitty:  I think the garden is a wee bit too small for us.

Solly:  At least we can admire the view and smell the heavenly perfume of the flowers.

Kitty:  Let's ask Baalatova if she can shrink us to fit Drora's bench.

Baalatova: 

 No way! There is plenty of room in my roof garden where you can come and play                                    Drora should better be careful or I shall shrink her if she miscalculates garden sizes again.

                    Meanwhile, enjoy the view from your windows.

      I wish you all a lovely weekend with blessings.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

A garden for Solly and Kitty (Part 4)

 Hello dear readers,

It doesn't show much progress, but considering the Pessah holiday, family visits, and an important birthday (Dana, one of my five beloved great-granddaughters turned 17), there was not much time left for crafting.

The fence had a makeover.  It is now painted white with three taller strips of wood, two to accommodate birdhouses and one ready for ivy climbers.  The third birdhouse just sits on the fence itself.  (I got carried away and made several shapes of birdhouses from scratch.  The shrubs are awaiting flowers and a little blossoming tree is also almost finished and ready to be planted.  

Making the bench was very easy. I just glued together two square identical laser woodcuts. When dry I glued these to a piece of 1.3 cm thick, 2.5 cm wide long piece of wood.  The only hard work was cutting it to fit the size of the laser cuts. The sides too are triangle laser cuts which were in my stash. For the legs, I used 4 little wooden beads. Now I have to make a flat padded cushion for the seat so my witch Baalatova will approve it.

Here is a photo of the tree.  The flowers are just for demonstration.  They seem too large for the proportion of the garden which is about 1/24" scale.

Well, that's all for now.  I have to get myself ready to go out and celebrate with my family our 75th Independence Day. 

Happy Independence Day Israel to all my local friends with blessings to all my dear readers!

A garden for Solly and Kitty (Part 3)

 Hello dear readers,

As I mentioned before, this project is a slow-go one.  Making tiny-tiny star flower cushions is time-consuming. especially when they refuse to stick to the foam cushions. Using the smallest 6-flower shapes punch I own, I punched out hundreds of tiny flowers from thin colored paper, then I shaped them one by one. This is how they look at the end.  I have not glued the cushions to the grass circle.  I find this one too large for the small garden.  I'll make a smaller one and see if it's better.

  

 

The windows are finally fixed permanently on the walls.

The two new window boxes are out of popsicle sticks with a piece of metal jewelry finding decoration.

Still to make a bench and many more other flowers,  The fence in the photo will be replaced by another much higher one.

Hoping to be able to show more progress next post, I wish you all, dear readers and friends, a lovely spring weekend with blessings.

A garden for Solly and Kitty (Part 2)

 Hello dear readers

Since the outdoor walls of the two homes will be part of the garden, I decided to make a faux window facing the garden for each home.  I made 2 identical windows for each home one for indoors and the other for outside. It involved sawing pieces of wood strips, a job that I try to avoid, and the result is not perfect, but good enough for these humble structures.

For the windows' flower boxes, I followed my own pansies tutorial, https://drorasminimundo.blogspot.com/2017/03/pansies-tutorial.html but needed a smaller butterfly punch which I was unable to find, so I used instead a 1/24" Punch Bunch leaf one that makes a reasonable butterfly if you cut the tiny piece that connexed the leaf to the branch.

The box is made out of one popsicle stick and a piece of metal jewelry find for decoration.

I hope to be able to show more progress next week.

I wish\you all a lovely weekend with blessings

A garden for Solly and Kitty

Hello dear readers,

Finally, I found time to start a small garden.  It will be a slow project as I want this garden to be filled with colorful flowers, and making tiny paper flowers is a time-consuming job.

The first thing I made was a birdbath.  There were waiting to be used, these two beautiful tiny birds made by Rosa Maria that were gifted to me a few months ago.  Nothing is glued together yet.

I made a fence from recycled bamboo cocktail forks.  Will be painted when I'll decide on a suitable color. 

I hope to be able to show progress in my next post.

For a change, the Israel post behaved nicely and a new parcel from dear Rosa arrived on time, making me super happy. Everything Rosa makes is exquisite. I was overwhelmed seeing this lovely composition. I put a match in front of it so you can note how tiny the little angel is.

 

And Rosa, being the generous lady she is, added three more gorgeous handmade treasures.

THANK YOU DEAR ROSA FOR YOUR BEAUTIFUL GIFTS AND, MOST OF ALL FOR YOUR FRIENDSHIP.

I wish you all my dear readers and friends a lovely weekend with blessings.

Egg-carton pots, Pansies, and the feast of Purim

 Hello dear readers,

At the Daycare Center for the Elderly, I'm helping make miniature flower pots as "Thank you" gifts for the wonderful, kind, and dedicated members of the staff. These gifts have to be ready for the giveaway on Purim.  11 out of about 20 little flower pots are almost ready.  There are only 3 days of work at the center before Purim and a lot to be accomplished.  Making kits at home consumes a great deal of my time.  

To make the flower heads I followed my own tutorial  (https://drorasminimundo.blogspot.com/2017/03/pansies-tutorial.html)

This is a sample of what each kit contains. Before assembling the flowers and leaves cut-outs they have to receive a second touch of paint.

Purim is a cheerful Jewish feast in memory of the liberation of the Jewish people in ancient Persia.  The Scroll of Esther in the Bible tells the story of Purim.  Traditionally it's a fun time for carnivals and masquerades, sending sweet treats to the poor, and most importantly, reading the Scroll of Esther aloud.

Baalatova:

Drora is in bed now so I can openly express my opinion about the Israel Post authorities. They employ stupid morons. One of these morons wrote by hand, in bold letters, and in Hebrew "לא נדרש" (In English it means "not been claimed"). How on earth could it be claimed if they didn't notify Drora that the parcel arrived? Only after about THREE months and a thorough investigation, the parcel was found. I am furious!!

Solly:

Please, Baalatova, Don't put a spell on the Iaraeli Post Authorities, just make them more efficient in the future. Let me look again at what my dear mum Birgit sent.  I love the beautiful glass bird and hope Drora will find an excellent place to display it.  Oh, look Baalatova, the delicious marzipan, and chocolates disappeared already.

Baalatova

Don't worry my dear boy, these delicious, luckily still edible, treats have not completely disappeared, they are safely hidden on Drora's hips. Personally, I prefer a warm bowl of calorie-free eyeball soup.  

BTW, I'm confiscating the lunchbox. It will serve as a safe for my spell books and other witchy items.

DEAR BIRGIT

Baalatova,  Solly, and Drora thank you from the bottom of their heart, for your gifts, your patience, and most of all for being our friends.

For Valentine' Day, Dana, my sweet (already 17 years old) great-granddaughter gifted me a packet of edible miniatures - adorable tiny bunny chocolates.  These too, have long ago disappeared to "safety on my hips".

I wish you all, dear readers, a pleasant weekend with blessings.