It's a Mitzvah!

Maybe your child brought home a brightly colored tzedekah box s/he decorated at Hebrew School or summer camp, or received as a favor at a bar or bat mitzvah. If you had 'crafty project envy' when you saw that beautiful glossy box and festive stickers, fear not! With Giving Arts/Creative Judaica Kits "Tzedekah Village" kits, charity boxes aren't 'just for kids' anymore. Alter one of these beautiful folded boxes to suit your own style, choose your cause, and feel inspired to give and give again. Then when you're finished with your box -- think about all of the other uses you can come up with for the leftover stickers. Scrapbook pages, greeting cards, calendar pages...your imagination's the limit!

The boxes created by designers at Jewish-Scrapbooking.com varied as much as the ladies who created them...

For Debby, who lives in Israel, the Israel-themed stickers caught her eye, and her finished box has a decidedly patriotic theme.

 

 Jessica Barnett's boys live in a cowboy-themed room, which inspired a thoroughly Western design for her tzedekah house..and check out the beautiful dog and kitty in the window, taken from one of the kit's stickers.

 

  Lynn Anne Cutler didn't know where to begin - one plain white box, so many ideas!  So she began with a couple of embellishments she'd been itching to play with - Krylon's chalkboard paint and a box of Rainbow Tape - and played up the vibrantly colored stickers with lots of contrast and a global, tikkun olam design.

 

 

 

Visit our Sponsor Spotlight gallery for more design ideas, including different color and decor ideas, and a design sure to delight flower-lovers.  

But that's not all...the beautiful stickers, which are words and phrases in English and Hebrew in rectangles shaped like labels, plus some larger (and smaller) artistic images, lend themselves to other papercrafts as well. 

Rachel found the text stickers and tiny square image stickers to be the perfect size to 'label' and embellish the map that serves as the title page for an album dedicated to her family's recent visit to Israel.

Julie Gelfand created a sticker border on a layout that will help her daughter remember the days when they gave tzedekah directly to Jerry Lewis for his children's charities.

 

 

 For something a little different, Lisa Spiegel created a Tikkun Olam journal for her daughter, using one beautiful sticker as the cover's central image,  and more for each of the tabs on the album's pages.

 

 

For more ideas, visit our Creative Judaica Kits Sponsor Spotlight Gallery , where you'll even find some projects created by our very special 'guest designers' working alongside their designer Moms.  Check in at our forum , too, where you'll find a chance to win a kit of your very own later this week!

Creative Judaica Kits retail for $9.95 at their website , and include one alterable box, two sheets of stickers (one Judaic and one universal), a product guide and decorating ideas, and a donation record card. Bulk packages are available for party favors and classroom use, and there's even a fundraiser program for your favorite mitzvah-conscious group. Items included in the kit may also be purchased separately, in quantity. Many thanks to MIchele and the Creative Judaica Kit Company for allowing our team to unleash our creativity on these mitzvah-minded kits - we had a blast working with them, and they're sure to get good use!

 

Winning Cards!

Voting in our "Chanukah in July" card contest ran so close that it ended in a two-way tie, and we ended up with two winners!

(Thanks a million to Stamping Bella for providing prizes for both!)



"This is what happens when I make a Hanukkah card in the summer," boysmom says of her aptly named "Colorful Hanukkah Card" (featuring a stamped sentiment from Club Scrap's Hanukkah kit).



Front and center on Maya's elegant "Hag Sameah" card is a handmade dreidel - we loved the beautiful detail and addition of the tiny vellum envelope.



Congratulations to our winners on these beautiful creations, and thank you for sharing your inspiration with us!

Toda Raba!

A great big TODA RABA to Shalom Scrapper for sponsoring our designers' work over the past two months, as our inaugural Design Team Sponsor company.


To'da Ra'ba by Julie Gelfand

The team has enjoyed the quality of the product and had fun creating cards, pages, and other projects for a variety of holidays, events, and occasions - including everyday memories. And in a world filled with Christmas-and-Easter paper products, it's SO nice to find a company brimming with nothing but designs celebrating a Jewish life!


Teacher Thank-You cards by Rachel Myerson

The softer, feminine colors of Shalom Scrapper's bat mitzvah designs, combined with easy-breezy die cut designs, make for memorable cards for this most special simcha!


Bat Mitzvah card by Lisa Spiegel

Bat Mitzvah card by Debby Avraham

This glittery "Apples and Honey" card by Jessica Barnett, featuring a Shalom Scrapper die cut design, has us thinking ahead to this year's Rosh Hashanah cards. So sweet!


Apples and Honey card by Jessica Barnett

To see different projects created by the team this month, head on over to our Member Gallery and click on 'Shalom Scrapper' to see more ideas. And to take a look at the entire line of Shalom Scrapper papers and die cuts, follow this link to Shalom Scrapper's homepage.

Next up: Chanukah in July! Stay tuned!

Design Team Takes on Passover

Our designers have been working on Passover projects inspired by both their holiday photos and the beautiful Judaic scrapbooking supplies available from our current website sponsor, Shalom Scrapper. Visit our home page to read about their holiday layouts, then skip on over to the Shalom Scrapper Sponsor Spotlight Gallery for more projects (and more in-depth information on the pieces highlighted in the article!)

Jewish Thoughts for Mothers' Day

Happy Mothers' Day from Jewish-Scrapbooking.com!

In honor of the holiday, we thought we'd take a minute to share a couple of Jewish thoughts on MOMS! Enjoy on their own, or enjoy them on your own Mothers' day scrapbook pages or projects.

From Jewish proverbs...

"God could not be everywhere, so he invented mothers."

"A Mother understands what a child does not say."

Thoughts from a couple of Jews of note...

If evolution really works,

how come mothers only have two hands?
~Milton Berle

"My mother could make anybody feel guilty -

she used to get letters of apology from people she didn't even know."

~ Joan Rivers

...and a famous scriptural thought :)

A woman of valor, who can find?

Far beyond pearls is her value.

Her husband's heart trusts in her and he shall lack no fortune.

She repays his good, but never his harm, all the days of her life.

She seeks out wool and linen, and her hands work willingly,

She is like a merchant's ships; from afar she brings her sustenance.

She rises while it is still nighttime,

and gives food to her household and a ration to her maids.

She considers a field and buys it;

from the fruit of her handiwork she plants a vineyard.

She girds her loins with might and strengthens her arms.

She senses that her enterprise is good, so her lamp is not extinguished at night.

She puts her hand to the distaff, and her palms support the spindle.

She spreads out her palm to the poor and extends her hands to the destitute.

She fears not snow for her household, for her entire household is clothed with scarlet wool. Bedspreads she makes herself; linen and purple wool are her clothing.

Well-known at the gates is her husband as he sits with the elders of the land.

Garments she makes and sells, and she delivers a belt to the peddler.

Strength and splendor are her clothing, and smilingly she awaits her last day.

She opens her mouth with Wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

She anticipates the needs of her household, and the bread of idleness, she does not eat.

Her children rise and celebrate her;

and her husband, he praises her:

"Many daughters have attained valor, but you have surpassed them all."

False is grace, and vain is beauty;

a God-fearing woman, she should be praised.

Give her the fruit of her hands, and she will be praised at the gates by her very own deeds.

Proverbs 31:10-31

Check back after the weekend for some inspiration for scrapping photos from your family's Passover celebrations!

Shalom Scrapper: Passover Products, SALE and Contest Info!

Shalom Scrapper offers beautiful patterned papers and die cuts made just right for Jewish papercraft projects. Designs range from general Judaic symbols, such as Stars of David, to themed patterns for a number of Jewish holidays and celebrations.

Passover-specific Seder and Afikomen-hunting die cuts (images above and below) are the perfect size for page titles or title pages.

Double-sided 12"x12" patterned papers include matzah, 'Passover tradition' and a matzoh-ball-soup pattern asking, "Why is this night different from all others?" - each with a coordinating pattern on the reverse side.

All papers and die cuts are acid- and lignin-free, and created from hefty 65-lb weight papers.

Check out additional die cuts perfect for your Pesach projects, including 1" Hebrew letters (three of each letter in an alef-bet pack) and several styles of Star of David. The full product line can be found on the Shalom Scrapper website.

Also, check out their PASSOVER SALE: take 20% off your entire order (before taxes and shipping costs) through April 30 when you enter discount code SEDER at checkout.

AND...find out how YOU can win a SHALOM SCRAPPER THEMED PAPER PACK of your choice by following this link:

http://jewish-scrapbooking.com/forums/index.php?topic=321.0

Enjoy!

Our Talented New First-Ever Design Team!

I have to be completely unoriginal, and tell you that there were way more applicants we'd have liked to have on our team than we were able to choose this time around. We had applications from around the globe...from Jewish ladies ranging in observance from secular to completely frum...from non-Jewish ladies with a huge variety of family connections to Judaism...from published artists to ladies who made ours their very first design team application ever. We were so honored and blown away by everyone who took the time and effort to complete our application process and share their work with us. THANK YOU!

The papercrafters we did choose for our inaugural team are all talented (I guess that would be a given ), and we also feel are a good 'mix' of everything from different relationships to Judaism to different styles and crafting strengths and preferences (cards, scrapbooking, altered items, digital/paper...). We hope they enjoy working with us in our seminal year, and that they bring great inspiration to the Jewish papercrafting community through their involvement here.

Please join me in welcoming...


Debby Avraham (Debby66), Israel
Lisa Spiegel (scrapmama), California
Rachel Myerson (boysmom), Pennsylvania
Jessica Barnett (jesslcooper), Arizona
Julie Gelfand (scrappinjuls), California

More information about our designers will be posted on our homepage in the next few weeks, and it won't be long until their first Design Team projects hit the gallery. Stay tuned!