My First Ceramic Sculpture

I've been taking ceramic classes, taught by my dear aunt, for the last few months. As a beginner, my first works were pretty simple - bowls, plates, mold casting... But in some point I decided that it's time to be creative for real, and to try to sculpt something. In my head I had a vision of a sculpture I've seen some time ago in a yard sale (sorry, I just can't recall the name of the artist!), and I used it as my inspiration. With a lot of help from my aunt, I managed to finally finish this sculpture (I worked really hard to finish it!), and now I'm in love with it, and it decorates our front porch.

Last one, promise... The back

Felted Wool Fairy

Long, long time ago I decided that I want to make wool fairies for the kids to hang above their beds. A few months ago I already found this wonderful tutorial for it (it's all in Hebrew, but the pictures are great, and you can use this tutorial even if you can't read Hebrew).

As always, it took me a long time to even start looking for wool, and when I finally found the time to start looking, I couldn't find it anywhere near where I live. Only after a month or so, I found myself in the city, and managed to find some.

For the beginning I only bought 4 colors (I learned to know myself quite well... I know that chances are I'll be super excited about it for one week and then forget all about it the next week), which turned out to be a bit of a problem when I began making the fairy, and realized I needed at least one more color to make it the way I wanted it to be, but I managed to finish it anyway somehow. The first fairy turned out a bit weird, but I kept working on it, changed the hair style about 2000 times, and finally compromised on a Japanese fairy.

The second one came out better, I think, prettier and more delicate. I decided to give her white hair instead of black, to give her more of a feminine look.

And both hanging together:

The kids loved them. My girl chose the Japanese one, and my boy took the other one. Now they're waiting for dad to hang them on the wall.

On Saturday the boy was invited to a birthday party of a girl from his kindergarten, and I decided to make her a fairy too. Here's her fairy:

Shopoholics Beware: Addictive Website!

A confession: I'm addicted to TaoBao.

TaoBao is sort of like the Chinese version to Ebay (only less auctions, more regular sales from stores and factories) and you can find anything there. And when I say anything, I mean ANYTHING, from the small items you didn't even know you need, to cars, plane tickets and even apartments. Everything goes really cheap, of course. It is China after all. The advantage of the website is that some factories sell directly to you goods that they couldn't sell for any reason, and so you don't have to pay any commission that you would have paid if it was a regular store. Some of the products are sold for so cheap, it's even cheap in Chinese standards. As I said - a real pleasure... I bought most of my crafting material through TaoBao - beads, yarn, fabrics, even polymer clay in 1 kg (around 2.2 lbs) packs. It feels a bit different than Fimo or Sculpey, and you definitely have to learn how to work with it, but when 1 kg costs around $4, who cares?!

And we get to the catch (there must be a catch:)) - The website is all in Chinese and some of the stores won't deliver if you're not in China. But that is a minor problem, and a real shopoholic won't let it stop him (or her:)). I have a few friends who can't speak a word in Chinese, but managed to order some items.

This is a website that explains in plain English about TaoBao and how to use it, and it can really help you if you want to try TaoBao. Regarding the payment - this website claims that the only way to order if you're out of China is through a TaoBao agent, but that is simply not true - you can definitely pay by yourself. You just need to ask the store for their bank account details, and to transfer the money directly to them. The disadvantage of this method is that you can't use Alipay, which is the Chinese Pay-Pal. Another, safer, way to pay if you're not in China - Ask around to check if someone you know is going to China, then ask them to go to the post office there and to deposit money for you (promise them you'll order something for them in return...).

Enjoy your shopping spree!

Card Box

My little one enjoys toys involving putting things through, like sorting boxes and the like, so I decided to make something for her. I used an empty box of dishwasher tablets and covered it (by so called scrapboxing...). Then I cut a straight line, the length of a credit card, on top, and here it is:

Then I took some old cards (like credit cards, membership cards... I promise you that if you just open up your wallet, you'll find at least 3 cards that expired over 2 years ago) and painted them on both sides using primer.

Here comes the fun part - I waited for them to dry completely, then gave them to the kids, who painted them on both sides. After they dried we applied lacquer and it's ready!

I knew the little one would be thrilled, but I didn't expect my older one (he's already 4 years old) to enjoy it that much. They use the box as a ticket box before boarding an airplane, and they put the cards through in order to fly around the world.

Disposable plates faces

I've been trying for ages to get rid of at least some of the boxes filled with empty toilet paper rolls, eggs cartons, plastic bags etc., and so I decided to do something with the disposable plates we got somewhere. The kids lightly abused them, and they carried small scars... While we were at it, we continued with the "Destroy the Eggs Cartons Operation" and the kids glued (they love gluing so much!) a nose made of a piece of eggs carton, hair made of yarn and eyes. They also painted a mouth, and voila! Now all we have to do is connect a piece of yarn from behind, so that we can hang these faces up on the wall.

And more about felt...

As I wrote in the last post, I really like working with felt. I think felt is an underestimated material, and you can use it for many many different works. Take this beautiful pillowcase, for example. Or this tutorial for felt crayon roll or these amazing pendant lamps, not to mention the wet felting technique, but we'll talk about it some other time. As I said - fun!

I chose a simple shirt that I bought for my little girl, and began decorating it using felt. I sewed a girl in front and on the back, and here it is:

Front...

...and back

And, of course, when my boy saw it, he wanted one too (and of course I was planning to make one for him anyway). But as he's the older one, he also had demands for it. I got a detailed instructions sheet, that had in it a request for a boy ("but not me") in a hot air balloon and clouds. I won't exhaust you with the smallest details (and we're talking about a 4 year-old boy), but here's what I made, to his satisfaction.

Old greeting cards

I was just searching through my computer, when I suddenly found these two old greeting cards that I totally forgot about. The first one was a birthday card for a boy that celebrated his birthday then, and the other was for friends that just had a girl (the girl, by the way, is two and a half now and waiting for a new sister...). I used felt to make both cards (I was going through a 'felt phase' back then) and looking at them now reminded me how much I love this material.

Mirror for the kids' play room

I often find myself choose really tiring, long and monotonous tasks. Probably something to do with my genes... Here's a classic example.

I've been trying to find a cute mirror for the kids' play room for a long time, but all I could find was either too sweet and childish or simple and unexceptional. I wanted something happy and colorful, but not too childish, so I decided to do it by myself.

I really love the sixties. Sometimes I wonder if I were born in the wrong decade. I have a feeling that if I were born in the sixties, I'd have more fun (on the other hand, I would be around 60 years old now...). I love almost everything about the sixties - the fashion, the colors, the feeling of freedom, the music. Everything (except for the wars, of course, but we still have wars these days as well...). So I decided to implement this happy decade on the new (and cheap) mirror I bought in Ikea.



I worked with Tulip 3D paint with black marker in between to define the colors. It took me about a week, night after night in front of the TV, but finally, I'm done! I still need to apply lacquer, but I just had to show you the pictures.

A close look...

And closer...

Welcome to The Crafeteria

I'm in my thirties, and it seemed like a good time to start enjoying life.

In the last decade or so I tried to find myself here, there and everywhere, and finally decided to actually find myself, and what do you know, apparently out of all the things I could do, I love crafting the best. So I decided to try and do something with this love for crafts, and that's how The Crafeteria was born.

As I'm not the most focused person you could find, I'm constantly trying different kinds of crafts, and you're going to enjoy it. In this website I'm going to try out various crafts - knitting, crochet, sewing, ceramic & pottery, felting, building with cardboard, crafting with kids and more.

So I'm going to have here pictures, tutorials, inspirations, links, stories and at some points products for sale.

I'd love to hear your ideas and comments, so please  feel free to contact me at:

tal@the-crafeteria.com