Guest Post - Yael from Derech Hayetsira

Hi Everyone!

I'm Yael from the Israeli blog Derech Hayetsira.
I started my blog about a year ago, when I began crafting again (mostly cards) during my maternity leave. On my blog I post about activities with kids (I have three adorable kids), interesting events and of course, my projects.
I enjoy Tal's blog and proud to be her guest.
Today I made a card for a new baby using the Paper Piecing Technique.

First, I chose a cardstock to be the base for my card.

Then I folded it in the middle (I want to write inside).

I drew a stork on a piece of white paper.

        Then I chose some nice cardstocks and papers for the different parts of the stork (I chose solid papers, because my background is a bit busy).

         I copied the different parts on the papers I chose (on the wrong side).

Pay attention to the direction of the stork, it's important to copy all parts in the same direction.

Cut all the parts of the stork.

I glued all the parts together and drew around with a black pen (I think I should have used a thicker pen).

I used thick double sided tape for the eye.

Here's my card -

Congrats!

Yaelush

Inspiration for Hanukkah and a quick menorah tutorial

Sharon from the sweet Israeli blog Gonna Be 40 invited me to write a Hannukah post for the 8 days of miracles series she has on her blog.

Since the original post is all in Hebrew, I translated it for you, and here it is in English...

So we're still licking our wounds from the huge summer vacation (plus almost another month of holidays for Rosh Hashana, that we had here in Israel), and now Hanukkah is knocking on our door. If you celebrate Hanukkah, I guess you also find yourself hosting a lot these days. Almost every day we have guests over – our friends, friends of the kiddos, family, neighbors – and we light candles in our 342 Hanukkah Menorah's (the kids are making maybe 100 of them every year!!!) and eat latkes and Hanukkah doughnuts. So to help you have the most amazing Hanukkah party, here's a round-up of some great Hanukkah ideas.

Oh, and how can you have a Hanukkah without a DIY menorah?… Scroll down to see an easy tutorial for a natural menorah.

 

So any good party needs some nice decorations, right? On the blog Style at Home you can find a cute tutorial for dreidel garland. Anyone said Christmas?…

And if you want to involve the kids in all the preparations, you can have them make these great dreidel paper dolls from the blog Bringing Chesed Home.

If you want your Hanukkah to look a bit like Christmas, here's a beautiful Hanukkah tree!

The Etsy shop FrogPrincePaperie offers DIY Hanukkah printables. The set includes a banner, cupcake toppers, cupcake wraps, dreidel boxes, food labels and more.

The most important moment of any Hanukkah party is the lighting of the menorah, of course. From all the menoras I've seen online, this one, from Aunt Peaches, is my favorite! I'm definitely making one this year!

For the snacks you can make marshmallow dreidels…

And even Hanukkah gelts (these cute chocolate coins), like the ones on Oh Nuts.

And you will need something to hold these coins. How about these dreidel boxes from Martha Stewart?

If you need more ideas, take a look at my Hanukkah Pinterest board.

Now, like I promised, a menorah tutorial.

The whole idea about this menorah is to look around you and use stuff that you can find in your surrounding. You can also follow my steps below, but feel free to go wild!

Search for a nice, straight branch. If it has a section taller than the other, it's even better, this is where your Shamash will go.

You can leave your menorah natural or paint it. My son wanted a colorful one, so we painted… You can use spray paint or acrylics.

Just like that -

Now find a pine cone, try to find one with scales open. Again, you can choose if to paint or leave it that way. If you decided to paint, you can paint now or after you disintegrate the scales (I'm lazy, so I painted before disintegrating it…).

Disintegrate the scales.

Assembly time. Use hot glue gun to glue 3 scales at a time in a flowery shape. Make 8 of these plus one Shamash.

In the center of each flower, glue a small, simple, candle holder.

That's it, your menorah is ready!

Happy Holidays!

My Menorah Tutorial is on Sugar Bee Crafts!

Do you know the awsome blog Sugar Bee Crafts? Well, if you don't, make sure to check it out n-o-w! It's one of the best crafty, DIY blogs out there!

And while you're there... I'd love you to check out my menorah tutorial for Hanukkah...

Rainy Day Chalkboard Tutorial - Guest Posting at Plucky's Second Thought

Can't remember whether I told you or not, but I'm Plucky's Second Thought new DIY contributor. If you don't know Plucky's blog, you should check it out - she has great tutorials, blogging tips, recipes and more cool stuff.

My first post there is a tutorial for a cute chalkboard that you can easily make. Check it out here.

I'm Guest Posting Over at Someday Crafts!

I'm so excited, I love Someday Crafts and I'm guest posting there today! Come and check out my easy Fabric Covered Decorative Letters Tutorial!

Guest Post - The Paper Vine. DIY Key Chain Tutorial

Hello, The Crafeteria Readers! My name is Michelle, and I write a DIY/Memory Keeping Blog over at The Paper Vine. I'm excited to start the weekend by sharing a fun, quick, and easy project with you all! Today we are going to be creating a DIY Key Chain. The process is very simple and doesn't take much time at all - perfect for a rainy afternoon or last minute gift! Let's get to it, shall we?

 
Here are all the materials you will need: - Thin Chipboard - Mod Podge - Sponge Brush - Key Ring - Two Designs (2" square) - Scissors - 3 hole punch
1. Size, Cut, Decorate Decide the size of your key chain. A typical size is 2"x2", but you can make it any size you'd like. Measure and cut the chipboard and pictures or paper. I was making several, so I used pictures for some, bible verses for some, and decorative paper for the rest! Scrapbook paper as well as wrapping paper are great items to use! The pictures and verses didn't need any extra decoration. However, on the scrapbook paper I added a monogram in the middle.

 
 2. Glue Glue your design to the chipboard. After it dries, paint a thin layer of Mod Podge on top of your picture. Make sure the coat is even! This top layer acts as a protectant to the design, and helps the key chain to last longer. Let dry for 15 minutes. Use your second design and repeat the process on the back of the chipboard.


  3. Punch Holes Using a 3 hole punch, punch one hole along the top and in the center. Be careful to make sure your hole is far enough down that it doesn't get cut off by the edge of the chipboard!


4. Attach & Share Attach your key ring to your new key chain! Wasn't that easy? You now have an adorable, personalized key chain for you or for someone you love!


These Key Chains would make precious gifts for family members or even a perfect addition to care packages and gift baskets! If you're already thinking about Christmas, these would make great stocking stuffers! My favorite use is to add the key chain as a decoration to a gift package! Thanks for reading, and I've enjoy spending my Saturday morning with you! Michelle

Guest Post - Small Apartments in the Big City

Today on The Crafeteria please welcome Yonit, an interior design from the Israeli blog Small Apartments in the Big City. Yonit and her photographer, Avivit, designed, renovated, upgraded and basically just completely renewed Neta's (Avivit's daughter) room. Look how pretty it turned out (and if you want to guest post on The Crafeteria, please email me!) -

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Hi all!

When Avivit, my photographer, talked to me about Neta's (her daughter) room, I immediately accepted the challenge. Avivit is so creative, she always has these cool ideas for locations and shooting angles. Neta, her 4 year old daughter, is also special herself. Totally adorable. And add to all that Omer, their man, who is a great handyman. Well, What is there to talk about? Off we go!

So here's where we started it all: a room packed with furniture, toys, decorations and a lot of mess.

Before you begin re-designing a room, you have to organize it first. Each family usually has someone that hoards and someone that throws. I won't tell you who is which in this family, but let's just say that they all were very efficient and managed together to cut in half (!) the stuff in the room. The things we kept we placed in a big closet and a shelving unit with boxes and changed Neta's bed to a big girl's bed.

On the wall, like in painting, we also needed a clean, white canvas to work on. So we removed the wall decals and painted the room white.

We wandered around in the fabric streets of Tel Aviv and bought some fabrics we liked. Later on we made from them a bed cover, pillows and curtains, with the help of Daniel Gur Schwartz, and Omer helped with the last stitches. In Tel Aviv we also found some wall paper leftovers and used them to make a wall border with a ruler and an X-Acto knife.

We also found out that in this family the cobbler's shoes are never fixed - Neta has so many beautiful photos and no photo album! So we decided to fix that - we sprayed paint on Ikea frames and hung three pictures of her on the wall. We also added a rug and... that's it, here's how it looks now:

Neta was happy to help with the accessories...

 

Designing Neta's room became a family experience, in which each one contributed his talents and abilities. We had a great time and hope you also like the result :)

My Facebook page is Yonit Stern - Designing Little Apartments in the Big City.

Thank you so much for having me on The Crafeteria! It is definitely the place to get more inspiration...

Come Visit Me...

I'm over at one of my favorite blogs (that has one of the cutest names ever) today , Sumo's Sweet Stuff. Come visit me there (and stay for a while, because it is really a great blog).

Guest Blogger - At the Lake. French Toast Casserole

My friend Regina from At the Lake is here today with a recipe that I just have to try for a French Toast Casserole. Enjoy!
(and if you want to guest post too, please email me!)
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Hi everyone. I am Regina from At the Lake. I am so excited to be here with you and share one of my favorite recipes. My husband and I have the marvelous good fortune to live in and operate a Bed and Breakfast on an amazing piece of property on the banks of Lake Bridgeport in Texas.

It is really important to me that our breakfast offerings include some things that you don’t get at home every day. So, our menu includes things like Danish Aebleskivers which are a ball shaped pancake, homemade syrups including a Caramel syrup, berry syrups and a peanut butter syrup.
But the real specialty of the house is our baked French Toast Casserole. I first came across this recipe (I think it was on allrecipes.com) about 4 years ago. Every year we have friends and family over for Christmas breakfast. It is an opportunity to share that special day with those who are near and dear to us and who may not have family around that they can spend the day with. I first served this casserole for one of those Christmas breakfasts. It was a huge hit.

We get more requests for this than for anything else on the menu, especially after someone has seen the reviews online from other guests.
So, sit back, relax and enjoy as I share our Baked French Toast Casserole. This makes a 9 x 13 size casserole.

Ingredients:
1 (1 pound) loaf of French Bread, cut into ½ inch cubes
8 eggs
2 cups milk
1 ½ cups half and half cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Topping:
¾ cup butter
1 1/3 cups brown sugar
3 Tablespoons light corn syrup
The night before:

1. Place the bread cubes in a 9 x 13 glass baking dish that has been coated with butter or a non-stick cooking spray. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, milk, cream, vanilla and cinnamon. Pour the egg/milk solution over the bread cubes.

I like to take a fork and push down any pieces of bread that might not be immersed in the liquid. I want each piece to soak in this deliciousness.

Cover the dish with plastic wrap or tin foil (I prefer the plastic wrap) and place in the refrigerator overnight.

2. In the morning, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Remove the casserole from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.

3. In a small sauce pan, combine the butter, brown sugar and corn syrup. Heat it until it is bubbling. Pour it over the bread / egg mixture. Again, I like to make sure that the entire top is covered with this caramel mixture. So, pour it on slowly and work at covering all of the bread.

4. Bake it in the preheated oven, uncovered, for 40 minutes. I strongly recommend that you place a baking sheet under it as it tends to overflow as it cooks. The pan will wash up very easily, but, if you wanted, you could cover it with tin foil.

When you remove it from the oven, it will have puffed up, but as it cools, it tends to go down a bit.

Sometimes we only have 2 guests for breakfasts and a 9 x 13 is too much. However, I will say that it reheats amazingly in the microwave. But, for those days that I don’t need that much, I have reduced the recipe so that I can make a single serving or a casserole for 2 (actually, much more than 2 can eat). When I have couples, I usually make it in my heart shaped pan.

This is good enough that you don’t have to put anything on it. However, you can add syrup, butter, or both. Many of our guests like to try it with one of our homemade syrups, such as Buttermilk Caramel Syrup (borrowed from Kara at Kara’s Creations). Another popular syrup is our strawberry or raspberry syrup, depending upon which fruit I have on hand.
I hope you enjoyed the recipe. It is certainly a favorite at our house and quickly becomes a favorite for anyone that tries it.
Let me know how you like it and what your favorite topping is, if you choose to put a topping on it.

Thanks again for visiting with me today. And thank you Tal for having me as a guest on your blog.