Passover Exodus

I hope everyone had a wonderful Passover and that your seders were filled with family, fun and lots of good food. As much as our Jewish lives revolves around food, especially for Passover, the real purpose of Pesach is to celebrate the Jews being released from slavery and our journey to bring us to the Promised Land. At my daughter's school, they had the students reenact the "Exodus". The students dressed as slaves (white t-shirt, head covering) and had them fill a pillowcase with their "prized possessions" which they would have grabbed if they were told they had to leave their home on short notice. Pharaoh, played by one of the Dad's at school, told the "slaves" that he had work for them to do.  The "slaves" were divided into 12 tribes, made signs to identify their tribes. The "slaves" then spent about an hour doing chores around the school campus under the supervision (and occasional authoritative direction) of the teachers who were the slave drivers. The students weeded the garden, cleaned the bathroom, cleaned up the pre-school yard, moved rocks, moved benches from point A to point B and then Pharaoh "changed his mind" and had to move them back.

After the hard labor, Moses, played our Head of School, begged Pharaoh to "let my people go", and he did. Moses then led the students "through the desert", a.k.a. the upper field, and then led the slaves between two buildings, decorated with blue tarps, fish and water misters, and the Jews walked through the parting of the Red Sea. The students then celebrated their freedom with dancing and ice cream. It was truly an experience for all the students and teachers and hopefully the students came away with a better understanding of what it might have been like to be a slave.

So, while I chose to do something different than seder pictures, the Passover paper line still worked perfectly for this layout. I loved how the brown and teal colors worked with the pictures at school. And the freedom doves and freedom tag were perfect to celebrate the Exodus.

It's Passover time!

Today is a busy day in our home! After all the cleaning, shopping and advance cooking, we still have to set the table for the seder, cook all the rest of the food and prepare the guest room... The list goes on. I'm sure there will be still more runs to the supermarket and lots of last minute prep to be done!

We, at Crafting Jewish Style, would like to wish you all

Chag Pesach Kasher v'Sameach! Have a Happy Passover! Enjoy!

Just a thought-to keep little hands busy today, give the kids some Passover paper, scissors, glue, markers/crayons and embellishments. The kids can craft welcome signs, place cards, wine goblet tags, ten makot cards, and haggadah covers. It's a great way to get them involved in a meaningful and enjoyable way.

The memories of our Seders are strong in my mind. Since we don't take, nor do we encourage, picture taking at the Seder and throughout the holiday, I'll try to get a picture of the table decor in, before the holiday begins.
Hope you have a calm prePesach day.

Passover Tasks

While preparing for Passover this year, I decided that I needed some help organizing the "help" during the Seder.  My girls actually love to help with the Seder (I think they just like an excuse to get up from the table) so I created this little Task Jar using the Passover papers and a little repurposed jar. 

I printed out some of the tasks of the Seder on paper and created little slips like this:

So each of the children willl pull one task from the jar and each child will have an important job to do during our Seder!  
Some of the tasks the children help with are :
Serve Eggs
Serve Gefilte Fish
Clear Egg and Fish Plates
Clear Soup Bowls
Clear Dinner Dishes
Clear Dessert Dishes
Collect Haggadot and Props

You can personalize your own Task Cards with what you feel your children are capable of doing.  I personally don't like my children to help with the China and Wine Glasses so now they will have tasks that make them feel like they are helping without fighting over the tasks. :)

Last year we did our Seder outside on our patio.  I  had to create some vases that were low enough to see over for the table without having to use my Waterford Crystal that I use for "good" inside. So I made little place cards to hang from everyone's Wine Carafe and repurposed "vases" made from Coffee Cans using the same Passover papers.

This year, why not get creative with your Passover papers and create some Seder Helpers for your dinner?  Be sure to share with us if you do, and we would love to hear about how you have the children help with the Seder, too!

Four Questions Card

Passover will be here in less than a week and my youngest son has been working very hard practicing the four questions. Now that he reads, I'm concerned that we will get to Grandma's house for Seder and the questions will be printed slightly differently in their Haggadah and throw him off. Therefore I decided to make him a "Four Questions Practice Card." He can practice from the card and then we can easily bring it to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Here you can see the front and back of the card.


When my youngest son became old enough to do the Four Questions, we decide that his brother needed a special blessing to practice also and decided on the long version of the kiddush. Last year he didn't read Hebrew yet and had to memorize the whole thing. This year I searched the Internet for a transliteration and made him this practice card. I'm happy to report that he can now read enough Hebrew that he has not actually looked at the transliteration.


I find that all this practicing makes the boys more excited for Passover. What are you doing to get ready for Passover? Who does the Four questions at your Seder?

April Sketch

Since everyone is busy getting ready for Passover, we decided to have a card sketch this month. Although not everyone sends Passover cards, I like to send them to a few close relatives, especially if we won't be seeing them for Seder. Passover cards can also be used for hostess gifts or thank-you notes.

This month we have a card sketch designed especially for Crafting Jewish Style by Anam Stubbington.


Maya used the sketch to create this beautiful card with lots of glitter and a wonderful edge punch. The glitter on the bird wings is so beautiful and the Mod Matzo paper definitely gives it a Passover feel.


Lisa used the sketch to create this fun and beautiful card. The celebrate Passover ribbon slide is a great way to add both texture and a greeting.


I used the stripes from the top of the Fab Four Cups paper on my card and one of the freedom stickers for my greeting.


Feel free to use Anam's great sketch to make your own cards, for Passover or any time of year. Don't forget to leave us a comment with a link to your cards.

Passover card

The calendar on my kitchen wall says April but when half of my backyard is still covered with snow I find it difficult to believe. Spring takes it sweet time this year but I know it will come. So I pretend there is no snow anymore and think about spring, new beginnings and Passover. 

To get myself in the holiday mood I started playing with my Crafting Jewish Style Passover kit. I came up with this cute card. To make the background I cut several strips of paper and distressed the edges.  I cut out the dove from the patterned paper and added it using dimensional adhesive.

 I stamped the sentiment inside the card leaving empty space for personal message.

What about you? Do you send Passover cards?  Store bought or handmade? We want to know!

Crafting Jewish Style Purim Contest/Giveaway Winners!!

It feels as if Purim was ages ago-even though we still have lots of junk food still left in our house from the mishloach manot. (Although the kids have been "hard at work" trying to polish it all off!)
Purim was great fun and although I still have yet to print out my Purim pics, let alone scrap them, some of you are much more capable... and we have our contest winners to share with you! Thanks to everyone who entered our contest and giveaway. we are always inspired by others' creativity.

Out contest winners is Faygie!

Taryn is our runner up and giveaway winner!! (We're assuming you are Tazzy. Thanks to Random.org)

Take a look at these ladies' creativity!

Here's what Faygie submitted:

I love the way she set up for her Purim meal. What a fresh, fun and happy decor-don't those big flowers make you smile? Check out the jelly bean vase filler and the embellished masks!



Love the mad hatter look to these costumes!



These layouts from Purim past -the little girl in the pictures is now 28-are just so charming.






Awesome job, Faygie!

Taryn submitted these pictures, just by the deadline, and we are so glad that she did! She took her pirate theme and ran with it. Not only did her family dress up as pirates (down to the littlest matey!) she also crafted pirate treasure chests for mishloach manot and a tag book for future scrapping.




Isn't this the yummiest baby pirate?



Here are Taryn's adorable mishloach manot treasure chests and tag book.





Just lovely!


So what do you think? Have you printed out your Purim pictures? Or are you knee-deep in Pesach preparation and have no time for it now?