Apples and Honey for a Sweet New Year

Believe it or not, this is my first time participating in a blog hop!  A group of Stampin’ Up! demonstrators has decided to take on the challenge of making  cards for the upcoming Jewish holidays…using current products.  It’s been several years since SU! released a Jewish-themed stamp set, so it really is an exercise in thinking outside the box!  

​There are links at the bottom of this post to hop through the entire group…check out everyone’s creations!

For my readers not familiar with it, Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year (celebrated this year from sundown on Sunday, October 2 until sundown on Tuesday, October 3, though many families observe only one day). As with most holidays there are traditional foods – in this case apples and honey, which signify the hope for a sweet new year, and a loaf of challah bread studded with raisins for sweetness and shaped in a circle or spiral to represent the circle of life.  Anyone who knows me knows that I’m all about the food, so that’s what I chose to use on my cards!

I used stamps from 4 different sets to make this card:  Sheltering Tree (tree), Sprinkles of Life (basket and apples), Shooting Star (beehive and bees), and Labeler Alphabet (sentiment).  

The background is made by pressing my Pear Pizzazz and Soft Sky ink pads onto an “E” acrylic block, spritzing it with a little water, and then pressing it onto a panel of Whisper White card stock.  

While it was drying I stamped the basket and beehive onto scrap Whisper White in Delightful Dijon ink, and then took a barely damp AquaPainter and brushed over the images just enough to color the images with bit of the stamped ink.  

Then I stamped apples in Real Red on Real Red card stock, and in Pear Pizzazz on Pear Pizzazz card stock and punched them out with the Tree Builder Punch.  I covered them with Ultra Fine Glue and set them aside to dry, creating dimensional, glossy apples.

I stamped the bees in Memento Tuxedo Black ink on Delightful Dijon card stock, then colored them with a Project Life Journaling Pen and the White Chalk Marker.  A little Clear Wink of Stella on the wings gave them a bit of a glimmer.

The Labeler Alphabet allowed me to stamp “L’shana Tova”, which translates to “Have a sweet new year”, and I punched it out with the Classic Label Punch, trimming off the right point.

Once the background was dry I stamped the tree trunk and branches in Chocolate Chip, then added the leaves in Garden Green.  “Apples” were simulated by stamping the snowflake stamp in Real Red.  Then I layered the other elements and mounted it on a Soft Sky panel and a Delightful Dijon card base.

I had another idea for a card that I also wanted to try out:

This time I took the round fruit image from Fresh Fruit and inked it up in Pear Pizzazz, then took a sponge dauber and added Real Red ink over most of it.  I added the stem and leaves stamped in Early Espresso and Garden Green.  I think it looks a lot like a MacIntosh apple, which we ate a lot when I was growing up. (Okay, we all know it’s really supposed to be an image of a  peach, but I think it works – how about you?)

Then I stamped the smallest jar from Jar of Love in Memento Tuxedo Black, and added the liquid stamp in Delightful Dijon.  The “Honey” comes from the pot of honey in the Bear Hugs stamp set, and I used a Basic Black Stampin’ Write marker to ink up just the word and stamp it on the jar.  The Jar of Haunts stamp set provided the  dripping honey image, which I stamped in Delightful Dijon, I then colored in with the same color marker and went over it with the Gold Wink of Stella marker.

The apple slices were my biggest challenge.  I punched a 1¾” circle in Whisper White and cut it in half, then dragged the round edged across my Pear Pizzazz ink pad in one spot, then the rest over my Real Red ink pad.  The one drop of the raindrops stamp in Sprinkles of Life set was inked with my Basic Black marker and stamped and colored in to represent apple seeds.  One apple slice I stamped a few times with the dripping image from Jar of Haunts in Delightful Dijon, and colored it in with Gold Wink of Stella.

The table top is a strip of Crumb Cake stamped with the Hardwood stamp in Crumb Cake.  The wall panel  is So Saffron embossed with the Brick Wall embossing folder.  The sentiment, stamped in Chocolate Chip,  is a mash-up of a masked stamp from Oh, What Fun and the only retired item I used – a masked-off sentiment the host set, Good Greetings.  The card base is Chocolate Chip.

Now it’s time to hop on over and see what the rest of the group has created!

Here’s a list of demonstrators and their blogs if you get lost:

​Nancy Hoetker –  nancysniftynotes.com  <– you are here
Miriam Biegun Permut – MyInkPad.com
Yapha Nussbaum Mason – yaphamason.com
Jean Fitch – http://www.jfstudio.wordpress.com
Debby Hoffman – http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/debbyhoffman/blog
Liz Roberts – ​http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/lizroberts/blog

​Stop in to this free open house and make cards to donate to Banner Thunderbird Hospital’s Pediatric Department.  The nurses use these cards to reach out to patients’ families…help get them stocked up with handmade cards for the year.

Saturday, October 1
1:00 – 4:00 pm (come when you can, leave when you must)
Nancy’s Craft Room in Scottsdale
​RSVP requested but not required.