November 24, 2012

• Hanukkah’s A’Coming!
  (Part I:  Anna succumbs to subway art.  Briefly.)

  Hey, did you know that – in spite of the whole X-mess inundation going on all around us – that there’s a holiday coming up in two weeks that’s totally worth celebrating?  Sure – it’s Hanukkah, the Festival of lights!  The Light of the World – Yeshua Ha’Mosiach – was conceived on Hanukkah.  The New Testament even shows Him celebrating Hanukkah (in case you wondered ‘What would Messiah do?’).  It’s actually kind of ironic – there’s no mention of ‘christmas’ in the scriptures at all… and church people are ALL over that, but there’s mention of Hanukkah – in reference to Christ! – and church people TOTALLY blow it off.

  Anyhow, when we went to Bronners this year, I was hoping to find some Hanukkah decorations.  I’ve never had any, and I wanted to do up our house with some.  And y’know… Bronners is THE world’s largest CHRISTmas store (that’s their slogan!).  Y’know what they have for Hanukkah?  One very short end aisle, half full.  There was a shofar, a few window clings, two tiny menorahs, and three sizes of wooden driedles.  And that’s IT.  If that isn’t telling, I don’t know what is.

  So I’m on my own, apparently.  Only not… because there are Jews on Pinterest and etsy.  And if you want ideas for decorating?  Pinterest and Etsy are great places to start.  So I went on a hunt, to see what I could find!

  First, I have to tell you, I got snowflake cups a few years ago, and bought them to use for our gelt cups.  Every day of the Hanukkah festival, kids find candy in their gelt cups.  It’s really fun.  I’ve got a little ‘Hanukkah’ station, where our little (mostly for looks) first menorah sits by the gelt cups… but it lacked something decorative.  So I went looking for a Hanukkah plaque or poster to put behind them.  Lemme tell ya… there’s not much out there for hand-painted Hanukkah pretties.

    BUT!  There’s this new yuppie phenom in crafty circles that revolves around something called ‘Subway Art’.  Basically, it’s words, in all different fonts and sizes and colors, put together sideways and vertical and in boxes and shapes in order to make the words look decorative.  I’ve seen a LOT of them for winter, thanksgiving, fall, harvest… it’s kind of a thing, right now.  New craze.  I haven’t printed any of the freebies offered, as I’m not really a ‘subway art’ kinda gal… but when you’re hard pressed?  It can work.

  I found Hanukkah ‘subway art’ free on a weblog called ‘Peonies and Poppy Seeds’, and it comes in 8×10 size, and a bigger size, too.  But it’s actually not too bad, and I liked it, so I printed it, cut it square, mounted it on yellow and then navy paper, and it looks very pretty.  The pattern is available (free) on-line, here (LINK).  Thank you for this art, ladies.  I think it turned out very pretty… but I might add an even bolder blue behind it, if I ever get ’round to buying some posterboard.  ((Put it on my to do list!))

  If you’re interested in more subway art, you can do a search on Pinterest… but here are a few others I have found…

  Halloween – LINK    Fall – LINK   
  Autumn – LINK    Harvest – LINK
  October – LINK    Thanksgiving – LINK   
  Autumn (2) – LINK   Christmas -  LINK   
  X-mess (2) – LINK   Tree – LINK

  Anyhow, here’s how it turned out.  A little bright, but festive and it added just the right touch to our little gelt station.

  Hope you can use the links, too!
  

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