Global Prayer for Peace

For some time I have wanted to do something meaningful for peace in the Middle East region and with the help of my dear friend Mira we came up with this wonderful idea.

If you wish and believe it is time to have peace and harmony in the Middle East then please join us on Sunday, May 2nd at 12 Noon (Pacific time) for a global prayer for peace in the region. All you have to do is take 3 minutes to focus and send from your heart loving and peaceful thoughts to all people of the Middle East and their countries, no matter what your political views are. Picture in your mind’s eye the region as peaceful, prosperous and cooperative. Let’s make miracles with the power of our focused intention. May our collective loving and compassionate thoughts and prayers on that day deliver true peace to the Middle East and every other country at war, Amen!

I will appreciate if you'll spred the word,

Thank you and Shalom,

Efrat

For the past few months I have been playing with fused glass trying to find a new look for the basic technique. I have been experimenting with a variety of materials such as paper, metals and different types of glass. If anyone knows about recycled materials that can be used with fused glass and would like to share it with me I would greatly appreciate it.I still have not achived my goal for what I have in mind but I have found a way to compliment it.



Today I would like to share with you some of my work that was received very nicely by my clients.





Website will be updated in the next month with all of my new work after I do my taxes, or maybe I should just send the IRS an e-mail that said " Dear IRS: please canceled my subsciption and remove me from your mailing list and find someone alse to pay..." don't I wish we all could do it!

Have a wonderful week

For my Dad

For the last few months my life has been so busy that I didn't have the time to post. I hope I didn't lose you, my dear readers.

I just came back from another visit of three weeks in Israel. This time I had to go and help take care of my elderly father. I was afraid if we waited until summer to see him he may not know who we are. It's very hard to see your loved one slowly dying from old age, no matter how many times you have to go through it.

While I was in Israel, I got to take a few precious pictures of my dad feeding the pigeons (on one of his good days) and celebrate his 84th birthday. So I'm dedicating this post to my dear father. Enjoy the slide show.

Make a Smilebox slideshow In the next few months I may still not be able to post regularly due to lots of things that are going on in my life. I hope you'll be patient with me until I'll be able to get back on track. I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year full of health and happiness and I hope you'll stop by and visit with me again. With love, Efrat

'One Tribe - One Heart'

Photo by LaWendula

This Post should have really been posted on September 21 in honor of Peace Day, but since I have been ill for the last three weeks everything has been delayed. So I'm apologizing for the delay.

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a project close to my heart for peace called:'One Tribe - One Heart' that was inspired by my new blogger friend LaWendula from Northern Germany (a wonderful homespun fiber and wool artist, you should visit her blog) I met her through my wonderful friend Cat.

LaWendula is a big believer in global village and for this year's Peace Day she had 12 artists from 8 countries sent her: some of their homeland soil, a letter which expresses their wishes for peace and how they see the world become one tribe. She also asked us to send anything else that we think represent our vision/country. LaWendula homespun 12 beautiful yarn bags (in the colors that the artist chose) one for each of the countries. She decorated them and put in them the items that we sent her. On September 21 she hung them all on her tree in her backyard (Germany) as a sign for peace around the world.

As the representative for Israel, a BIG believer in need for a world peace and feel we are all one and one for all leaving under one sky in a divine world. I sent her some sand and shell from the beach next to the home I grow up in Tel-Aviv, an amulet's hand (Hammsha) with blessing that say on it: Luck- to have the luck to see peace in our life time, Health - to have peace in the world we require a healthy thinking from all of us. Success - that this project of prayers and good intentions from around the world will be successful and deliver peace to all. I also sent her charms of a dove with a heart symbols of peace and love, Israeli coins and a prayer that I wrote for peace:

Rosey Dream of Peace

As I lay in bed and I close my eyes

I dream my Rosey dream

Of people holding hands across the world

feeling peace and love in their hearts for one another

World leaders signing documents of peace

Soldiers wearing white and caring doves

Kids laughing and birds singing become the world's anthem

As we all realized that we are truly free, loved, safe and become as one

We have no more fear of bloodshed or hunger

we raise our hands and say Amen

Photo by Lawendula

Here is the beautiful bag hanging on the tree. Didn't she do a wonderful job...? The blue and white colors of the bag represent the colors of Israel's flag and the little pink is for the rosey
color of the dream in the prayer.

Photo and words by LaWendula

"Here they are now: 12 bags. Each one represents one country, one life, one person believing in world peace.
As they hang together in this tree they are a steady prayer for connection and reaching out hands to others, just like Tibetian prayer flags, all with the message: We all are ONE: one tribe - one heart!

They will weather in wind, rain and shine, but this is all part of the project. Like human life: We will vanish one day, but before that, we will carry our stories, hopes, prayers and special being out to the world." LaWandula

I would like to thank LaWendula for giving me the opportunity to be part of this important project and thank you for allowing me to use your beautiful photos and words. I thank the Lord for people like you on earth. To read and see more about this wonderful project please visit LaWendula's blog.

I wish you all my dear friends peace and love in your heart and soul. I'll be seeing you soon.

Saying goodbye to old friends

15 years ago I painted these walls for Mikaela's play room. It was one of my favorite rooms in our home, everyone loved hanging out with Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-duck and the windows that fooled a lot of people, thinking they were real.

Redecorating this room was well over do...! But who can say goodbye to Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddle-duck? It was hard but in the end we said our final goodbye to our beloved friends and painted over them a color that should have been 'Venetian Blue' as I like to call it (vintage blue green) but because the room doesn't have natural light source the color turned darker and greener that what I had in mind. We are learning to like it.

This room was decorated on a dime budget since it's our TV and game room that mostly used by my dear teenage daughter and her wild friends.

The only things I bought new was the pillows and the two lamps on the wall the rest we had in the room before.

We did take out quite a few things to make it roomier and also when all of my daughter's wild teenagers' guy friends come for an evening of video games they'll have less chance to break things.

I finally have a place for my vintage dress form that I received from my brother-in-law.

So I would not say this room is my best decorating job...but it will serve its purpose until I will make it part of my studio in the future; which is next door.

Guess who came to help my mother-in-law and me paint the room...if not my dear and loving cat, Nini. She was the inspector...I guess you could say.

Now that the room is done and I'm trying to get over my viral infection that took a hold of me much longer that I expected it to...I'm hopping to get back to my studio next week and start working on my fall/winter jewelry line...I'm sooooo behind schedule!!!

Until my next post take care and thank you for stopping by I hope you'll be back soon.

I'm Back

If you asked yourself where have I been for the last three weeks?
Here is the answer…busy painting the charity rocking chair for a local private adoption agency that is having a fund-raiser in November.

It came unassembled and it being a rocking chair I thought it would be much easier to paint it while it's unassembled. Originally I wanted to paint Peter Rabbit on the seat but after I got the chair I realized that the way the chair was designed there wasn't enough room to paint Peter Rabbit without chopping him off.

I had to come up with a new theme that would work with the design of the chair. I started to think about my little nephew; Lee what would he like his chair to be if it were for him? Well the answer was easy… an artist's chair, with a lot of artist's materials.
Lee is three and a half years old and since the moment he was able to hold a pen he loved to draw and paint. It is the first thing in the morning he does even before his parents wake up and breakfast is served. Now he's into 3D art using anything he can find around the house that he can glue and be painted on…A true artist!

So an artist's chair it is! I decided to make each part of the rocking chair a tool or material that an artist would need, and what an artist needs more then anything if not paint. The seat became a crayons box, the arms a roller and a watercolors box with a brush. On the back of the seat I painted child like picture and the wood dowels of the chair became color pencils. After Steve helped me assembled the chair I had to do some touchups and varnish it really well, and walla….!!!

While I was busy with the chair I got a wonderful surprise from my friend Lynn Cohen who is a very talented quilter and photographer. You should visit her wonderful blog. I love her mini quilts and her cards with the beautiful flowers. I can't wait to frame the quilts and hang them in my studio.

Lynn thanks so much for your genres gift.

Now guess what…!!! I got into the national show 'Line into Shapes' at Estes Park.
My 'all in a row' photograph got in. They also allow us to exhibit one miniature art work and I decided to show my 'Gears' photograph that I took this summer.

All that I have left to do is get them framed and delivered to the gallery next week.

Now that you know what I have been up to I will say my goodbye and hopefully I'll be back very soon. So please come and visit me again.