My Most Favorites.....

I have to say hands down the best thing about starting my own company is getting to meet other like minded people. I love connecting with other bloggers and creative business women.

Last week I found myself heading out to NYC to brunch with 3 great bloggers. The chosen venue - the Upper West Side's My Most Favorite Food  and the bloggers I was meeting? Stylishly beautiful Sharon Langert of Fashion-Isha, Prime Time Parent and Twitter guru Esti Berkowitz, and food expert Sarah Lasry author of The At Home Gourmet, The Dairy Gourmet, and now the Patchke Princess.   

Picture courtesy of koshertopia.com

We came to chat, connect, share ideas. and discuss an upcoming event for Bloggers and Brands called Sweetup (more on that later....)  My Most Favorites or @mmffnyc (for twitter) is situated between the West End and Broadway on 72nd St. I know the area well as I used to teach at Manhattan Day School on 75th. It's a wonderful location and truthfully I like it much better then their old mid town location. Even Scott (the owner) commented about the change in place. "We find that more families come and it's quieter. In the mid town location there was a lot of rushing, back and forth to work as well as to Broadway shows."  Here's a snipet from their site..... 

My Most Favorite Food, a unique restaurant/bakery/cafe is located on the 

Upper West Side between Broadway and West End Ave. on 72nd St., near

Lincoln Center, Museum of Natural History, The Children's Museum 

and some of the finest boutiques Manhattan has to offer. 

Enjoy your most favorite meal in our year round fully enclosed sidewalk cafe, 

our glass ceiling garden room, or in our elegant dining room. A sleek marble 

counter is center stage for what put us on the map - our mouth watering 

desserts and baked goods. 

Dining Room

Garden Room

 

The 4th of July treats displayed at their bakery. SO YUM!

My blogger friends and I sat in the The Garden Room - can you tell that I chose this area? I LOVED the exposed brick walls, glass ceiling with it's steel supports and the simplistic furniture. All these elements combine to offer an urban yet "homy" feeling. There are actually little hooks all along the brick walls and I wish that I had taken pictures of them. Esti and I were debating what they were used for. Scott explained that they were for bags, purses, and other carry items. 

So what did we eat?????? Ah! The million dollar question. The Menu is filled with delicious choices, and it was very hard to choose, but I went with a Greek Salad. I haven't had one in a long time and come on, when your eating with a group of girls, you can't really go for the mouth watering full fat food now can you?

 

So with our food in front of us and our chairs tucked in we began to discuss Sweetup2012 an event for bloggers and brands to shmooze and connect. I love this idea because there are so many different people out there in the social media world and this event will help to connect us all.  We will have swag bags, delicious food, a speaker, and discussion panel there to educate and clarify key issues we all face. I hope to continue sharing details of the event as it comes closer, so follow me on facebook  and twitter for updates. And if you know anyone who would love to join us please have them register! Everyone is welcome bloggers, brands, beginners, and even social media gurus!

YUM! The chocolate cake was so good!

Thanks to My Most Favorite for the wonderful food and atmosphere! I look forward to coming again, but this time with my family. 

Till next time, 

Abbey

Tie Dying - The Great American Past Time

I embraced my inner 60's flower child and held a Tie Dying event in my backyard 4th of July morning. 

I got the idea from Kivelli Personalized whom I had met at a show last May. After seeing her fantastic flyer (made by MLW), I thought "WOW, What a great idea! I must do that over here by me!"

Don't know about you, but when I was a kid Tie Dying was done with buckets.We'd tie up our T-shirts into a variety of patterns and dip them into colorful liquid solutions. I can still feel that childish excitement of quickly unwrapping the fabric to see what wonderful patterns I had created.

At first I decided to kick it "old school" and got loads of buckets to match the different shades of dye that I wanted to use. But then I saw that squirt bottles were sold in kits and I thought that might be better for the little kids. Being the undecided person that I am, I ended getting both the squirt bottles and the buckets from my local Michael's store.

Honestly, It would take me all night to write down all the different techniques that are out there. My suggestion is to just google TIE DYE TECHNIQUES. and watch as many youtube videos as you can to get an idea of the process. My son, became an expert tie dyer so I made this little video explaining how to make a spiral design.

The Spiral Design all wrapped up 

 

Here's the spiral all undone. HOW COOL IS THAT??

Malka Strimber with a Starburst Design

Zevi Strimber with his spiral T-shirt

 I think the best thing though, out of the whole day was watching my son turn into a smurf. 

Seriously He LOVED the Tie Dye!

 I think his hands will be dyed for the next week or so!

Till the next project!

Abbey

 

Teachers - Do they need a degree to teach?

After 12 years of teaching, today will be my last day. I've decided to take a "leave of absence" from the teaching world. Closing this chapter of my life for a little while seems better then saying that I am leaving for good - but I will most probably not come back. Today I will say goodbye to my boys, to the desks and chairs scraping against the floor, to the clattering of children running through the halls and down the stairwells. Today will be the last time that I answer to anyone else but me.

I started teaching right after Seminary. For a hand full of good Jewish girls this is what we do. My year in Israel, I elected to take the teaching course and received a certificate in Judaic Studies Education. When I came home that summer I got engaged to my High School sweetheart. I had originally wanted to go to art school in NY, but chose to move to LA instead. You can read all about that in a previous post here. For the first two years of my marriage I went to design school at night and worked as a teachers' assistant by day.

After Baby #1 working by day and learning at night became too hard so I stopped going to school (giving up my dream of art) and began teaching full time. Being a Judaic Studies teacher, it wasn't necessary for me to hold a degree, my certification was all I needed - Unless, I wanted more money.  So back to school I went to earn a degree in education. This time I studied online, learning around my kids and teaching schedule. The only catch was that NO ONE - NOT ONE SCHOOL would accept my credits from UCLA. Apparently because they were night classes AKA Extension classes - they had no credit value and therefor no school would take them. So I lost 2 years of schooling credits.

Over the past 10 years I have been going to school online. Taking one step back with every baby, and taking one step forward as they grow up. I am now 1 credit shy of getting my degree; so i guess you can say that my entire teaching career was done without holding a Bachelor's Degree.

The funny thing is that I have taught almost every grade and subject out there. From Preschool to 8th grade English and Math, I have taught it AND I always get the Special Ed kids. They are my specialty. Perhaps it's my "out of the box" way of thinking or the fact that I hate working within the perimeters of what's "normal", I pride myself on giving each of my students a unique experience tailored made for them. I have learned EVERYTHING on the job, researching on my own what I needed to know.

I have always been embarrassed that I don't hold a degree. I can't believe I'm even admitting it now, but why should I be embarrassed? I'm a REALLY good teacher! Do you know how many teachers I have seen that hold fancy college diplomas be fired within the first couple of weeks because they couldn't hack it? I honestly can say after going into debt for a degree that I still don't have that the only class that perhaps helped me at all was my Children's Lit class? Everything else was a serious waste of time.

I am writing this post, because I wonder does it really matter that a teacher hold a degree? As a mom my first impulse is to say "YES! Of course!" But as a teacher knowing the behind the scenes of the daily grind, I would say "NO. I don't think so."

I really want to hear what you all have to say about this topic. Please comment.

Abbey

Motivational Tid Bits

Someone told me recently that I should be a motivational speaker and I laughed! 

Yah, right. The last time I checked, I can't even motivate myself to go to the gym. Motivate a work force? I don't think so.

What I am,  is a realist with little patience for stupidity. I am also a highly self motivated person who strives for excellence while being passionate and determined to get the job done right.

I guess you can tell from my general snarkyness that I've had it a bit rough. My childhood/teenage years were far from serene. From an early age I was on my own and I had a fierce independent streak.


As I see it - the general population can be divided into 2 categories. Those who say, bad things happen to me so I deserve - give me. And those who say, bad things happened to me, so I can sit and cry about it or I can get up and do something about it. Evidently, I fall into the latter group.

While recently visiting my mother in Long Beach, NY, a seal was found on the shore. My sister took my children down to scope out the action and she snapped this image.

That night on my way home to Jersey, my mind would wonder back to thinking about the seal. I know this will sound strange, but I kept looking at it through the seals point of view. Here you have a big fat seal looking out into the ocean. He knows that he has to get back in, but in order to do so he's got to wiggle his way there. See the seal has no legs to carry him. And although the distance from the shore to the ocean is not that far, for the seal it's tremendous. All I can think in my head while looking at the picture is the seal saying "Dude, really? I think I'll wait till the tide comes in to bring me back into the ocean."

It's so easy for each of us to be that beached seal. We can make tons of excuses as to why we shouldn't pursue our dreams or "get back into the ocean." We're too fat (ok that's mine), we have no skills, no degree, people may not take us seriously, ect....  It happens to be that this very afternoon I actually read a fascinating article about this very point from INC. Magazine entitled 15 Worst Excuses Not to Be an Entrepreneur. Didn't even have to go searching for it - came right up in my news feed :)

If you look around at the most successful people out there most of them DO NOT hold a degree from college. How many of your friends are actually working in the fields that they majored in? SO WHY ARE THEY SUCCESSFUL??? Because at the end of the day they believed in themselves and took a risk.

If you think of yourself as a small ant you will stay a small ant. 

The only person that has to believe in yourself is YOU. 

OY! Maybe I should be a motivational speaker =) 

Nah! I think I'll stay put painting and crafting away in my studio.

Till next time, 

Abbey 

A Garden Party Kiddush

My baby is now 5 months old. Little Meira is growing into a beautiful sweet girl. 

There is a Jewish custom to hold a "kiddush" after the birth of a girl. "Kiddush" literally, "sanctification," is a blessing recited over wine or grape juice to sanctify the Shabbat and Jewish holidays. (Wikipedia) When you make a Kiddush, people come and give you brachos [blessings] for you and your daughter. They wish you Mazal Tov. They express all sorts of good wishes to the family and to the new baby. You can read more about it here.

I knew that I wanted to do the celebration in my backyard on a beautiful spring day. We have a really nice size backyard that would fit a lot of guests. The idea for a garden party soon evolved and so I began to make plans for my shabby chic kiddush.

 I love ETSY, it's a great source for inspirational ideas and a wonderful forum to purchase products directly from the crafters themselves. I decided to purchase the invitation and printable designs through paper+pip. She was great! Fast service and when we changed the date due to inclement weather she redid the invitation free!

I knew that I wanted to have TONS of flowers of all different varieties, but most importantly I wanted hydrangeas. I bought a bunch of mason jars in different shapes and sizes, painted them up and distressed them to make them look old and warn out. You can see how I did this in my older blog post - Shavuot Crafting. 

I used Papaya Events for all of my flowers, table clothes, tables, and chairs. Papaya is a full scale event production and rental company. They also have a local boutique floral shop (Passaic, NJ) that offers a variety of GORGEOUS floral arrangements. Devorah Deutsch the owner of Papaya Events was so awesome to collaborate ideas with!  Not only was she extremely helpful, but she was able to bend to my vision and go with all my crazy creative ideas. 

So the next thing I did was have my kids paint bird houses for me. I thought it would go with the whole vintage, shabby chic, garden party theme. I also picked up some pretend books from Michaels (thank God they were 40% off that week!). While I was there, I also got a bunch of wooden crates in a variety of sizes. I knew all of these things would be great do display the food on.  


I also made a bunch of cake plates from martini glasses and plates. I got the project idea from here.

Now the Kiddush was to be on Saturday, as an Orthodox Jew we do not use camera's or anything electric on the Sabbath. So please note that these photographs below were taken the day before the event - on Friday.


 

Kiddush Color Scheme - Burlap and Dusty Rose table clothes and a variety of shabby chic napkin.

A pretty sign on our fence "It's a Girl" 

Tissue Paper Flower Pom Pom's in our trees. 

A close up of the pom pom

Table-scape

Here is a close up of those sweet little flags in the watermelon. Too cute.

I had the cupcakes made by Malya's Sweet Treats. It was seriously like eating a cloud. They were so good.

Refrigerator stuffed with yummy foods for the Kiddush!

For the Kiddush we served tons of salads, fruits, and desserts. We had a veggie platter with chumus along with those super tasty pita chips. I got some potato kugels from our local take out store Main Ingredient. Daniel the owner was not only extremely helpful getting me checked out real quick on a busy Friday afternoon at the store, but he intuitively knew what I needed - A true gem! Thankfully people dropped off yummy baked goods and treats (I don't bake). There were so many desserts, there wasn't enough room to display it all! Malya from Malya's Sweet Treats, a local cupcake designer, made me my cupcakes. She was so open to my vision and the cupcakes came out better then I could have ever imagined. They tasted unbelievable!

All in all it was a beautiful party and we had over 200 guests show up. Yes, the clean up was a mighty big job, but it was certainly worth it. I can't wait to design another event soon!

- Abbey

Shavuot Crafting

Shavuos is almost here! 

Why not dress up your Yom Tov table with these great simple, easy to make, and budget friendly flower arrangements! Watch the video below and then check out the awesome photos of the pieces!

 

These are the material you will need. 

Raffia        Enamel Paint (Folk Art)     E6000 Glue

Mason Jars     Lace     Assortment of flowers   Brushes

BBQ Sticks   Scissor    Flower Trimmer   Sand Paper

 

Remember when painting your jar you want to try to use two different colors. That will give the glass depth and a more distressed look. Once it's painted let it sit and dry for a while. Once it's completely dry BAKE IT in your oven - right on the rack. BAKING INSTRUCTIONS: 350 for 10 minutes.Once the 10 minutes are over turn off your oven and open the door. Let your glass cool down. Take it out and with a harsh sandpaper scratch off around the glass giving your jar a distressed shabby chic look. 

You can download any image from GOOGLE IMAGES. Just type in the image you want and copy and paste it into a word documents. Re-size and print. It's that easy.  Cut out the image and attach it to a BBQ skewer and voila! You'll have a really cute accessory to your arrangement. You can also attach it to a string and tie around the bottle. That would be great for place card settings at the Yom Tov table.

 

AND THE FINAL PRODUCT???

 

So I thought I would show you some of my inspiration for this project. I don't know about you, but I love Pinterest. It's a photo sharing website where you can peruse thousands of amazing photos. It's a great site for inspiration on any project or idea you may have. You can follow me here.

I LOVE these orange roses as well 

as the twine wrapped mason jar. 

This table is gorgeous in green and orange.

 

Love these lace wrapped mason jars too! 

The twine bow accessorizes the vase so perfectly!

Um. AWESOME! Need I say more? 

This is just a piece of card stock wrapped around the jar 

with string wrapped around the outside of the card stock. 

So simple and EASY!

No accessorizing is good too! Look how gorgeous this arrangement is without any embellishments?

                                                                                                                                                                                

So for now, have a wonderfully beautiful holiday! 

Follow me on facebook or visit me at not2shabbey.com

CHAG SAMAYACH! 

Abbey