The original idea came from creativejewishmom who always seems to come up with projects made with the very same items that I have laying around the house. CreativeJewishMom posted this project a few months ago, probably in the summer and the idea has been hanging around in my head until now.
The basic idea was to use tissue paper and modge podge on a piece of glass, perhaps a picture frame. I happened to have a frameless picture frame sitting around, a blank spot on the wall above our computer and an hour when all the kids were sleeping and I was planning on watching The Good Wife - the only TV show I will stay awake for these days. I wasn't exactly planning on making my project on this particular night but when I came into the living room to watch my show, all the clean laundry waiting to be folded started waving at me from the couch - right where I wanted to sit. Hmmm, sit on the edge of the couch and fold laundry or sit on the floor and do a project. No contest.
"...and this is just the way things
were done in Shtetl...
thank you very much."
The goal was to (re)create Shtetl. Shtetl? I'll explain. The word "shtetl" literally means "town" in Yiddish. My husband, my Josh, was born into a very American family, having virtually no Europeaness in his family whatsoever. I can't be sure, but I think his grandparents might have come to America on the Mayflower.
American Josh likes to think that he speaks Yiddish. He doesn't. Since our wedding, he has picked up a bunch of words and phrases from my very European, very Yiddish-speaking family and now he thinks he can speak Yiddish. And so every time he throws a Yiddish phrase out there and uses it wrong and I look at him funny, he tells me that he is the one who is knows the correct version of all things Yiddish and I am not. And that he should know because he grew up in Shtetl and this is just the way things were done in Shtetl, thank you very much.
Someone sneezes while Josh is telling a story.
Josh: Nuffin uffin emes
Me: Come again?
Josh: NUFFIN uffin emes.
Me: Did you mean g'nossen ufon emes?
Josh: Nope. In Shtetel we say nuffin uffin emes.
So there it is - the finished project. It only took an hour. The Good Wife starts at 10pm and I was in bed by the time the news started. It dried overnight and we hung it up in its predestined spot. People see it and ask if it is a picture of Jerusalem. And I tell them, no, it's Shtetl, the alte heim.