Customs

Here's a small collection of customer orders I've created this past year. I've made a TON of custom spell candles but I didn't photograph all of them. I love making special one of a kind items for people, I hope to do more this year!

Luck Magic
A page trade I did with Danni over at The Whimsical Cottage. These are the ones I sent her, Ganesha and Cernunnos.
A spirit necklace.
Leather Aegishjalmur.
Some custom candles.
An owl doll.
Luck Amulet and some Red Hot Luck Oil for a customer.
The Rabbit Moon Tarot Bag. Tawny colored rabbit fur, pale pink muslin hand dyed with hibiscus flowers, and lined in gray felt. Accent in brass, quartz crystal, and vintage shell and vintage brass stamped leaves, as well as an eye milagros. To keep my Art Nouveau Tarot Deck in.
Another custom Tarot Bag for a friend.
Some more beautiful candles and a custom Atropa Belladonna wooden needle case.

Flow and the Giveaway.

As an artist first and a Witch second the ebbs and flows of my "muses" wane and sway with the calling of the deities and spirits. Lately I've been nothing but output; creating every spare moment I get. The cooling of the Earth and harvest does this to me and I don't think I'm alone in that sentiment. Sometimes I have a drought, usually in the summer. My spirits are quiet and nothing gets done and I wallow in my brains silence. I welcome the deluge of inspiration come the cooler months.

My altar space is currently full of experiments and successes. Chalks, brews, salts, tinctures, oils, amulets, teas. Medicinal and magical. Here are a few of the things you might have already seen, I have many more things headed your way.

Mystic Eye Bag

Hickory Snake Nut Amulet

Corvus Ritual Mask (sold)

Barn Owl Ritual Mask (sold)

Indigo Sigil Chalk

Hamsa Tarot Pouch

To celebrate my 100th sale in my shop and to say thanks for all the wonderful comments and kindness I've got another little giveaway for you.



The Acorn Amulet. To give honor to Dryads, Cernunnos, Pan, The Green Man, Artemis, or a Druidic Path. Holds aspects of fertility and protection. Strung with black leather cord in two widths. Measures about 12 inches long.

To enter, please leave a comment in this post. The winner will be picked on Tuesday September 21st at 5pm est. Reblogging or posting about this gets extra entries. Enjoy!

Giveaway

So as a thank you to all my readers, as quiet as some of you may be, and in honor of the upcoming spirit season (I've got it on the brain really bad!) I have a small giveaway for you! A red wool spirit necklace.

Featured here is a rustic and simple necklace that will protect you during spirit travel and connect you to your spirits. It will aid you in opening those cosmic doors. Red wool is adorned with a carved wooden skull bead and an old iron key. Red thread has long been an aid in capturing negative spirits, protection, or as a spirit line. Anoint the old iron key with your favorite psychopomp oil and cleanse this piece often to remove anything unwanted picked up during travel. Wear during ritual or everyday. This necklace is about 18 inches (45-46 cm) long.

To enter my giveaway, please leave a comment in this post. The winner will be chosen on Saturday August 14th at 5pm so get your comments in before then! If you reblog this post once please link to it in your comment and you will get one additional entry, reblogged twice you get two additional entries, you get the idea :) Have fun and thanks again!

Sacred Psychopomp

Sacred Psychopomp Necklace in Corvus

It's finally finished and I love it. For the spirit walkers and in honor of our favorite psychopomps, ravens and crows. For followers of the Morrigan, devotees to Odin and Huginn and Muninn, and worshipers of the Underworld and our dark goddesses.

Available in the Shop.

A few works in progress...

Sacred Psychopomp Necklace in Corvus.

Blue Hamsa Pendant

Crossroads Key Pendant in Persephone

Crossroads Key Pendant in Trickster

I had the itch lately to create some jewelry pieces for the shop. I scoured my collections of saved and found items, vintage jewelry and findings, and purchased a few things at antique stores. In addition to the the other items the shop currently carries I've wanted to do a little more art and handcrafted items. I am an artist first and a Witch second so having both these aspects flit about in my brain provides nearly boundless creativity. Nearly.

The piece at the top has been the most time consuming as the Raven skull was carved by me out of salvaged Poplar wood. I searched for a large enough branch of Yew since it would have been more appropriate but the only Yew trees I know of are in graveyards by large public roads. I already look daft stuffing my purse full of small branches and dirt while dumping whiskey on the ground so attempting to lug a large five foot branch out of the cemetery and into the car is pushing the boundaries of the public ignoring me. Someday, someday.

A reminder, I will be on vacation from June 12-19 so the shop will be closed during that time. I will return with bountiful goodies pillaged from the sea and hopefully a not too sunburned rear.

I've been working on....

Stuff! Lots of stuff! Is everyone just as excited for spring as I am? I'm really looking forward to going outside and collecting branches and acorns and twigs and things, and just enjoying the sun. In the picture above are some smudge sticks I threw together after a trip to the store for some fresh herbs. One of them is Sage and Lavender (grown myself) and the other two are Sage and Rosemary. They're almost dry, probably another week or so.

Meanwhile it's still dark and cold out so I suppose I will just sit inside and craft. Heh. I've been working on many things, some personal, some for other people, most of which I can't show you since they are part of my swap over at Craftster.org.

These are some natural bobby pins I made the other day. Just kinda got in the mood of it and didn't wanna stop, but I ran out of pins. If I used any more I wouldn't be able to put up my hair. From left to right- star anise, small pine cones, acorns, and a bobbin (I know this isn't natural but I wanted to make it anyway, heh). And the typical action shot below of me wearing the acorn bobby pin. I have long hair and it's sometimes difficult to find stuff to do with it other than keep it down. So making these cute bobby pins was some great motivation to do some fairy-ish messy updo's. Like that glow of my 22" monitor on my face? It's the only way I get a tan :) Haha!






For Christmas my sister gave me this children's wood burner she found in her boyfriend's garage, so I've been practicing with it. I have a GIANT stash of wood pieces from when my mom used to do wood crafting so I only need to buy big things like boxes when I want to do something. The tip of the burner is a chisel tip and kinda clunky but I'm slowly learning to control it. I've been making little charms like the ones above. They're pretty fun and easy to do. I also did one and decorated one of my oil bottles with it.


This is my Sleeping Serpent Oil. Like the tag? I think it's adorable :). It's strung there with some copper wire, teal colored wool yarn with black embroidery floss twisted around it and a few beads. I actually carved out the stars on this one with an exacto blade so it's woodcarving too! Hah! I like how rustic it looks and I'm always thinking of ways to make my stuff prettier. The Sun and Moon charms above are going on some personal bottles of their respective Oils just like the one above. I might do this regularly since making these little wooden charms is easy peasy. And if when I open a shop this would be a cute addition to the bottle.

Here are the Sun(left) and Moon(right) oils doing their thing. I only brew oils in small batches right now because it's only me using them. I use Safflower Oil as my base because it's colorless, odorless, and lots of antioxidants and Vitamin E.

I also bought tons of seed packets because I plan on starting up my herb garden again, but in containers. Also I want to grow a few veggies since stuff like Tomatoes grow easily in containers and they are super yummy. I get most of my herbs at the Global Food market either dried or fresh, grow a couple, and plan on growing more. I really need to expand my stock of herbs but it's hard without buying them online. Might do some personal swaps to get some more herbs, eh? Who knows.

I know this was really just a quick overview of what I've had my paws in and I will be sure to keep you updated. Hope everyone else's crafting is going just as well :)

New Year's Eve, and a swap package.

Okay so it's almost the new year but I'd like to post some photos of things I've worked on during the holidays. I just decided to start early while I had the motivation time. This will be a photo heavy post.

This is the package I sent for the Yule swap over at Craftster. The main item is a Moon Goddess shrine. When I asked how my partner how she envisioned the goddess she said as a moon goddess so I kinda ran with that theme.

The background is old book pages over a box built from thin wood and watercolor paper for the sides (so as not to ripple when many layers of paint were added). I then used acrylic paints to build up the background color. The moon is from a science book from the 1960s and the goddess is a vintage image I found online. I printed her out in black and white and painted her with watered down acrylics and glitter paint. The pressed flowers in the background are from my yard (periwinkle and silver maple). The stars in the background are iridescent sequins with paint in the center.


I also made a Pagan rosary. Instead of using a charm for the end I decided to use a small glass vial instead. You can put a small gemstone or even herbs within it. I attached that pretty little topper to the plain cork myself to jazz it up. I originally attached a small bail to the cork on the vial but I didn't want the cork to pop out if she chose to wear it, so I had to devise something pretty but appropriate to hold the vial. I wrapped a thin piece of jewelry wire around the small neck of the vial and created two loops to attach jump rings and therefore the silver chain. Ta-da.

There are 9 beads around the actual circumference of the necklace, 9 being a sacred number to the Goddess. There are three spiral beads surrounded by marcasite, each spiral representing the three aspects of the Goddess (maid, mother, crone). Along the hanging part above the vial is one spiral bead, several marcasite beads and 4 small glass seed beads representing the elements. Each of the colored glass beads represents her children and one for herself.




I hand carved a pine box so she could store her tarot cards in. It's painted with acrylics. I lined the inside with purple felt and the inside of the top with another vintage book page.




This is a Yule ornament I made using one of those blank glass ornaments. The little goddess is carved out of wood. The gold spiral is painted on the inside. I won't even tell you how hard that was.



Here's a few goodies I included with the package. A few drawstring bags and incense and gemstones.

More Oils and clothing rant

Yesterday I decided to strain and bottle one of the oils I had made. It was the "earthy feminine" one and I was head over heels excited. I did end up putting too much clove in it so that scent is the most powerful but it still smells nice and would be great for a winter scent. I don't like to make my oils in too large of a batch since they keep better otherwise. If I sold the oils then maybe, but until then I like the small batches. Also I know I should keep oils in amber bottles, but I ran out! I have to order more but until then this will be fine since I keep my oils in a dark box. The labels are just sticky labels that I write on using my quill pen and ink I've mixed myself. Yes, that is my kooky handwriting :) I always write the given name of the mix and then the contents as a quick reference on the large bottles. On the drams I just give the names. I always record the amounts and ingredients in a separate notebook (which actually right now is a beat to crap composition book so I need a new one) just in case I want to make more later.

As you can see I put my terrarium behind my new bottled oil, which is doing quite well. It has even sprouted a few new mossy sprouts which are too cute for words. I'm quite thrilled.



On another note, I went clothes shopping today which is always a mixed experience. I don't think they make clothes for women who have breasts. Everything is strangely shapeless which on my body would make me look pregnant. I'm no twig, I wear a size 12 pants which to me is what a typical woman's shape is. But even for me I can never find anything that is flattering unless I modify it or take it in or let it out. Personally, I don't feel like paying $25 for a shirt that I'm going to have to take in myself. I've tried shopping at plus-sized stores but everything there is a little big for me. I'm stuck in this clothing size limbo. This is why I usually go to thrift stores and work from that since if you can shop right you can find some swanky stuff at second-hand and thrift stores.

On a different note, I did get some cute new boots today. I stole the picture below from the website of the store I purchased them from. Aren't they cute? They have a wingtip style and they're really comfy. So I guess my shopping today wasn't a total bust :)