receiving hands

I'm still not quite recovered from the sadness of the canceled PSG.

I've been with friends a few times to hang out around the fire, and had fun. But it's not quite the same as PSG.

I have two more pagan events to go to this month, so hopefully that will heal my heart.

My ankle is doing a little better. In a week I will need to work for about 5 days, and I've been hard-core staying off my foot to let it heal as much as possible to be able to do that job.

This picture is of some hands that I made many years ago. Someone in my coven was pretty hard hit in the money department after PSG, and asked about money magick.  I use these hands in almost all my spells in which I'm doing a working to receive something.

If you'd like to make your own, you need to go to a craft store and buy a kit for making a mold for plaster. The kit usually has a picture on it of a baby's foot or hand, as usually the kit is used to memorialize baby feet or something. The bucket needs to be big enough for your own hands. You mix up the gel first, then put your hands together the way you want them to be finished. When the gel sets, you need a friend to pull the bucket off, carefully sliding your hands out. Then you pour the plaster into the mold and let that set. When you are done, you have a perfect set of your own hands like this.

Enjoy :)

Camping!

Wow! May really warmed up to be lovely so far!

The coven decided we needed to camp. Our full-time RV traveling member Christine is back to her summer spot so we decided to all camp there too. The weekend forecast called for rain and storms all weekend but the most we had was a few sprinkles on sunday. It was amazing.

Christine planned a few crafty ideas for the kids (at one point, when our outer grove members showed up, we had 25 kids in our group!). They made bleach print banners and painted paper banners.

We had a huge potluck sit-down meal with everyone. Amazing food! So many kids! LOL

Christine also planned a new moon ritual for saturday night on the beach. She and a few others went down to the beach and drew a pentacle in the sand ahead of time. Then later that night we went down to hold the ritual. It was amazing. The darkness, the wind blowing, the sound of waves on the lake. It was very powerful.

I have to say, camping with my ladies is the BEST. We hate it when we have to leave! I wish I'd gotten a photo with all of us in it. Oh well, maybe next time!

Know things...

Like many, I was broken-hearted to learn that Terry Pratchett had passed.  I decided to make myself a t-shirt with my cutting machine and some iron-on vinyl. The quote is from one of Pratchett's discworld books.

"She couldn't be the prince, and would never be a princess, and she didn't want to be a woodcutter, so she'd be a witch and know things."

Blessed Imbolc!

Blessed Imbolc!

One of the traditions of Candlemas is to make candles.

So I got things set up and Kevin and I made beeswax candles. First we dipped. I used a clothes drying rack to hang the tapers between dips. That worked very well.  Kevin enjoyed doing it but I ended up doing most of the dipping, as it's a long repetitive process. But not as long as you'd think... the wax builds up quickly.

Once we were done making tapers, we poured some pillar candles into empty juice tubes. You need to make sure to buy the juice tubes that are cardboard so that you can rip off the cardboard when the candles are set.

We ended up with some lovely candles when we were done!  We use the tapers for meals at the table, to make eating together a little fancier. The pillars are used mostly for magic. :)

A New Years Tradition

Every new year, usually the first day where we are home but the kid goes to stay overnight with grandma, I set aside the day to watch the entire collection of Alien movies. I've been doing this for over 20 years now. I do this because I could never get through the first Alien movie, it was too gory for me. I was in my late 20s when I was finally able to sit through the whole movie, and I watched it on TV on New Years Eve. It was almost a rite of passage for me.


I don't just watch the original Alien movies with Sigourney Weaver, I watch them all, even the spin-offs. Except there's one that I watched this time around that I thought sucked so bad I won't watch it again... I rented it from Amazon Prime and I am SOOO glad I didn't buy it. I don't even remember the title.

This year, I decided to complete a project that I had bought the felt for a year or two ago. I decided to make a plushie face-hugger. I've always wanted one as a companion for watching the movies! So I set up a craft table in front of the TV, loaded up pictures of plushie face-huggers on my computer screen for inspiration, made some popcorn and filled up a jar with rum and coke, and got down to the business of movie watching and crafting.

I very nearly got the plushie done by the time I'd watched all the movies.  I had a little detailing to do with embroidery stitches later, but I got the basic form completed by the time my son came home from grandma's on sunday!

He wanted to pose with it for a picture, and then he announced that he loved it so much he wanted one of his own!  Well, it was a lot of work to make one, and I had no desire to do it all over again. Fortunately, he was okay with that, he said he'd make it himself, and make it smaller. So I set him up making his own!

Neither of them are quite done yet. I still need to add my embroidery details and he still has to finish his. But I'm sure they'll be done and ready to cuddle come the next new year, when I do this all over again!

Crafty Yule present for me!

I don't get many presents at Yule time. Our focus is mostly on the kiddo. He also has his own Yule "advent" calendar.  I was thinking to myself, I wish I had my own advent calendar... one that give me an awesome treat every day!

And then I thought of this. I made little boxes and glued them together, decorated them and made "Mama's Merry Yuletide Spirits" advent calendar. Rather than stopping at Yule (which is not the same day every year) I went to the 24th, because I needed the even number of boxes and also though Yule ends for me before xmas, I still spend time with family for xmas... and maybe I still want to keep getting little "gifts" for myself to fortify myself for the season. ;)

I think it turned out fantastic and I can't want to use it all next month!

witchy knitting

I'm just learning to knit.  I've knitted several washcloths of a few different patterns from a book I have.

I was looking around on ravelry and found this pentacle washcloth pattern and decided to try it. It turned out pretty cool. I suspect the pentacle pattern would be more visible in a solid color yarn, but I don't have any at the moment. I might make another later. This was not hard at all, just required counting!

I just recently bought some fancy expensive yarn to do my first non-washcloth pattern... a pair of fingerless mitts to wear under larger mittens for driving school bus. I am intimidated! lol

crafty earrings

I was messing around with my new cutting machine, just seeing what materials it could cut and what other things it could do. It has a pen holder in it, and can draw just about any design, and then cut it out.

So I got out this material called "grunge paper" which has a texture like suede, yet it's made from paper. I used ink to change the color, then used my machine to draw neat designs on it and then cut the circles out. I punched holes in them and attached them to earring findings.  Cool instant jewelry. :)  I'm particularly fond of the bees and the compass designs.

A little crafting...

I recently bought a new cutting machine for scrapbooking, however this machine is supposed to cut all sorts of materials, including iron-on vinyl. I've always loved this skull design, so I cut it with iron-on and put it on a t-shirt. 

Now I have a new t-shirt for Samhain season. ;)

Felt skulls

I wanted a new craft that my son and I could do for the season. We made felt skulls for our Samhain altar. :)

I bought some felt from the craft store. I wanted wool felt but our Ben Franklin only sells felt that is 20% wool.




I made a pattern and printed it out in three different sizes, though I only cut out two sizes. :)

I cut out a bunch of pairs of heads in the two sizes.



Then I sewed the pairs together with the blanket stitch and stuffed them with some wool stuffing.

I stitched mine with threads, and different embroidery stitches. :)

Kevin wasn't sure about the stitching part.
I didn't want to push him. I suggested coloring them. I dug out some fabric markers and those worked well for him. He actually colored both sides of the skulls and had fun doing it. :)

They looked great on our altar!