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!

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. :)

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!