Work in Progress: Hand Painted Altar Set

Ever since Sacred Source made this Altar Set from my designs, I've wanted to try hand painting a set. Well, I'm finally doing it, and they'll be in my Etsy shop as soon as the set is complete! I've finished everything except the God and Goddess statues/candle holders, so that's what I'll be doing next, but I wanted to show you the set so far...

These are the perfect size for tea light candles, although some people like to fill them with substances that embody the elements; salt, soil, stones, seashells, feathers, lava rocks, etc.  I'm really delighted with how this set is turning out.

East/Air

Air: inspiration, wisdom, potential. I used natural shades to represent air, blue sky, feathers, tree branches blowing in the breeze, billowy clouds, and I also included the traditional yellow. The Sylph air elemental has a golden  airy skirt her multicolored wings suggest iridescence .

South/Fire

Fire: will, passion, courage. In creating the flames I blended shades or fed, orange and yellow, there's a little hot blue at the base of the flames. I made the fire breathing dragon elemental a warm golden color. 

West/Water

Water: healing, emotion, cleansing. The water surrounding this candle holder has shades of blues and greens, the shells have layers of color to create a natural look. The undine water elemental has a supernatural purple skin tone and lovely blue/green hair like the sea.

North/Earth

Earth: nurturing, abundance, protection. I used many shades of greens and browns for the earth candle, a few mushrooms, ferns, oak, and ivy leaves cover this one. It has gray stones at the base, and the face of the dryad earth elemental peers out from an old oak.

Pentacle

I decided to paint the sky of the tree pentacle at dusk, the magical in between time, the sun has set casting warm colors at the horizon, the sky above has begun to sparkle with stars. You can either lay this pentacle flat on your altar, or use the brass hanger on the back to hang it on the wall.

The Horned God of the Forest

I still have to paint the Horned God. He is the spirit of the green forest, the power of the sun, and the Lord of the Wilderness, the colors I use will reflect growth and the woods.  

The Moon Goddess of the Night

I also have to paint the Moon Goddess. The Moon Goddess is the spirit of the celestial forces, the power of the moon, and Lady of the Stars.  I will choose colors to represent her nature as the deep mysteries of magic and the night sky.   

I'm grabbing some lunch and then I'll be working on the God and Goddess statues. I hope to have this set finished soon. Once it's complete I'll be offering it in my Etsy shop for sale. This hand painted set will make a very magical addition to someone's altar. I have one more set that I will be painting in a similar fashion later this year. When I hand paint these statues, there are no two that are ever alike, each one is brought to life with color, heart and soul and will soon become part of someone's sacred space!

If you're interested in the unpainted version of this set, it's available here: http://www.sacredsource.com/Votive-Set-Altar-Collection-by-Mickie-Mueller/productinfo/VS/#.V9rlXZgrLIU

The unpainted pieces are also available separately, so that if you wish you can collect the set one piece at a time as you work through the lessons of the elements and the God and Goddess.  

Blessed Be!

Mickie

DIY Firestarters

With many of us still having "fireplace days" and the weather soon to warm up so we can start having outdoor fun around our bonfires and chimineas, I thought you might be interested in these easy DIY fire-starters, made out of stuff you would probably throw away anyhow.  They make a great addition to your kindling to get that fire going.

Start saving up those toilet paper tubes, these are so easy, and they actually look kind of pretty, so they'll be nice even if you have guests over.  I have mine sitting on the hearth of my fireplace.  Without further adieu, here's how to make them.

All you need is dryer lint, empty toilet paper tubes, and leftover tissue paper.

Every time you empty your lint screen from your dryer, shove it into a toilet paper roll.  I just put my TP tubes in the laundry room so they're right there. 

Start saving up those TP rolls, by the time it's warm enough to have fires outside, you'll have loads!  Dryer lint is extremely flammable, so these will really flame up.  But, they look kind of gross....here's my solution to that.

Don't toss that leftover tissue paper from gift bags!

Cut the sheets of tissue into quarters and roll the lint filled TP rolls up in the tissue paper.

Twist the ends like a piece of candy or a British Christmas cracker! 

If you want to, you could tie them off using a bit of raffia, leftover yarn, cotton kite string,  I just left mine twisted, but it's up to you, just make sure whatever you use is natural and will burn and not melt.

Taa-daa! A couple of these mixed in with your kindling will help get your fire started whether in the fireplace or outside, man, I'm ready for some bonfires, come on spring!

I hope you enjoyed these fun and easy DIY fire starters, give them a try!

Blessed Be!
Mickie

I Dyed In My Bathtub

So we've decided to decorate our bedroom in a romantic Middle Eastern eclectic decor focusing on vibrant blues and glass greens.  I ordered a comforter and shams online that we liked, but when it arrived, the color wasn't quite what we wanted. We really were looking for a vivid blue, but it felt like a dreary color even though we liked the fabric and pattern. My solution? I decided to overdye it!

Overdying is when you take a piece of fabric, clothing or other textile that instead of being white, has some kind of already existing color and/or print to it. Overdying changes the color, but you have to have an understanding about how colors mix to get the effect you're looking for.

I was worried about using my washer because of the size of the washer vs the comforter. Anytime you dye fabric, if you don't have enough room for the fabric to move around, you can end up with uneven color, and I wanted this to be right. So I decided to dye it in my bathtub.

First, I made sure the entire set was wet, I tossed it in the tub, got it all wet, and pulled it out again to prepare the dye. So my tub is fiberglass, and they warn you that dye can stain a fiberglass tub, I don't want a blue tub, but I had a plan!  I found inspiration over at The Hip Soiree and used their technique to line my bathtub with clear plastic.  My tub is bigger than theirs, so I used a tarp instead of a shower curtain, but you get the idea.

Our teenage son came home from school and out bathroom looked a bit like Dexter's kill room! Prepare to dye!

I used hot water, a cup of salt since it's a cotton comforter, and I used 2 bottles of Rit Aquamarine, which my artists eye told me would brighten up the gray-indigo color I was starting with and give me a pretty bright blue.  I added 1 cup of salt dissolved in some hot water. Since it's cotton, it's recommended to add salt to the dye bath to help set the color.

It was like stirring a gigantic cauldron. You're supposed to keep the fabric agitating the entire time so that the color comes out even, yeeeah...I did it about 1/2 the time.  My weapon of choice was the handle end of my kitchen broom since I don't own an oar. LOL

When 1/2 hour passed, I put on my rubber gloves and pushed as much excess tarp as I could down the drain, then I poked several holes into the drain with a knife, I prayed that all the dye would go down the drain and not leak under the tarp and dye my tub.

It worked perfectly! Dan and I shoved the comforter into a plastic garbage bag and shoved it into the washer. We put it on extra large load, cold water and let it go.

I was delighted with the results! I got the pretty cheery exotic blue we wanted, and my bathtub looks just as it did when we started! Now that I know the exact color of our new bedding set, I can start looking at window treatments, paint, (oh that pink and blue wallpaper's gotta go) and accessories! Excited to see this room come together!

Here's my inspiration board on Pinterest for my Bedroom Getaway Project!

Blessings,

Mickie

Moroccan Jar Lanterns and the Impending Halloween 2

It's been over a year since a moved into our country home of Aelfheim and while many things are organized and set up how we want them, many still are not. Our bedroom, while the furniture is set up, there is really not much decor going on in there. The walls need to be painted, (80's  pink and blue wall paper) many of our pretties need to be unpacked, and it's really not got much style.  I've decided, and Dan is going along with the idea, that I'm inspired by a romantic Middle Eastern eclectic decor for our bedroom. I've found a really cool comforter online, but once it arrived, it's not quite the right shade of blue, I want to brighten it up, so before I move forward, I'm going to over-dye it, I want to see what shade it will be when I'm done before I choose paint or other accessories.  More on that next week.

Two spaghetti sauce jars and a pickle jar, getting all fancy!

I love those cool Moroccan lanterns, and I've been eyeing some, but I'm on a tight budget. I saw these cool jar DIY versions online, so I decided to give it a try. I traced the designs using a crayon onto a few jars, then used Tulip gold dimensional paint to pipe the designs onto the jars.  I found some colored paint made just for tinting jars made by Mod Podge, and I think they turned out pretty cool! I'll add some electric votives with timers and these will look cool on the low dresser where our TV is.s

I've got to fix the blue one a bit at the top. The blue paint had dried out a bit and I had to add some water, so the consistency was a little off. Overall, I think they turned out pretty cool, I think I'll start saving jars and make more.

In other news, Samhain came and went. We had teenagers here for Halloween, it was a great time, tons of treats, deli sandwiches, and mom made meatball soup with "creepy pasta" you know, that Halloween pasta shaped like bats and pumpkins. Anyway, lots of fun, everyone had a great time!

But all my Halloween stuff is still up! Why? Well, on Halloween while my little grands were trick or treating with their parents, little Olivia said, " We want to trick or treat in Me-Maws field!" They remembered the egg hunt we did for the spring equinox when Dan pulled them in a wagon with the yard tractor in the field, and they found eggs and candy.  So next weekend we'll have a "barely haunted hayride" in the field for the little ones, with stops for them to jump out of the wagon and get treats and toys. So we're having "Second Halloween" just for them!

I even have a couple more pumpkins to carve!

This week my mom and I gathered the last of the herbs and I hung mine in the kitchen window to dry. It smells wonderful when I stand at the sink.

Summers end is here, watching the leaves as they fall from the trees, reminding us that letting to can be beautiful. 

Brightest Blessings!

Mickie

New Drawers to Dress Up the Studio

Since we moved to Aelfheim last fall, we've spent lots of time making this house a home.  Although we have gotten a lot done, we keep finding little things we can do to improve our space.  These clear plastic drawers used to have a home in a giant cabinet at our old house, but at Aelfheim, they ended up being used in my studio, and were one of the first things you would see when entering from the front door.  Not so nice.

This is the "before" view as you enter our front door.  See those nice plastic drawers? You can also see all the junk, i.e. art supplies etc. jumbled up inside of them. Not a great first impression.

The view from my art table when I turn around.  Pretty crap-tastic!

So Dan came up with a great plan to replace those ugly old plastic drawers with something much nicer.  I loved the idea, so we picked up two ClosetMaid Cubicals 3 cube organizers and 6 of their fabric cube shaped drawers and went to work.  

What's in my drawers?!  Holy cats, what a mess! Step one, organize and release!  I went though this mess and figured out what to keep, put it in a category, and what to pitch.

Next we built the two ClosetMaid pieces.  Now I have to tell you something really important here. ClosetMaid makes two lines of organisers, the Cubicals line will work with their fabric drawers, however... their Shelf Stackers line do not work with their fabric drawers, they look like they will, but they are about an inch too small. Yes, this was a lesson learned the hard way, one set had to be returned and the correct set purchased. We went with their 3 Cube Organizer.  We found two in a coffee color.  These are designed to be used horizontally or vertically, but they are designed to only stack in the horizontal position.  That cabinet that you see our ugly plastic drawers next to?  That's actually part of the house and can't be moved, so we needed to stack them vertically. 

Dan and I have built tons of these crazy boxed up furniture pieces in our day, we're like a well oiled machine working together.  Now to figure out a way to hack their design and make  the two pieces stack vertically.

Our homemade bamboo skewer peg tapped into place with a hammer.

Here's how we stacked them. We made 4 of our own pegs out of a bamboo skewer I found in the kitchen, they were the perfect diameter to make a tight fit.  Then, we put the top board onto the cubical that was going to be on the bottom of the stack and instead of using the screws to attach the board, we tapped the homemade pegs into the board as shown in the photo above. Then we built the second cubical and left the bottom board off. We stacked it on top of the other cubical lining up the pre-drilled holes with our homemade pegs and voila! We now had a 6 cube tower! I wouldn't stack these that high unless you have a nook like we did to put it in or at least a corner to add stability.  They also include a wall bracket which might be good to attach if you decide to try this little hack.  We didn't because it's pretty tight in that corner and clearly isn't going anywhere.

Now, I wanted some pretty labels for each fabric drawer so I wouldn't have to open each one to see what's inside.  I really wanted those fancy tags that look like luggage tags, heavy paper with a little metal strip around the outside. I've seen them in craft stores for use in scrap booking. But I had already spent more than my meager limit on this project, so I looked around to see what I had that I could make something with instead.

I found some pretty scrapbook paper and cut it to size, then folded it in half and glued both sides together so it would be thicker and two sided in case they ever flip.  

These are the only fancy scrapbook scissors I had at my house, I think my daughter Brittany left them here years ago...ummm...perfect!

Hole punched the top, threaded pretty green ribbon and tied it to the handle of the fabric drawer.

Then I used a cool font and printed labels for each drawer, aged them with some brown watercolor, and cut them to size.
I'm really happy with these, fancier than the tags I actually wanted, and they were free!

So now my studio has a nice upgrade! I have much more storage, I can find everything I need, and everyone that walks through doesn't have to look at all my junk in clear plastic drawers!

Didn't it turn out nice?! You can't even tell that it's two pieces that weren't meant to stack that way. It's really sturdy and visually a big improvement, not to mention all the extra storage!

Acrylic paint, I still have room for more!

Candle making supplies, a crafty witch's must-have!

Household tools, "I need a phillips head screwdriver!" Ha! I know right where that is! I added some empty tin cans so I don't have to dig to the bottom to find anything.

The new and improved view as you walk in the front door!  Oh so much better, that's a nice first impression!

And the view from my art table when I turn to stand up from my chair! 

I'm so much happier with this new storage solution! It's not a super expensive piece of furniture, but it really added function, class and personality to my studio and the adjoining library.  Sometimes being creative with what you can find and what you already have really pays off.

Brightest Blessings,

Mickie

Signs of Spring on the Equinox

It's the morning of the Spring Equinox, also known by it's old Pagan name, Ostara.  I awoke with one thought in my head, probably inspired by some elusive dream that melted with the opening of my eyes, today's the day, I've got to get moving.  I haven't prepared a big celebration today, my little grands won't be visiting for a couple of weeks, although we'll have a big celebration then.  I have not set up a fancy altar, although I did boil a few eggs last night, and I have a bottle of honey mead for this evening to enjoy with the Old Gods, but I did not prepare a huge event this year.  I awoke, fed the cats, made coffee, and before it was done, I set forth to walk through the meadows of Aelfheim, to see what lessons the spirits of the land had to offer on this equinox morning.

I still need to color my eggs, and the flower pots will be transformed into an Ostara egg tree for when my little grands come to stay for a late Equinox celebration.  I love the cheery flameless candle and embroidered Ostara candle wrap that my mom gave me! See more here (Frogbirds House)

The first thing I noticed was the empty bird feeders, so I went to the barn for some bird seed and suet blocks.  As I worked in the chilled morning air, the birds gathered in a nearby stand of budding trees. Cardinals, woodpeckers, sapsuckers, juncos, doves and chickadees alike, watching my every move.  Once they realized, "Oh she's filling it up, hey guys, she's filling it up!" It was as if laughter erupted from the trees! They rose such a ruckus, they could hardly wait for me to leave so they could have their equinox morning feast.

A moth enjoying sap flowing from the maple.

My next stop was to visit the Four Trees Oak.  I decided to step up into the middle of the magical trees that all grow from one trunk for a quick blessing on this magical day of balance.  The equal hours of day and night inspired me to seek balance for my own spirit and I know no other place at Aelfheim better than the Four Trees Oak to find that balance.  I stood there peacefully soaking up the energy, feeling the tree summoning up life from under ground, pulsing with the life of yet another spring.

New buds on the maple tree, neighbor of the Four Trees Oak.

My spiritual battery recharged, I decided to take a brisk walk through the back pastures, the sun thankfully was shining through the branches of the trees, although mostly bare, they bear the new buds of potential.  I've decided that a morning constitutional will become part of my daily routine, to boost my metabolism before my coffee and breakfast, and also to watch this new land that I'm beginning a relationship with as it waxes and wanes through the year. 

Wild Cinquefoil bursts forth from beneath some dry leaves.

As I walked along the outer edge of the two back pastures, I thought about the difficult spring we've had so far, only days ago this pasture was covered in snow and ice. We've had weather nice enough for bare feet and so bitter that we needed hats and gloves all in one week. But as I walked, I noticed that nature is taking it all in stride.  We complain because we want to get started on our gardens and pack up our winter coats and sweaters for good, but through all of our aggravation,  green is being born all around.

The vast areas of  mossy faerie carpet is becoming an emerald green, offering promise of life returning to the land.

Even though much of Aelfheim still looks brown, there is green life bursting forth if you have patience and know where to look.  When I look out at the pastures from my windows it seems so brown, but walking and becoming one with the land helps you notice what's really happening as the land awakens from it's wintry slumber.

Upon returning to my house, I grabbed a stale bagel I had put aside and tore it into pieces as I strolled over to the bird feeder that's in front of my studio window and began tossing  the bits around the base.  The birds scattered upon my arrival at their feeding station, but as I was finishing up my work, a lone brave nuthatch flew over and positioned himself upside down on the shepherds hook (as is their nature to do) and curiously looked right at me.  I could have reached out and touched him, but didn't dare try.  "Well, hello." I said softly. Not wanting to appear rude, the nuthatch replied, "Hello, thanks for the bagel." and then flew back up to a nearby tree top. I chucked as I walked away, "Your welcome, my friend, enjoy!"

Moss with new spring sporophyte pushing their way upward, eventually releasing spores to continue the green carpet yet further along the path.  

Now I sit with my first cup of coffee. My walk awakened my body as I moved my legs along the land. Energy rose up into my chakras and filled my heart with joy.  The air fresh and clean filled my heart and awakened my mind with the scents of the earth. My system became energized, my spirit fed with the beauty of new life unfolding, I felt the burn in my thighs, oh I really need this, I sat too long at the art table this winter! So this shall be my new morning routine, as often as possible, I will walk the land first thing.  I know that and object set in motion tends to stay in motion, so the action that I choose to take on this day of the Spring Equinox is to plant the seeds of a healthier body, mind, and spirit.  So mote it be!

Where is my Ostara altar? It's all around me!

Happy Spring!

Mickie Mueller