Miniature Book of Shadows Tutorial

You'll need:

Cardboard (thickness is up to you, but I like to use corrugated cardboard)
Glue (Elmer's white glue or glue stick, hot glue or super glue or other strong glue)
Dark tea bag, steeped (but don't burn yourself!)
Match or lighter
Water
Decorative objects (flowers, scrapbooking materials, stickers, etc)
Printed pictures
Ribbons
Decorative paper and/or fabric
Stapler or thread and needle
Scissors
Ruler
Pencil



Step 1: Creating Our Antique Pages

Use the tea to stain the white paper. You'll want to stain both sides with a tea bag, and let them dry. To lighten the color you can add more water while it's still wet, and to darken add multiple coats after the previous coats have dried. Let the paper dry thoroughly. Be sure to stain both sides of the paper and don't use until dry. While drying, proceed to the next step.



Step 2: The cover

Cut a rectangular piece of cardboard to the dimensions you need.
For a 42 cm doll I used a piece of cardboard about 6"x3" give or take. This makes a book about the same finished size as the ones in this tutorial. You will want to leave a few centimeters in the middle to form the book's spine and so you have a place to add your pages. Fold the sides of the cardboard down to make a crease, leaving a bit of space for the spine. The larger your spine the more pages your book will hold.




Step 3: Decorate cover, add book marks

This is where your gluegun or other strong glue comes in. Cut a bit of fabric or paper to be slightly larger than your cardboard. Glue the edges of the fabric all the way around, and let it dry. After it is dry, cut some strips of ribbon several inches long (they may look too long but when all your pages are in there very little will hang over the edge). You can finish the edges so they don't fray if you want. Glue one end of the ribbon onto the spine of the book to create some book marks.





Step 4: Antiquing the Pages

Your tea-stained paper dry? Awesome. At this point you will want to measure out rectangle slightly smaller than your book (you can choose to make them larger and hang out the edge if you'd like). Cut out and make several stacks of these rectangles. You can crinkle the paper, tear it, or do whatever you want to it before burning.

Next, get your match or lighter with your water handy, and light the edges of the pages on fire, and otherwise add burn marks and scorch marks for an aged look. You don't want them to burn too long or your pages will deteriorate. The idea is to go for a slightly worn look, not a tossed-in-a-bonfire look. Warning: it is very easy for flames to get out of control! Always keep water or a fire extinguisher handy just in case, and be sure there is nothing flammable near your burn space. If you are a kid or unsure if you can do this, have an adult do it for you. Be sure to get parental permission!

Fold the rectangles in half and set them in the book (don't glue them in just yet!) this is just to see how thick you want the book to be and still be able to close. Once you see how many stacks it will take to make your book the thickness that you want, keeping in mind any extras you put in to decorate will make the book thicker, staple or stitch the packets.

Step 5: Place pages in the book

For this step, add a line of hot glue or your strong glue to the spine of each packet and hold them into the book's spine until dry. Continue adding the packets as you need. Be sure to keep the ribbons above the book so they don't get glued behind the pages! Trim any excess from the outside of the book, and make sure things are nice and even and dry.



Step 6: Decorate the book

This is the fun part and entirely dependant on your imagination! What I did was look around online for neat-looking pages, like sheet music or book of shadows pages, and size them in Photoshop, but you can use paint and word. You can make your own, but I didn't for this tutorial. Print these, cut them out, and use your Elmer's glue or other glue to place them onto the individual pages (make sure not to use hot glue for this part or the pages will be bumpy and thick).

From this point, it's up to you. You can glue tiny cards and flowers, add stickers or other scrapbook supplies, add your own sketches or writing into the book, whatever you'd like. If you want to work with a theme or organize your book decide on that before you start gluing things in. Make sure as you work on individual pages that you leave room for the pages to dry or they will glue together with all your little details stuck between them and possibly getting ruined.



Step 7: Adding a Closure

If your book is thick or you simply want a closure for your book, glue some ribbon or matching fabric in a little strip to the back of the book. Stitch or glue a snap to the cover and the other end of the ribbon, let it dry, and voila! Closure. Alternatively, simply glue a really long ribbon to the back and wrap it around the book to close.

The sky is the limit and you can use this tutorial to make many different kinds of little books. As a bit of advice, when reducing image size, increase the pixel resolution to make the images clearer.



I hope this all makes sense! If you need more photos or details or whatnot, post a comment!

Relationship Evangelism, and What to do with your Non-pagan In-laws

I learned this week exactly what my fiance's family thinks of me, and I am hardly surprised. To begin, this is his father's side of the family, die-hard Mormon, very traditional, very anti-anything different. (His mother's side loves me.)

The extended family views me as dangerous, a witch (which is not entirely false but their perception of it is), and that the MIL and FIL shouldn't allow the little girls (fiance's sisters) to spend they night with us, because I will corrupt them. I'm also apparently creepy because I hang around in graveyards (and I have a few pics of me in them). I learned all this about three days before we were supposed to go visit them in Nevada for four days. Fortunately, fate saw to it the car broke down and the trip was cancelled.

Fiance also came out to his mother this same week. He told her is not Mormon, so she asked what he was. He told her was Norse pagan, and said he worships old gods. She cried and basically said that if at any point she thought he was into something dangerous, she'd cut him out of her life. Just like that. She then asked if it was because of me.

The fact of the matter is, no matter what happens in the near future, his family will always blame me for him leaving the Mormon church. They blamed me for convincing him to move in with me, when in fact it was his idea (he cleared this up, fortunately). They will always see me as a corruptive force, no matter how much they may like me as a person. He has stood up to his father when he called me an atheist, and I have no doubt he will support me should his family overstep their bounds.

Relationship evangelism- it happens:

No, I did not set out to convert my fiance to paganism. Like many people of various religious persuasions, I often thought it would be nice to share my faith with someone, to build a family tradition around. I wish I could say I'd never tried a little pagan style evangelism, but I did.

It began with a critical discussion of the LDS church. Once my fiancé double-checked my facts and data, his worldview underwent a radical shift, and he began to learn and study all he could about Mormonism, finally deciding to leave it for good. He still considered himself Christian, and we had no issues or problems. Then he began to ask me questions about my faith, and I answered him.

As you live and grow with a person, you cannot help but pick up certain traits and habits and develop new ones together. Religiosity is much the same- stay with someone long enough and you'll pick up a few quirks here and there.

Does this constitute evangelism? To a degree I did intentionally plant the seeds of doubt in a mind that already questioned but admitted he was too afraid to question. He says I was the support he needed to feel strong and brave, and that because of me he has found his walk.

Is it relationship evangelism to talk, to seek, to grow together, to provide the answers the other one asks for? Perhaps. But did I enter in to this relationship with the intention of converting him? No, I most certainly did not. Religion was never an issue for me, or for him.

They are afraid of my intermittent dark clothing choices, my love of ouija and tarot and cemetery walks; they'll never understand my doll collecting or my quirkiness, and that's fine. My only wish is that they will take the time to come to know me as a person, and perhaps find some way to overlook the labels and all the baggage that has been placed on me by those labels. Maybe they'll even like me.

So, here are some points to share with non-pagan in-laws:

You don't need to be afraid of us.

1. Pagans do not worship Satan (we do not believe he exists outside of the Christian religion).

2. We do not condone, encourage, or engage in abuse of any kind: this includes animal abuse, sacrifice, and slaughter, human abuse, sacrifice and slaughter, and sexual abuse, humiliation, or misconduct of any kind. Any pagan engaging in such practices is most certainly a nutcase, and not a pagan.

3. When your pagan inlaw refers to themselves as pagan, they may mean: Asatru, Wiccan, witch, neo-pagan, eclectic pagan, etc. Each pagan will believe differently, and most love to answer questions and point you to proper resources.

4. A pagan who practices magic or tarot or other sort of magical or divinatory practice does not do so with the intent to gain power or control others.

5. Pagans have ethics too. They believe that morals and ethics are relative, and each tradition will have it's own ethics (for example, we of the Northern persuasion believe in honor, hospitability, hard work, loyalty, family, etc).

6. A pagan believes in God, and probably a lot of them (though they could be atheistic, but this is less common).

7. Pagans are not set to destroy Christianity or related religions, nor are they set to bring about the end of American society. Most pagans are simply pluralists, who believe all religions and people should have equal rights, regardless of label.

8. Always, always ask questions.

9. Read as much as you can, but from neutral sources first (Christian sources notoriously misrepresent paganism with lies and false stories of their conversions from paganism; these have been routinely proven false.)

And one last post! Here's a link to the most awesome bride site ever, particularly a search for handfastings/hand-binding for inspiration.

http://offbeatbride.com/tag/handfasting

What's in a Cauldron?

One of my favorite things about my witchy activities is finding excuses to use my mortar and pestle and my cauldron. I love them. They make me feel witchy. I was not, however, willing to spend $30+ on Amazon.com for a cauldron that was 3" with a little pentacle on the side, cute as it was. It seems the bigger they get, the more expensive they get!

Then I discovered a secret....a cauldron is nothing more than a dutch oven cooking pot, cast iron and, most importantly, fireproof! Check out the prices per size anywhere you can purchase dutch ovens. I found mine at Cal Ranch, and I paid $12 plus tax for my 4.5" wide almost 3" deep desert dutch oven.

For example:

This 8qt, 20lb dutch oven for $58, versus this 7" $75 witchy cauldron.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00008GKDW/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000JZZIKI&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0Z67Q8GVD3WS4H5QP8NY

http://www.amazon.com/Large-Pentagram-Cast-Iron-Cauldron/dp/B001BZKCVK/ref=sr_1_5?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1308862410&sr=1-5

Be sure to look around and use smart shopping and price comparisons-- the example above is really not all that extreme. The cauldrons marketed at pagans and witches are generally two to three times higher in price than a larger cast iron dutch oven, when both are good for spellwork and one even doubles as a cooking utensil, which is what cauldrons were used for back in the old days, don't forget.

Our First Midsummer

On June 21st, my almost-husband and I celebrated our first Midsummer as a family coven. We worked together to craft something that draws from both our faiths (my Wiccan-esque eclecticism and his Asatru) and was unique and meaningful. The most meaningful thing we did was the Oath Making. We passed a glass of Mike's Hard Lemonade (mostly because we aren't wine fans) and made promises to one another, promises to grow in our relationship and our spirituality, to learn from the past and move forward into our new life. We promised to love ourselves and always do our best for one another.

The Midsummer for us was a chance to take stock of our lives, to recognize what we have and what we have accomplished. As we head towards the darker, colder months, we must always remember that we have each other, that there is light and hope no matter how bleak things may seem. This was especially important to us this year, as we dealt with my being disowned by my family and the betrayal of a very dear old friend. We will move forward in honor, in truth, and in love despite the negativity. In Llewellyn's Sabbats Almanac this year there is a wonderful piece on the Norse gods, particularly Tyr and Sunna, and I definitely recommend reading it if you haven't already.

It was also a time for us to think of our plans for next Midsummer, the day we plan on wedding. It is fitting that the focus on preventing negativity comes during such an emotional time as wedding planning. I find myself worried and increasingly superficial about some details of the wedding business, and one my goals for the rest of the year is to conquer this. In a year, we will be husband and wife.

The Future Mrs T's Midsummer Potpourri Recipe:

The following recipe uses the term "parts" to mean whatever base measurement you want. For this measurement I used teaspoons. Note that you can burn this, and I did so in my little cauldron. They gave off a very nice scent, and not entirely potent. My whole house smelled wonderful for several hours after. Be sure to crush/bruise each ingredient with your mortar and pestle, and mix together afterward.

1 Part Chamomile (flowers preferably, but I used dried tea)
1 Part Rose (flowers, not oil)
2 Parts Lavender (bruise this so it gives off a stronger scent)
1 Part Mugwort

The Future Mrs T's Cleansing and Joy-Inducing Potpourri:

The following recipe uses the term "parts" to mean whatever base measurement you want. For this measurement I used teaspoons. Note that you can burn this, and I did so in my little cauldron. They gave off a very nice scent, and not entirely potent. My whole house smelled wonderful for several hours after. Be sure to crush/bruise each ingredient with your mortar and pestle, and mix together afterward.

1-2 Bay leaves
1 part cloves (don't use the oil if you can help it; clove oil is very expensive)
1 part chamomile (flowers preferably, but I used tea for this one too)
1/2 part basil
1 part Valerian (Valerian is very, very stinky, but the stink is washed out by the rose and lavender)
1 part rosemary

Blend all the ingredients together in an appropriately sized bowl, and then add to a small sachet or other little bag to store. Be sure to label what they are so you don't forget over time.

Wishing Stones:
In the afore mentioned Sabbats Almanac, they offered a great idea called wishing stones. You hold a stone, walk around the fire whispering your wish to the stone, and toss it into the fire. We plan on incorporating a version of this into our reception next year.


The next post to follow will be a crafty post, on how to make a miniature spellbook/Book of Shadows.

Don't forget to check out the Pagan Mom Blog and the 30 Days of Deity project. It's sure to be something really impressive!

And in perfect timing to my post on hospitality, Mrs. B has posted this lovely piece on Hestia/Vesta:

http://www.confessionsofapagansoccermom.com/2011/06/domestic-witchery-hestia-101.html

Pay a visit

Pay a visit to
http://www.thepaganmomblog.com.

She will be running a guest post from different authors on her blog for the month of July. Yours truly has a piece on Odin.

Bless!