Monday, December 2, 2013

December Witch Crafting

31 Days of Witches was great. The Kitchen Witch posts were a good idea, but I sort of ran out of time, thus not doing a full month. I tend to forget how much time Thanksgiving consumes. The day came when I was caught up, then the days came when I was in danger of falling behind, then suddenly it was Thanksgiving. Despite keeping things low key, Will and I were pretty busy. Z and Hunter cleaned the house, and Will did most of the cooking, but still, I barely got to go into the same room with my computer, let alone sit down in front of it.

So here we are at December. I planned crafts projects. I had already decided I didn't want to do this every day like I did with the past two months. Think more like once a week. What will I be posting? What I craft. I do a wide variety of needlework. I'm also fairly handy with paint and glue. I'm pretty good at re-purposing. I'll try to keep instructions simple, but not all the projects will be easy because I think people need challenges. Our first project is really easy and is both décor and protection spell. It doesn't look like a spell, so you can hide magick in plain sight.

I decided to make a wreath to hang over my backdoor. I'm using hot peppers (these are Peter Peppers, an heirloom variety) to burn away negative energy. If you use the peppers for magick, then you cannot use them for food. You will be consuming negative energy. You can use any kind of pepper. These were growing in my garden. Because I didn't have enough peppers to make a solid wreath (Will kept eating them and taking the peppers to work so he could dare his friends to try them) I'm using a grapevine wreath as a base. Here I've laid out all supplies and am burning incense to purify my work.
The peppers need to be dried. Lay them in a hot window. They will shrivel up. If you want to use this as purely décor/cooking supplies then you would soak the peppers in a bowl of water before adding them to the food. This works like sun-dried tomatoes. To string the peppers you will need a large needle and thread. I recommend stringing the peppers onto the spool of thread and not cutting the thread until all the peppers are strung. It is annoying to run out of thread. Remember to leave enough to tie. THE PEPPERS ARE HOT. So don't rub your face during stringing and make sure you wash your hands afterwards. When I was done with this needle I threw it out.
Strung peppers. Now would be the time to state your intent. Please note I strung the peppers through the top near the stem. If you string through the tip the peppers may fall off as they dry more.
Peppers on the wreath. Despite careful planning, the peppers will never go in same arrangement twice. It took a while to get it right and the peppers tend to slide around rather than staying where I wanted them. I did not cut the thread until I had everything where I wanted it. I thought I would have too many peppers to cover this wreath. Instead, I barely had enough.
Completed wreath hanging over door. I waited until I hung the wreath up to cast my protection spell because the placement was just as important to me as the spell. Did you know the word 'enchant' means 'to sing over'? How do you say spells? Do you make them rhyme? Do you say them slowly? Do you raise energy by singing?

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