by Ellen Dugan
How about burning a spicy-scented pink votive candle dressed with rose oil to ensure a little passion? You may try jasmine or ylang-ylang oil. Add a rose quartz stone to effect love and a carnelian to encourage desire. For information on impending romantic possibilities or even a glimpse of your future spouse, carve a question mark and a heart on the sides of the candle. Sweet dreams!
It is in society as in nature not the useful, but the ornamental, that strikes the imagination.
Sir Humphry Davy
Tussie-Mussie in a Teacup
Take an old, castoff teacup and some colorful dried flowers, and turn them into an enchanting little gift for a friend or for yourself. In chapter 4 we discussed the tussie-mussie. Now, armed with the knowledge of the language of flowers and using dried flowers, you can turn that inspiration into a fun little magickal project.
Pick out some pretty dried flowers and get started. These bouquets are meant to be diminutive, so you don’t have to go crazy and purchase tons of dried flowers. Small amounts will do very nicely. Try using different colored dried roses, fragrant lavender, and hydrangea blooms. Work with golden yarrow, poppy pods, and nigella. Brightly colored cockscomb, purple statice, and tawny-colored wheat stalks will add texture.
Supplies:
Dried flowers of your choosing
Small bag of green sheet moss
An old castoff china teacup
Floral foam cut to fit the teacup
Knife
Floral pins
Scissors
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
1. Cut the foam to fit down snugly into your teacup.
2. Use a thin sheet of the moss to completely cover up the foam. Secure with a floral pin or two. Make tiny clusters of dried blooms and then, using the scissors, trim the stems of dried materials to same length. Insert the stems of the first little bundle into the center of the foam.
3. Working out from the center of the cup, continue adding flowers in clusters, positioning shorter flowers and stems near the edges so that the arrangement rolls over the rim. Some flowers may require a bit of hot glue to help hold them into place. Keep the bunches of flowers close together. You want the flowers in this arrangement to be packed tightly together.
Note: Don’t be afraid to use an old teacup or creamer that is less than perfect. If it is chipped or cracked, so much the better. It adds character. Watch flea markets and garage sales for inexpensive old teacups, saucers, and creamers. Dried flowers are to be found at most arts and crafts stores. Try checking with an herb or potpourri shop for more exotic options. If your garden isn’t producing anything or you need more supplies, check the arts and crafts store.
I have had a good many more uplifting thoughts, creative and expansive visions
while soaking in comfortable baths,
than I ever had in any cathedrals.
Edmund Wilson
Bedazzling and Bejeweled Bath Salts
Bath salts are a pleasant project for a beginner. Some sea salt or Epsom salts, a little essential oil, some dried herbs, and violà! Place your salts into some funky glass jars that you can purchase at a home interior store, or sterilize and then use old baby food jars. Add small seashells to the salts or embellish the jars by tucking in a few tumbling stones—be as crafty as you like! A basic recipe for bath salts is as follows:
1 cup sea salt or Epsom salt
Several drops of essential oil (any kind)
A few drops of food coloring
A resealable bag
Put salt, oils, and food coloring in the resealable bag, and press air any out. Seal the bag and massage the contents until they are well blended. Place into airtight, nonporous container and store in a dark, cool place for three days. After the salts have cured, place into a glass jar. Use 2–3 tablespoons per bath. When using food coloring to tint the salts, less is more. You could turn the bathtub or your skin colors if you use too much.
Bath salts will cause your pores to open up and you may perspire. If you use too much salts in the bath, it may make you lightheaded. Be conscientious of skin allergies, and if you are pregnant or nursing you may want to avoid using bath salts altogether. Try sprinkling the water with a small amount of fresh rose petals or lavender buds instead.
Sea siren: 5 drops of jasmine oil, 1 tablespoon of powdered kelp (available at health food stores), a few drops of blue food coloring to tint the salts. Add a few tiny seashells to your jar when finished for a charming gift.
Garden Witch 2 drops of rose oil, 3 drops of lavender oil, and 1 drop of orange oil. Add 3 tablespoons of dried lavender flowers and sprinkle in some dried pink rose petals. This bath salt would be pretty tinted a soft purple or pink.
Clairvoyant Cleansing: 4 drops of lilac oil and 3 drops of lavender oil. Tuck into the jar a few amethyst tumbling stones or sprigs of dried lavender. Tint a soft purple. Good for a cleansing after a lot of psychic work, or for when you just have had one hell of a day. This will help clear the aura and clean off any negativity that you are still carrying around.
Magick Man (just for the guys): 4 drops patchouli oil and 3 drops rosemary oil; add a few drops of green food coloring. This has a resinous, pine-forest-type scent.
Wizard's Blend (for guys and gals): 3 drops of orange oil, 2 tablespoons grated, dried orange peel, and a fresh sage leaf, chopped fine. The sage is for wisdom and the orange for purification. Add a quartz crystal for power.
Passionate Practitioner: With this recipe, you should blend or adjust the amounts to your preference. Omit or add more drops of any of these oils to suit: 2 drops rose oil, 1 drop lavender oil, 1 drop ylang-ylang, and 2 drops jasmine oil. A rose quartz crystal or two would be nice. Finally, add red rose petals for romance and tint these salts pink.
Rhiannon's Refresher: 3 drops of orange oil, 3 drops of mint oil, and 1 drop of neroli oil. You may add 1 tablespoon of grated, dried orange peel to this mixture for texture and color. Add a small piece of moonstone or citrine to these salts. You can figure out what color to tint the salts.
You can’t use up creativity.
The more you use, the more you have.
Maya Angelou
Magickal Herbal Wreaths
Wreath making is an ancient practice. The ancient Romans used wreaths to celebrate Saturnalia, a winter solstice celebration, and the wreath has been employed since the Middle Ages to celebrate the changing seasons and holidays. Creating an enchanted herbal wreath is an enjoyable process. There are three basic elements to wreath making: the base, the materials used, and the method of attachment. It’s not expensive or difficult to do. Many of the necessary items you may either have on hand, could grow yourself, or can be found easily at your local arts and crafts store. Basic supplies you will need include:
A glue gun and glue sticks
Florist wire, 20 gauge
Floral picks
A base wreath (try a grapevine, straw, pine, or a moss wreath)
Dried or fresh flowers, seed pods, nuts, small twigs, and feathers
Ribbons in assorted widths and colors
First, take a walk around the yard and see how you can use the bounty that your garden has to offer. The garden has much to provide: herbs and flowers, changing autumn leaves, acorns, pine cones, twigs, and fallen feathers. Often a lazy hour spent outdoors scavenging yields more organic material than any trip to the store. Please recall those gathering guidelines from chapter 2, and get permission if you are harvesting natural materials on someone else’s property. Be a courteous gatherer.
When you begin to assemble the components for your own wreaths, you may want to refer to the correspondence chart listed at the end of the chapter. Don’t forget your intuition, though. Let your instincts guide you.
Lay the wreath out first. Take your time and arrange things to your liking. Have fun, relax, and enj
oy yourself. Remember that it’s much easier to shift pieces around before you glue them on than it is to pry them off afterward. If you are incorporating twigs or viny things like bittersweet into the wreath, try to work them into the grapevine for a more natural look.
You may use different colors of ribbon to decorate the wreath or to weave a pentagram inside of the circle. Experiment with coordinating colors for certain needs and to align with the elements.
Ready to get started? Before I turn you loose, here are several seasonal projects for you to try and to get the creative juices flowing. These projects are meant to be a starting point for you. Change them around and add to them according to your tastes.
Spring Wreath: A moss wreath would be an interesting choice for the base, or a grapevine. Add silk lilacs and dried rosebuds. If the wreath is going to be for Ostara, try tulips and daffodils, and use dried baby’s breath and yarrow for fillers. Tuck a tiny faery in your wreath so she’s peeking out from the flowers. A decorative bluebird with a tiny nest would be very spring oriented. You could add some mini garden tools or tie on a tiny watering can.
Lamas Wreath: I like a straw wreath for the base, it seems more summer oriented. Decorate this wreath with sunflowers, either dried or silk. Add stems of wheat, black feathers, or a small decorative silk blackbird. Use dried yellow yarrow from the garden, marigolds, and purple statice, which looks great with these colors as a filler.
Harvest or Samhain Wreath: Begin with a large grapevine wreath. Add dried golden yarrow, red cockscomb, and miniature ornamental corn. See if you can work in a few miniature pumpkins or gourds. (Use floral picks for the heavier items and glue them in securely.) Weave in bittersweet or rose hips and dyed oak leaves. Embellish with a few gilded acorns. For Samhain, weave an orange or black pentagram into the center of the wreath.
Yule Wreath: A live or artificial pine wreath as the base is traditional. Pine cones add texture and are easy to find. Add sprigs of holly, dried rose hips, seed pods, nuts, and acorns. Small twigs spray painted white and then sprinkled with iridescent glitter are a sparkling addition. Add a silk red bird (cardinal) to your wreath. How about a partridge and a few small artificial pears? Lastly, tie on some bundles of cinnamon sticks for a prosperous new year.
It doesn’t matter whether you grew the herbs and flowers in your own garden and dried them yourself, found them while scavenging, or bought them in the craft store. There are many resources for materials. Searching is half the fun. Enjoy creating your magickal wreaths and keep your eyes open for those little treasures of nature. The Goddess is eternally bountiful. Walk gently, open your heart, and see what you find. Happy wreath making!
A Garden Witch’s Book of Shadows
Now that you have all these wonderful creative ideas and spells swirling around in your brain, where are you going to put them? I hope you have been writing your own charms and recipes. I bet you went out and made a faery garden, didn’t you? How did it go? Did you notice any changes in the yard? In your magick? Are we keeping track?
Remember that spiral notebook that you started taking your first garden witch notes in? Let’s jazz it up a little and make it into a garden witch’s Book of Shadows. A Book of Shadows is simply a witch’s recipe book—a listing of notes, correspondences, and tried-and-true favorites.
Every BOS is unique, as is each witch or natural magician. The difference here will be that we are going to be adding plant information and our gardening notes. Sounds like another excuse to be magickally creative, doesn’t it ?
Either use a binder or locate a blank book or journal. This is your magickal journal, so make it however you want it. Try writing out your spells and recipes with different colored pens and decorating the pages with rubber stamp art. Magickal themes such as faeries, witches, and wizards are classic. Keep your eyes open for Halloween rubber stamps and stickers too.
If you go the three-ring binder route, check out the scrapbook sections at the craft store and look for interesting computer paper to print your spells out on. Take a look at celestial, floral, and garden motif stickers for embellishing the pages.
Add photos from your own gardens, pictures of your spouse, children, or pets, and anything that is special to you. Clip out flower photos, gardening quotes, and magazine articles on gardening and plant folklore that appeal to you and glue them in (I recommend using a glue stick for this).
I don’t advise placing dried, pressed flowers in the journal, unless you put clear contact paper over them. I tried to glue dried, pressed pansies in my BOS once.They looked great until I closed the book and the flowers crumbled apart. It made a hell of a mess altogether.
Your garden witch BOS may be used to record gardening trials and triumphs: what plants grew well, which plants sulked, varieties that you’d like to try next year, and so on.
Basically, your garden witch BOS should reflect you. Take your time and build your BOS up slowly over the years. If you want it to be more gothic and witchy, try your hand at calligraphy and go for it! If you enjoy a botanical theme, or happen to have a thing for flower stickers (which I am guilty of), indulge yourself.
All of the projects in this chapter are designed for you to have a little fun experimenting with the crafty side of witchcraft. Go ahead, try your hand at being artistic. No one is going to grade you. Do you think all of my craft projects, magickal or otherwise, turned out splendidly over the years? Wait a minute, I have to glare at my husband for laughing at me.
Anyway, be daring! Live, laugh, and learn. Most of all, just enjoy the creative process!
Laugh, and the world laughs with you.
Sing . . . and the hills will answer.
Ella Wheeler
At-a-Glance Plant Correspondences
Prosperity
Color: Green. Element: Earth. Plants: Acorns, bayberry, bergamot, cinnamon, cinquefoil, heliotrope, honeysuckle, mint, nuts, oak leaves, pine, poppy, tulip, wheat
Love
Color: Red. Element: Fire. Plants: Catnip, clove, dill, geranium, lady’s mantle, meadowsweet, orange rind, pansy, rosemary, rose, rose hips, tiger lily, violet, yarrow
Healing
Color: Blue. Element: Water. Plants: Angelica, bittersweet, carnation, geranium, juniper, lavender, meadowsweet, mullein, oak, rosemary, rue, St. John’s wort, tansy, thyme
Creativity
Color: Yellow. Element:Air. Plants: Aspen, grapevine, horehound, iris, lavender, lily of the valley, nutmeg, periwinkle, rosemary, rue, sage, spearmint, sunflower, wisteria
Protection
Color: Black. Element: All. Plants: Betony, cloves, cypress, dill, foxglove, garlic, hydrangea, rose geranium, rowan twigs, rue, snapdragons, yarrow, sweet woodruff, violet
At-a-Glance List for Crystal and Stone Magick
Amethyst: Peace and psychic power—a good stone to keep with your Tarot cards
Aventurine: The gambler’s stone, prosperity, and good luck
Bloodstone: Health, good luck, and healing
Carnelian: Love, lust, and health
Citrine: Psychic abilities
Hematite: Grounding and healing
Lapis Lazuli: Healing, love, psychism, bravery; this stone is sacred to the Goddess Isis
Lepidolite: Peace, protection, and brings good luck in new ventures
Moonstone: The Goddess, moon magick, safe travel, self-analysis
Malachite: Cash, business success, healing, and protection
Obsidian: Grounding, deflects negativity, and protection
Quartz Crystal: Power, this will magnify any other crystal or stone added to the charm bag
Rose Quartz: Love, self-confidence, friendships, and warm fuzzies
Tiger's Eye: Protection and success
Turquise: Protection and healing, friendship and good luck
Magickal Color List
I thought this index might come in handy for all of your garden witch craft projects. As you choose fabric for your charm bags or decorate your wreaths with assorted colored ribbons, you may care to refer to this magickal color list. Note: This is also a handy reference guide for candle magick.
Red: Passion, love and healing, the element of fire, and the Mother Goddess
Orange: Energy, action, communication, and intensity
Yellow: Creativity, conception, studying, spring, and the element of air
Green: Prosperity, healing, gardening, herbalism, faery magick, and the element of earth
Blue: Peace, hope, healing, and the element of water
Purple: Psychic powers, to increase personal power, and magick
Brown: Grounding, happy homes, pets, and garden magick
Black: Breaking hexes, banishing illness or negativity, and the Crone
White: All-purpose, the Maiden Goddess, peace, calm, and hope
Grey: Bindings, banishing, invisibility spells, and glamouries
Silver: The Goddess, women’s mysteries, the moon, and intuition
Gold: The God, riches, wealth, and fame
Pink: Love, warm fuzzies, friendship, and children
Baby Blue: Comfort, children, and harmony
Lime Green: Warding off jealousy, seed blessing, and springtime magick
Lilac: Clairvoyance, Tarot work, and faery magick
[contents]
My mom’s a witch and my uncle
married the Easter bunny . . .
A Favorite Family Saying at My House
9
Sabbat Celebrations for Families
True statement. Seriously, it is. During an Easter Sunday brunch celebrated at my parent’s home several years ago, my mom and dad thought it would be the most wonderful idea to go and visit my brother and his fiancée while they worked at an Easter buffet. My parents wanted the kids to be there specifically because my brother’s fiancée, who stands just at five feet tall, was going to be dressed up as the Easter bunny.