21 September 2014

Mabon Funkin Altar Decorations


This article is part of Kallan's wonderful Sunday Stew. Please hop on over and read all the                                 different flavors added by each chef. I know that you will love it!



It's the second harvest celebration and the official beginning of fall! Let's all celebrate with a pumpkin spice coffee! While you're drinking your coffee let's make an altar/home decoration.

This week I'm trying out the funkins. Now, I've never used these. I've seen them for years in the stores, but I've always passed by. I preferred (and still do) real pumpkins. However, I did want something that would last a few years, so I thought I would grab a couple of these and start crafting.

I decided on one white and one orange. I also purchased some fall leaves, fall colored flowers, black wheat, and some orange glitter ribbon.

The first thing you want to do is decide what to put on your funkin. I wanted words on one and a picture carved on the other. I went to dafont.com and found a nice font that I liked. I went with "Here Comes The Sun". It is a nice sized decorative script without too much frill.

For the white pumpkin I decided on a stag silhouette in front of the moon.

I printed it out the size I wanted.


I used transfer paper to put the lettering on the funkin. Just lay the design on the transfer paper and trace over it with a pencil. Do this with both designs.




I know the design I made for the white pumpkin is atrocious (and I'm almost out of black ink) but I only need to make an outline on my pumpkin, so it worked.



Now carve them both. Also cut the tops off, like you would a pumpkin. I'll let you know now that if you have never carved these, the orange was terrible! It seemed brittle and it was harder to carve. The end result carve of the orange one did not have smooth edges. The white one was way easier to carve and it did not make a mess. They both had very heavy PVC smells, which I don't like. When you are finished carving, wash them. The transfer paper makes a bit of a mess. 


There is a caution on the bottom of the funkins that they are highly flammable. You can use lights but only LED lights in them. I'm not going to risk anything since I am also using dry items, such as the wheat in mine. I decide to line behind each of the designs with a bright felt. I'm going to use yellow. I used E-6000 craft glue to attach it to the funkin. I just smeared some glue on the inside, around the design.




These are lightweight and the items that we are going to be putting in them are heavy, so they will need to be weighted inside a bit. I just put a few rocks in each one. 

Next you want to make your arrangement. The black wheat comes with twist ties around it. Keep those to hold your end arrangement together. I used 2 bunches of wheat per funkin. Also, the wheat is quite long. It's up to you how much you want to have standing up, so you will have to trim it. I just put the wheat inside the funkin and kind of measure how much to remove.






When you are finished measuring your wheat and you have it bunched together, tie it with a twist tie to hold it. The other flowers I clipped each one off of the bunch right at the base. Now just arrange your flowers and leaves around the wheat. Use another twist tie to hold the flowers to the wheat. Then put your lovely ribbon around your arrangement and tie a bow.
 

Now, when you put the wheat arrangement inside the funkin it will not be stable, unless you use foam blocks inside. I hate those foam blocks. I stuffed raffia around my arrangements. It worked nicely and my kitties, Gaia and Kissy had a blast.

 


After you are finished stuffing whatever around your arrangement, stand back and look at the awesome that you have made.

Welcome Autumn. Have fun with what you made, put more decor around it. Light some fall candles or incense. This will look nice for Mabon.






Bright Blessings,

Saga









14 September 2014

Just an update!

Hello everyone! I thought I would give you an update on what I've been doing. This time of year is busy for me because of several reasons:

1. I like to giveaway things during the Samhain Sirens October extravaganza. If you don't know what that is please go here. The whole month of October will be filled with blogs, recipes, crafts, fun, and giveaways from all sorts of talented and wonderful vendors.

2. I'm decorating my home for Samhain.

3. I'm getting the gardens ready for winter and harvesting the last of my herbs.

4. We take a family vacation during my son's fall break,

I thought that I would show you some things that I've painted and made these past couple of weeks.

The first thing to show you is one of the giveaway items for the Samhain Sirens. This one will be offered as the very first giveaway of the season! It's a handpainted Siren spirit board with a handmade starfish planchette! The planchette is very lightweight and glides easily across the board. The board has several coats of protection and is signed and numbered by me. One lucky winner will get this beauty! I'm not going to lie, I want to keep this for myself.

(c) Loren Morris

The next thing that I made was a custom spirit board. This one was a lot of fun. My client wanted a Day of the Dead spirit board. So many bright colors with which to work! Yes that is a skeleton hand planchette.

(c) Loren Morris


I also just made my spirit sister a birthday present. Rita of Lapulia Studios has a life that I wanted to turn into fairy tale. So I made a story all about her and painted a picture of her to go with it. 


(c) Loren Morris



And here is the story to go along with her picture:



"Once upon a time there was a beautiful Witch that was generous and kind. She lived deep within an enchanted forest in a beautiful home.
The Witch's most favorite thing in the world was magic. She loved seeing the results of the magic that she worked. In every aspect of her life, magic was used. It made her happy and she saw the importance of having it in the world. 
She loved to help people. People came from far and wide to be helped by the Witch's magic. She loved the happiness that her magic brought when she helped them. But, this also made her sad. She wanted to be able to help more people, but she could not possibly help all of the people everywhere.
The Witch sat and thought of a way that she could help more people. What could she do? She wanted a way to spread the magic into the world, for she saw that it was needed. Maybe she could make a potion? 
Maybe a spell? But for the potion to work, everyone in the world would have to drink it, and the spell would have to contain all of the knowledge that the witch had, for it to work. A spell nor a potion would work. The Witch thought long and hard. For days she thought and thought. And finally an idea came to her! She would create beautiful magical books to share all of the knowledge that she had!
The Witch was so happy to begin working on her idea! She began creating beautiful, leather bound grimoires in wonderful colors, with beautiful artwork. She made gorgeous designs on the covers and filled them with all of the magic that she knew. After she made each one she took it out in the light of the full moon to fill it with the power of the glowing orb.
Soon word spread about the witch's books and more and more people came to obtain the magical tomes. They knew the power that was held within each of the books' pages.
The Witch was so happy that she could spread her knowledge even further and help even more people! She made more and more beautiful books and lived magically ever after." 
(c) Loren Morris 2014


Today, I'll be working in my gardens, getting more herbs harvested and getting a few ready for shipping. I'm also making my son a Lucius Malfoy Death Eater mask AND I'm working on a tarot card set with another dear friend.

If you would like to order your own handpainted spirit board you can contact me through Lapulia Studios or my art page on Facebook. 

Please join me for the Samhain Sirens Samhain celebrations and I will see you next week in the Stew with a Mabon craft for your altar!


Brightest Blessings,

Saga





07 September 2014

Harvest/Corn Moon Swag Decoration

This article is part of Kallan's wonderful Sunday Stew. Please hop on over and read all the different flavors added by each chef. I know that you will love it!


It's almost here! Autumn is almost here! I'm so excited that I cannot contain myself! 

I just can't handle hot weather. The beginning of August was actually quite nice. It was cool outside and I enjoyed going out into the yard and doing things. It seems to have heated back up this past week though and now it's like an oven again. I just don't enjoy it. It's muggy and sticky, not my kind of weather at all. 

The name of the September moon gives me hope that my kind of weather is just around the corner. We are fast approaching the second harvest Sabbat and with it Autumn Equinox, which is my favorite time of year! 

This moon is commonly referred to as the Harvest Moon with Corn Moon being the second most common name. This is the time when the corn and barley are both ready for harvest. 

I decided to just use both names for my decoration. I do want to make a large corn swag like one that is found HERE, and I probably will make one of these later this month. I decided to use some blue corn that I grew in the garden a couple of years ago and dried. I was just throwing it in a basket as a decoration, it needed to be showcased better. 

I ran out to look for some things to put with my corn. I found some great decorative pumpkins, tiny acorns, berry/pinecone pieces and sunflower pins. I decided to use raffia as the swag base.

For the base, I grabbed quite a bit of the raffia and tied knots in it to make it strong and keep it as one long swag piece. Like so: 



Then I laid the corn down on it and decided where each placement would be. I  took the rafia and tied a simple knot around the corn to keep it in its place. Note: some of my corn didn't have tops, so I made tops with a corn husk/wheat decoration that I found. If you notice the corn on the right looks different from the corn on the left. I just cut the decoration apart and hot glued it to the top of my corn. Voila! The corn has a top now.



Next, I will attach the pumpkins. I am trying to keep everything nice and even, so I place the pumpkins in the empty spaces in between the corn. I just take a new strip of raffia and loop and loop it around the stem of the pumpkins and tie each one off.



I found some neat little fall leaf/berry/pinecone sprigs and I slid those in the raffia behind the pumpkin stems. I used the little acorn wire to hold the sprigs in place. 


The sunflowers that I found had clips on the back so I just clipped one at each end of the raffia. At each end I made a loop and knotted it for hanging the swag. And there you have it. Simple enough decoration and it doesn't take long at all to make. 





I hope you enjoyed this full moon craft and brightest blessings!
Saga