Tag Archives: magic
Getting Witchy With It
0Sharing photos of a few more potion bottles I made and my first mandrake attempt. I will be making another mandrake and posting a simple how to.
I scream when picked!
Real hair growth oil. Looked good with the spel bottles.
Halloween Potion Bottles
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Free your inner witch this Halloween and get your potion on!
Items needed:
Small Bottles/ jars
Lids or corks
Labels printed from the internet or you have designed
Fine glitter
Long wooden skewers
Food color
Cheap clear hair gel
Twine
Small charms
Dash of magic
Handful of curses
Pinch of malice
Sprinkle of spite
In your empty bottle add a squeeze of the hair gel. Some glitter and a drop of food color. I usually try to use glitter and food color that is same color. Using skewer mix the potion.
Add more of gel and glitter. Keep doing this until you have bottled filled to your liking.
If the color isn’t dark enough add more food coloring. Go easy the color can get too dark easily.
Cork that elixir of dread. Add label as is or age it slightly with some watered down brown paint. Top the bottle with some twine and a charm.
Bibbity bobbity boo you have a potion.
Tea Staining Paper
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The end result
Part one of the making of my Practical Magic style book.
I wanted the pages of the book to look aged at the beginning with the pages appearing newer as you get towards the end. Like a grimoire that has been passed down generations and each generation having added to the book.
Tea staining is a great way to age paper. With some trial and error on my part I finally found a technique I like.
My first try I just took wet tea bags and rubbed them on both sides of paper. It worked but not like I wanted. I even tried hibiscus tea to give the paper a pink tent. The dark red tea dried to a blue on the paper.
Bag rubbing technique
My second technique was to just soak each sheet of paper in a bath of tea. Some sheets I soaked a few minutes some up to thirty. I laid them around the house to dry. It was a slow process but well worth the wait.
Soaking technique
I did try to dry some sheets in the oven but this summer heat was just too much for that craziness.
You can also stain paper with print on it. The tes won’t affect the print. I did get some pink tinted sheets by adding red food color to the tea.
Printed pages that have been stained
Some pages I gave the coffee cup ring
The paper I used was 70 pound cover in natural white. I work at a print company so I do have access to huge sheets of paper which I can get cut to any size. 15×10.5 is the size of the paper which when folded gave me 7.5×10.5 sheets.
After the paper dried I put them in signatures of three. Next post will cover the sewing of the signatures.
Not red or pink spots.
Triple Moon Spellbook
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Triple Moon book of shadows
For this project you will need a hardcover Journal. The paper inside can be lined or blank, the book can be big or small.
A sheet of chipboard. Some thin cardboard would work also.
A pack of gift bag tissue or cheap paper towels.
Modge Podge.
Some craft glue.
Craft paints. Black and up to three other colors of your choice.
First thing you want to do is get the chipboard and draw three shapes on it the circle and the two half half moons draw two sets of each so you can stack them on top of each other to get you a little thickness. cut them out.
I drew and cut out one set and then traced them to get the second set once you cut those out take two of your half moons and glue them on top of each other so you have a thicker piece do to the same to the other half moon and then your full moon.
Set them to the side to dry.
Now the fun part, on the front of your book take a paintbrush dip it in your mod podge and go all over the front of the book.
If you’re using the tissue paper like you put in gift bags just lay one big piece down press down over the glue and do a little crinkling so you get a good amount of wrinkles.
A little side note if you do want a lot of wrinkles on your cover, before you begin anything on this project take your tissue and ball up into balls. That will help you to get a lot more crinkling.
Now your first layer you should have some overhang on all four sides leave that alone for now now,take your mod podge again and go over the tissue.
Let that dry for a few minutes Open up your book take your modge podge and go around the outer three edges on the inside book cover. If that makes sense.
Take that tissue that’s overhang in the front and press it into the inside go over that with a layer of modge podge.
At this point I found something to stick in the book to prop up the front cover so it can dry.
Now using some glue, glue your triple moon symbol on your front cover where you would like it to be.
Go over that with another layer of the modge podge and tissue just be sure to press around the triple Moon symbols so they stick out.
If you do want more texture then take your Modge Podge put another layer of glue down and then another layer of tissue, go over again with Modge Podge let dry. Just don’t forget to press the paper down around your triple moon symbols.
Flip book and repeat the mod podge tissue on the backside, you can also do the spine of the book when you do the back or when you do the front it doesn’t matter.
Let it dry completely now take your black paint and with the paint brush paint over the whole front of the book.
Base coat
Let it dry and then paint the back of the book you can also open up the covers and paint that little section of Modge podging you did on the inside just make sure to let everything dry completely before moving on to the next step.
Now that everything’s dry you want to take a dry paintbrush and using the dry brush technique take a color of your choice go over the front of the book let dry, do the spine and the back. I used a different color for the dry brushing on the back of my book.
Back
If you find you went to heavy with the dry brush color just dip your finger in your black paint and just go over some areas where you think the other color is too heavy.
Now you can leave that as is or you can take another color and lightly go over the triple moon symbol, once all that is completely dry and I would give it a few hours, paint on a layer of Modge Podge if you want a glossy look. If not just skip the Mod Podge.
The inside of you front cover is going to be looking a little bit messy so you can take a sheet of paper. It can have a design on it or it could be blank and cut it to the size of the inner book cover and glue it on. I used a road map of North Carolina.
Inside front cover.
Now your book is done.
Witches book of shadows
Bibbity Bobbity Boo, a Wand How-to
0Bibbity Bobbity Boo, a Wand How-to
So my evil spawn aka the daughter has a birthday coming up. She’s married, has children, works and has a house to maintain. I could get her something practical that could help lighten the load but where’s the fun in that. I making her two fun gifts. A Wand and a Witches Grimore.
Today I made the wand. My oak tree looses limbs during every storm. I pulled off a good size stick from one of the fallen to become the magical instrument. The wand I made was super long, normally wand size is determined by the length from your elbow to wrist.
I used sanding fabric to smooth out most of the lumps and remove the rougher bark.
Sanding the wand.
You can leave the wand natural but I chose to paint it using a metallic craft paint. I just dipped my finger in the paint and rubbed it all over the stick. I didn’t have a paint brush.
Paint is optional.
Once the paint dried I used a little tack glue along with jewelry wrapping wire to attach a selenite wand to the handle end. This will help with getting a good grip during those magic duels.
Attach the selenite wand.
I wrapped a piece of amber further up the wand where the wand had some rough bumps. I used a thick grey thread to attach an amethyst point not far from the amber.
I also used the thread and tack glue to attach another piece of amber for the wand tip. I took a knife and cut a small notch around just below the wand tip to give the thread something to grab onto.
I had several charms I added to the tip also. I just tied them on below the amber.
Last I got out my trusty side kick, the wood burning tool. I burnt into different areas on the wand rune symbols. Research whatever symbols you use. You don’t want to accidentally summon a demon. That would be rude, imagine you’re demon going about your business doing demony things when blam! You’re in a bedroom of some crafter who is wearing pajamas, hair not brushed.
When summoning a demon one should dress up! If you don’t take it seriously how do you expect the demon to?
You can draw the symbols on the wand then burn them into the wood or live life dangerously like me and just free hand burn the symbols.
DIY Spell Book
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Items:
Hardback sketchbook (Michaels)
2 small journals (Dollar Tree)
Craft Paint: 1 metallic copper (Michaels)
1 grape (Michaels)
1 metallic glorious gold (Michaels)
Plastic spiders (Dollar tree)
Mod podge (Michaels)
Wood burning tool
Scrap tissue paper. I used the kind you put in gift bags.
Scrapbook paper (assorted designs) (Michaels)
Paint brushes
Assorted jewelry charms/pendants (Michaels and Hobby Lobby)
Spray bottle of water.
Eye of Newt (optional)
Dead man’s toe (again optional)
How-to or Make Magic!
Using water bottle spray corners of paper. Fan/flip through paper till dry. Open book to random pages, lightly spritz entire page. Dont soak the paper. Let dry. Do this to several pages. You will not need to do this to the smaller books.
Ball up the tissue paper to get some wrinkling going. Set aside. Glue a spider on front of each book. Once that sets up put a layer of mod podge down on first book. Unball the paper and apply to book. You should have some tissue over hang. You want wrinkles, lots of them. Cover spider also, push paper down between the legs so you can keep some of the spider shape. Brush a layer of mod podge over the paper. Let dry. Now open front of book, mod podge the inner edges and press down the tissue. Apply another coat of mod podge over that. Take something and prop under the book cover to let the inner part dry. I did second layer of tissue on the bigger book. The smaller books did fine with just one layer.
Now as you do the spine on the bigger book here’s where you will put the chain (I used several inches of an old necklace). Put down a line of glue halfway down spine. Press chain into glue. Now tissue paper/Glue the spine. Let dry. The smaller books I added the chain to the book back. Now paper/glue the back cover of books.
Paint on a solid coat of the metallic copper. Let dry. Next a layer of grape. Go over some parts heavier than others. Let dry. Dry brush lightly with gold. Let dry. Sounds simple, it is but the drying time is what is the most bothersome. I don’t like the wait, but did I use the time to decide on ‘spells’ and print out items to go inside books. Curses and hexes are optional. *if you find you went to heavy on the gold in some areas just put some grape paint on your finger and rub over the gold. It might take more than one layer.*
Heat up your wood burning tool. Burn edges of paper. This will take a long time. Don’t give up it is worth it. If you burn yourself feel free to drop the F bomb. I did, a few times. Glue on a pendant to the book cover.
Now you are ready to fill up your book with spells, recipes, whatever floats your boat. I mean you can have a casserole recipe on one page and the next page a nice demon summoning. That will give you something to do to pass the time while the casserole bakes. If you’re single: make casserole, summon demon. BAM date night with a demon.
I made this book for the daughter. She grew up watching Buffy, Charmed, Supernatural, and Hocus Pocus. So I made up some pages using those shows as inspiration. I left most of book blank so she can add her own spells.
Working That Pinterest Voodoo
1It was dark as I made my way to the hidden cave, hidden to all but me. Every so often a strike of lightning would light up the night helping me find my way. Once in the cave I lit blood red candles and gathered up supplies for the magic I was about to work.
I could hear the storm raging outside as I threw the white powder into my magical bowl. The powder covered the precious silver pieces that lay at the bottom. I poured the magical brew from my cauldron into the bowl. The sizzling sound let me know that something was happening. I pulled out one of the precious metals and looked at it closely in the candlelight.
I had done it. I had worked magic! I held the silver high into the air and shouted out to the empty night, “I am Gotha the great and powerful!”
That’s what happened in my mind. In reality I was in my kitchen on a warm sunny day with the doors and windows open letting in a nice cooling breeze. I was getting ready to attempt to clean my tarnished silver jewelry.
I am not a fan of gold, as a matter of fact I own no gold jewelry at all. Mt husband says he is the luckiest man alive since I am not a fan of gold or diamonds. I do love me some silver. What I don’t love is how the pieces I do not wear everyday tarnish while chilling in my jewelry box. I did not want to go buy expensive jewelry cleaning products. So I did what I normally do. I searched Pinterest. Pinterest is my first stop on searching information. To me Pinterest is the new Google.
Search ‘cleaning tarnished silver’ on Pinterest and hundreds of pins appear. Most, by most I mean almost all describe the same process. So many similar pins. Must work right?
Well I was going to find out if it worked. Boy did it work. I will share how this ‘magic’ is worked.
Gather what you need to work your magic:
Tarnished silver jewelry
A bowl
Aluminum foil
Baking soda
Salt
A towel or soft cloth
water
Here is the ‘spell’:
Line your the bowl with aluminum foil.
Put small pot of water on the stove to boil. You want it heated to just ready to boil.
Take all your tarnished silver and put in the bowl.
Then cover the silver with baking soda and salt.
Pour the hot water into bowl.
Watch the magic happen.
Let the magic continue for a few moments.
Fish out your silver with something (I used a fork) so you don’t burn yourself.
Dry your silver with a towel, giving it a good rub as you do.
Stand back.
Admire your magical prowess.
Welcome to the world of magic or as my husband calls it, science. He tries to suck the fun out of all my adventures. He is worse than grumpy cat sometimes. Yet I love him anyway. J
How tarnished!
Oh the shame.
Line bowl with foil
Add silver. Cover with baking soda and salt.
Pour in hot water. Bubble, bubble…
shiny
Oh, pretty!
A Pinch of Magic
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Bibbity Bobbity Boo
I have been asked, “Gotha, why is your blog titled, The Pinteresting Life of Gotha Stewart?”, well the answer is simple. When I decided to start this blog I told my husband I wanted to call it “Bitches Be Pinning”. He immediately replied, “I will divorce you if you do.”
Since I have already invested eighteen years of my life with this man and he is the one who kills the spiders that get inside the house. I decided to come up with a different blog name. My friends are all the time telling me, if the evil world had a Martha Stewart it would be you. That is the direction my mind went to find another blog title, so later that day ‘The Pinteresting Life of Gotha Stewart’ was born.
That being said, today’s post is not even about a pin I saw on Pinterest, (oh the horror). This is a pin I, myself pinned. It was just a photo of the finished project that I uploaded to Pinterest. Since several people have asked me how I made it, I decided to share the how-to.
We have this giant oak tree in out back yard, I call him the mighty oak. Yes I do talk to him. If I don’t he throws acorns on me as I try to relax and read in his shade. Mighty oak tends to lose limbs during bad thunderstorms. One day while picking up limbs after an extremely bad storm I picked up this one good size stick. The first thing that entered my mind was, Gandalf from LOTR. I turned to the husband, shouted, “You shall not pass!” then struck the earth with the bottom of the stick. The husband looked at me, shook his head and said, “to bad it’s not a broom, you could fly off.” Oh he thinks he is funny. He’s not.
The mind started working. I saw this stick transformed to a magical staff any sorcerer or sorceress would be proud of.
How-to Magical Staff
What you need:
An awesome stick from an acorn throwing tree. (any good size fallen limb would work)
Wood burning tool
Sandpaper
Screwdriver or something to scrape away bark
Sealant
Imagination
Gemstones (optional)
Jewelry/craft glue (if using gemstones)
Small jewelry charms (optional)
Cooking twine (for charms and gemstone)
Nail polish or marker (if using gemstones)
Sharpie
Small can of light wood stain
Eye of newt (not really)
Tongue of goat (not really)
A sarcastic husband who thinks you are incapable of using a wood burning tool (optional)
I already had all the items on hand. Except eye of newt and tongue of goat. I began working naked under the light of a full moon, not really, it was full sun and I was fully clothed. Since we just experienced a bad storm the night before I had to lay the stick in the sun to dry. This took a few days. I did almost all the work on this project outside, due to messiness and chemicals used.
After drying I used a flat head screw driver to scrape off the bark. My plan way to scrape all the bark off, cut off any lumpy bumpy places and smooth the whole thing down. I decided against that after realizing all those things were what gave the stick character. I did remove the bark and sandpaper from places where I was going to burn symbols. This took a week, mainly because I was working a lot of hours at the time and was hardly home. I must warn you, there could be tiny bugs coming out of the stick as you work. The stick at one time was a living limb that housed living things. Nope, not creepy at all.
After the scraping and sanding was complete I got down my trusty book, “The Happy Homemakers Guide to Sorcery and Pot-Luck Potion Swaps.” Not a real book but what an awesome Gotha Stewart prop that would make. I did use books and go online looking up magical symbols to use. It’s not like anyone has ever accidentally conjured up a demon that way. Right? (See Buffy, season four episode four, “Fear, Itself”. To see how things can go wrong using symbols from books. Last scene in episode is great.)
With the sharpie I drew the symbols I wanted on the stick. Using the wood burning tool I burnt those symbols into the stick. Some symbols I had to burn a few times to get them deep and dark enough to be seen. FYI this is not a project for children, unless they are enrolled in Hogwarts, even then they would still need adult supervision on this project.
Once the symbols are burnt you can now stain the staff. At this point I feel it should no longer be called a stick. I used a paper towel to apply the stain, I only stained a few places. I wanted the staff to have a used well worn look and feel.
Once you have the staff looking how you want it. Now get out your can of spray sealant and spray away. I did several coats. Let each coat dry completely before applying the next.
Now is time for gemstones. A few years ago the husband and I took a day trip to the mountains. We stopped at a roadside gem mining stand. You buy a bucket of rocks, sit at a flume with running water, use container with a mesh like bottom and proceed to find gemstones. We ended up with a huge bag of gemstones.
I played around with placing gemstones in the ‘fork’ of the staff until I found the perfect one. I then used craft glue (E-6000) to glue it in place. This stuff has a strong smell. Make sure you are outside or in a well ventilated area. I then glued a pointed stone to the tip of one of the ‘prongs’. That area was not the most secure place and the glue did not have much area to grab onto. So I applied glue the bottom end of the stone and the first inch of the stick then I wrapped cooking twine where the glue was applied. Once completely wrapped to my liking I started dabbing more glue on the outer part of the twine. Once dried I was not happy with the look of the twine, it was orange and black striped. I had this dark purple nail polish that was left in my car. The heat had thickened it up to the point I could not use it as fingernail polish. I coated the twine in it. To finish it up I tied a bundle of charms to the staff. I went overboard with the charms. I will probably take most of them off and just settle on three to leave dangling. I will also use a different color twine to tie them with, maybe a solid color.
So there it is. The making of a magical staff. It is now ready to use as a magical prop, or to dazzle your friends at conventions or banish a demon hiding under a dwarfed mined mountain.
A little over five foot tall
I wish I had taken photos of the whole process. As I sit here typing this the wind is picking up outside, maybe a storm is blowing in. If the Mighty Oak loses another awesome limb maybe I will make another magical staff and take pictures of the process this time.
I hope this has inspired the magical person inside you to make you own staff if so, please share your experience and photos with me.
Thanks for visiting now off you go, there’s pins out there in need of pinning!
The Pinteresting Life of Gotha Stewart 