Vintage

I love vintage things. Here's some shots from a collage I made recently.









Vintage images take me instantly to a simpler time and place, not a perfect place, but a place in our collective past that has much to teach us. I go all drooly over vintage finds at the thrift shop like a vintage apron, an old children's book, or ye old handmade goodies.



What vintage things do you love?

Homemade Halloween

A cool autumn evening, the sounds of laughing children playing as the golden sunlight drifts away over the mountains and onto some red paradise - a needle darts between my fingers, a cup of tea at my side, I sit and create magick.



The tradition of dressing up in sacred garb for Samhain, otherwise known as Halloween, is a practice as old as the bones of my ancestors. As the veil between the our world and the world of our beloved dead grows thinner I relish these special moments were, even in this busy season, I manage to carve out the time to place love and care into every stitch for my family.



When your life turns with the seasons and you walk the path of the old ways, something as simple as a Halloween costume becomes an enchanted gift, a holy tradition that you carry forth into the next generation.

Homemade Laundry Detergent!

Found this here


Here’s what you need:
- 1 bar of soap

- 1 box of washing soda (look for it in the laundry detergent aisle at your local department store - it comes in an Arm & Hammer box and will contain enough for six batches of this stuff

- 1 box of borax

- A 15 liter bucket with a lid

- Three gallons of tap water

- A big spoon to stir the mixture with

- A measuring cup

- A knife





Step One: Put about four cups of water into a pan on your stove and turn the heat up on high until it’s almost boiling. While you’re waiting, whip out a knife and start shaving strips off of the bar of soap into the water, whittling it down. Keep the heat below a boil and keep shaving the soap. Eventually, you’ll shave up the whole bar, then stir the hot water until the soap is dissolved and you have some highly soapy water.





Step Two: Put three gallons of hot water (11 liters or so) into the five gallon bucket - the easiest way is to fill up three gallon milk jugs worth of it. Then mix in the hot soapy water from step one, stir it for a while, then add a cup of the washing soda. Keep stirring it for another minute or two, then add a half cup of borax if you are using borax. Stir for another couple of minutes, then let the stuff sit overnight to cool.



And you’re done. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll have a bucket of gelatinous slime that’s a paler shade of the soap that you used (in our case, it’s a very pale greenish blue). One measuring cup full of this slime will be roughly what you need to do a load of laundry - and the ingredients are basically the same as laundry detergent. Thus, out of three gallons, you’ll get about 48 loads of laundry. If you do this six times, you’ll have used six bars of soap ($0.99 each), one box of washing soda ($2.49 at our store), and about half a box of borax ($2.49 at our store, so $1.25) and make 288 loads of laundry. This comes up to a cost of right around three cents a gallon, or a savings of $70.

Vintage Finds

Don't ya love those great thrift shop vintage finds especially when they're crafty? I sure do!







Here's a mint condition vintage needle kit. Love it!







Wooden spools of thread - how freakin' cute is that?

Sewin'

So do you have your copy of The Creative Family yet? Mine arrived into my hot little hands about a week ago and after much thrift shop hunting I finally found some embroidery hoops so off a sewin' we went! It's perfect! I love the ideas in this book! (for those of you livin' in the Cedar City, UT area, boogie on down to Braun Books and pick yourself up a copy!)

Fun with "at"

So in homeschool this week we are working with the ever popular Bob books. We are working on the one called "Mat" So we had some fun with "at" sounds.



I gave a flannel board presentation.....





....and we did an art project. Glue written out as "a" and "t" and then mustard seeds dumped on top. The kids loved this one! In addition to that we did some printing practice, some word detective finding "at" and lots of sounding out!

I made pants!

Holy crap I made pants! It was so much fun! Nyk loves them.




I used a pair of his old pants as a guide.




I added pockets at Nykki's request, the pockets feature gnomes, too cute :)



I made them on the big side so he'd have room to grow.

Quilting and the Bee Goddess

I was inspired by recent posts from Lizz and Qalballah about quilting. I have loved quilts from as far back as I can remember. Something about them speaks to my soul. I love them so much I included them in my thesis so I thought I would share that part of my thesis with you now (bibliography available upon request).

Here it is....

Everyday Magick in an Amish Life

For the Amish, home is a sanctuary, it is God’s home (Bender 76). Amish families typically have 8 – 10 children (Bender 104) and from the beginning of their religion to be Amish has meant to reinvent the world together, in the everyday, as a family (Stoltzfus 78). In an Amish home one gets a feeling of Zen, according to Sue Bender. There is a natural self-forgetfulness in the Amish that lends to this feeling (Bender 77). Sue remarks that even something simple like washing dishes, is for them a sacred ritual that they all understand and follow (Bender 44).

Amish women have a spiritual connection with their tasks especially with that of sewing (Stoltzfus 78) and nothing brings Amish sewing to mind quite like the image of their famous Amish quilts. One of the most common quilting patterns the Amish use is called the sunshine and shadow pattern (Bender 146).



To me this pattern is almost psychedelic in appearance and reminds me of something I might see at an outdoor music festival in Northern California. The use of dark and light brings to mind for me the ancient understanding of night and day, winter and summer, yin and yang, male and female – the natural harmony of life and nature. Amish women get together and quilt in quilting bees. This is a celebrated social occasion complete with special treats to eat and gossiping to be heard. Some quilting bees last several days and may be comprised of over a hundred women with nearly as many, if not more, children (110)!

I was very interested when I was doing my research with the phrase “Quilting Bee”. Where had it come from? So I looked it up. According to the Pittsburg Post Gazette the word “bee” used with “quilting”, “sewing” or “spelling” as uncertain origins. In England “been” or “bean” means to be given help by neighbors toward a particular task. The word “bee” was first recorded as being used in a “Spinning Bee” in 1769 and was used thereafter for “husking bees”, “apple bees” and “logging bees (Pittsburg Post Gazette).”

I have my own idea. In German the word for Bee is Biene. Bee Goddesses can be traced to the Minoan (Sicily) culture. The Bee Goddess represented community activity, diligence and work (Ransome). It seems an interesting synchronicity that the Bee Goddess would preside over community diligence and embody a spirit of work and community events that would come to be called “bees”.

Searching out the homemade

I went to my sister-in-law's 10th birthday party today at the roller rink. I was so happy to see a sweet homemade cake on the table! The cake was a baking project her and her mom did together, I just had to take a picture and share (I cropped out her name because I'm not sure they would want me to post it.)




It's so nice to see homemade, I was sure to tell my mother-in-law how much I liked it.

It was Ronan's first visit to the rink with enough walking ability to try out skates.






He didn't care for them one bit! *sigh* My former Figure Skater wants a child I can groom in all the attention for competative skating that I never got *pout*

In other news....

Here's a recent craft project I intended to be a spring gnome but because the fabric I used for the face was really bunchy and soft she has been dubbed the "grandma doll" by Nyk.





So I've been told that the three most stressful things a person can encounter in life are

1. Death of a loved one
2. Divorce
3. Moving

Any tips from my Sage readers as to how I might more easily survive the next few weeks moving (especially since this will be my first time moving with two kids)?

Ta ta for now!

Crafting Sunday

We had a lazy crafting Sunday...



St. Paddy's Day Gnomes :)





Felt and hand embroidered cover for my B of M

My hormoes have been mixed up lately and I've skipped two periods (not pregnant though, at least the tests say I'm not LOL) hence I haven't had my day off in a while, so Seth did the cleaning Sunday while I relaxed and crafted. I love my man!

Heart and Home

We've been spending a magickal few days as a family. On Valentine's Day I stitched Nykki a pink felt horse, stuffed with pinto beans sporting wool hair while he was at school.





Seth presented me with a fairy address book from our local book store as my Valentine's gift. He did such a wonderful job at hiding it from me. Money has been tight so we agreed no gifts this year. Then I dropped him off at work that day and during his break he ran all the way across town to the book store to buy it, and then run all the way back to work on time! I couldn't believe it! He hid it in his pants when I came to get him from work (we share a car btw) and I never suspected a thing! What a wonderful surprise!

While Seth got our seed babies in their spring bed.....



....I made us a V-day supper of acorn squash and heart shaped yams (I used a cookie cutter).



Hope you had a nice holiday!

Valentine's Day Fortune Cookies

Here's a batch of Valentine's Day felt fortune cookies Nykki and I made today. They aren't sealed so they can be opened up. They are stuffed with pink stickers and a tag which reads "Love Nykki"

I can't wait to bring them to Nykki's class tomorrow! I really liked the way they turned out :)

Brightest Blessings of Imbolc!

The Heavenly Mother as Brigid walked the snow covered fields last night as we slept warm in our beds - blessing beads and cloth as she went. You may have noticed her footprints in the new fallen snow.

We started the festivites yesterday by creating a beautiful center piece for our table.




We rolled salt dough into bee hives.




We then put these on a pie pan and inserted some local, palm oil candles. Then we adorned it with rosemary from the front garden. Simple and beautiful.





Nykki and I then got to making the making dinner.



We made Brigid bread which was a modified recipe of the Brigid bread from Circle Round (we used spelt instead of wheat and rosemary instead of basil).


We also made the Sunshine soup from Circle Round and modified it by adding some of our locally harvested mushrooms from this season.




It's warm rich color reminds us that spring is near!

Some light candles, some warm soup and fresh baked bread are complimented by a yummy green salad with raw cheese, cucmbers and tomatoes.




We woke up to a snow covered scene. The forest around us looks as though Brigid dusted it with large clumps of powdered sugar as she passed by.




This morning we ate a hearty Imbolc breakfast. We started by juicing the blood oranges that my Mommy sent us :) I love my mom! She is so thoughtful! The bright red color was the perfect enlivining way to start out our snow frosted day!




We stacked up the peels seeing how high we get them.




We ate Brigid bread and drank raw milk along with our blood red juice.



Next we painted with the pulp on water color paper!









Here's mine



May the cloak of Brigid blanket you in it's shine and warmth. Tuck down near your hearth and rest, for spring is right around the corner. Blessed Be!

Sold!

My first Etsy creation sold today! OK, so my mom bought it I'm glad she's my biggest fan! I love her so much!

Brigid Arrives On Our Altar

Drawn by horses, across the snowy drifts in her slay, the Imbolg/Valentine Goddess Brigid (pronounced Br-ee-d) has arrived on our altar.




Sweetly hand stiched of wool felt, face and body stuffed with 100% pure cotton batting, she smiles knowingly as the light grows in strength.

Look for my upcoming SageWoman column, titled, B is for Brigid, Imparting Brigid’s Virtues of Unity, Peace, Healing, Poetry and Craftsmanship to Our Children.

Here's a snipet:

I am drawn to Brigid in particular because of her strength of character and the assets she brings to my family’s practices in faith. I am a home schooling mom, some pagan parents have their children in public or private schools, but whatever your child’s academic path it is up to us as parents to cultivate wisdom in the hope of developing within our children a strong sense of worth and an ethical fortitude rooted in our faith system. Brigid therefore is the perfect Goddess to aide us in the bestowing of what I like to call “Brigid’s Virtues.”