soul enchanted

As life (and the Universe) is wont to do, we've circled around into Spring the last couple of weeks.  The snow has changed to its soggy, noisy, dramatic self... the earth below is warming (permanently), and I am, of course, Outside . Sometime in May I shall, of necessity, be moving my work- (and main altar-) space outside.  Though I've considered it often over this winter, I hadn't really started thinking about it too much, until a couple of days ago when I was..... well.... summoned , by Spring. There is a tiny little pond in the backyard that's I've always claimed as mine (for meditation, and reflection), so naturally I'll be moving there, with a few embellishments. Since these things take time, contemplation, and lots of wiggling things about, my feet have been bare to the earth, and my hands and fingers have dirt in all the cracks and creases. Outdoor furniture is being moved back and forth... different things tried here and there.... lots of look...

In a conversation with a friend, I told her that I wanted to make panoramic eggs. I also mentioned that I wanted to make more nature-themed ones, but that I thought it would be a silly thing to do with sugar eggs. Every since I said that, I've been thinking that I really wanted to figure out a way to do it. I used air-dry clay (mine is a natural, earth clay), grass from our yard, tacky glue, a little bird from the craft store, a couple of small snips from a bush (with earliest spring buds), and a large, plastic easter egg. If you have egg molds, or a shell that opens length-wise instead of across - lucky you! Use these halves for molds. If you have the regular eggs that open into the top and bottom half of the eggs, then you can still use it, with some care and patience. First I taped the plastic egg together, so I wouldn't squeeze it apart. For the egg shape, I just pressed bits of clay onto the entire egg. When I felt it was covered evenly, I gen...

I've had this thing for pretty papers, lately.  I'm sort of.... collecting them.  :)  Imagine how thrilled I was a couple of weeks ago when I started buying ones colored and patterned by Spring! This morning Maddie and I played with birds. We both made a template out of construction paper, then traced that onto the pretty stuff. We chose another color for wings, then I slit a hole inside the bird's body, and in went the wings.... and a tail for some. We used a small holepunch, and added thread. Hooray for cheerful and bright!

This was originally posted on my blog Ordinary Life Magic .  Another pretty project to chase away the winter blues! We made a beaded bowl today. We're all about spring pretties in these last (let's hope) cold and gray days of winter. First we rolled out a 1/2 inch or so thick bit of air-dry clay. We cut it with a flower cookie cutter, then picked it up and placed it on a piece of plastic, and rolled it out just a bit more, so it would be bigger. We placed it over a rounded bowl, and put it in the oven on the lowest setting for an hour or a little longer. When it was somewhat firm, we took it out of the oven, and carefully pried it off of the mold. We painted our bowl with acrylic paint, and let that dry for a little while. I got out some small, malleable wire and a needle, and after poking a hole with the needle, I set the wire through the hole. (Very carefully - the clay isn't dry yet, to allow for easy beading.) I wrapped the end around the edge of the bowl, and r...

We've been under snow for months, and I think some color spread throughout our home might be just the thing to remind us that Spring really is coming! Our bird is on a wet-on-wet watercolor painting . Quite a while ago we made a beautiful paper art project . This time we're doing details. For this project you'll need paints if you like, any kind of paper (for quilling, we used actual quilling paper, patterned scrapbooking, construction, and regular printer varieties of paper), glue , scissors , and a quilling tool - you can use an actual quill, if you like, or even a pencil or wooden skewer, but I had the idea today of using an extra large embroidery needle as a tool -- it worked beautifully for little hands. For making the paper strips, first you need to find out which way the paper fibers lie... tear a strip off the paper (around an inch thick will be a good indication). If the tearing line curves, then try tearing it the other way. Following th...

This post was originally posted on my blog Ordinary Life Magic. These little boxes are perfect for holding found spring treasures, or for colored eggs, to welcome Ostara. I have a wooden box that I purchased that looks like a fence. Every since I bought it, I've been thinking on how we could make one... I think handmade ones would be darling on the spring nature table. I picture them holding painted eggs or little nests, pretty rocks, bits of moss... whatever we find during our springtime nature travels. Our materials were popsicle sticks (craft sticks, if you insist), paint, hot glue, craft glue, salt, flour, and flowers. Our tools were a glue gun, sponge (for painting), and wire cutters. First we cut popsicle sticks in half with the wire cutters. Ours went flying, so be warned. Maddie had fun collecting them. Lay them out the width of a whole popsicle stick, and use a stick to line up the bottoms. We used five or six 1/2 sticks per side. Place a dot of craft glue o...