An announcement

   Due to an unexpected death in the family (my mother), I have been absent the past few days and most likely won't be posting with regularity for the next few weeks. Thinking about doing projects for this blog has been one of the things that has helped me through this and I hope to be posting some finds and project work soon, but I'll need a few days to get back on an even keel. This is a massive shock, and leaves me with a lot more family responsibility that I need to work out how to schedule. Thanks so much for all of your support of this project, and I'll be back as soon as I can be because honestly I love doing this and I need a creative outlet right now like no body's business. Love you all and see you soon.

A Little Healthy Competition

   I hope you all remember the glass star shaped candle holders that I debuted in my post HERE.
   Because the hubby and I have finally finished the rest and have decided to have a contest. While you know who did the 2 from the last post, I'm going to post pictures of the other 4 with a letter underneath them. Just leave a comment and include the letter of your favorite and whoever gets the most votes wins! (there is a tiny wager involved here so I'm crossing my fingers because I want to win)
   So here we go-

                                                                            A

                                                                              B

                                                                              C

                                                                               D

  And even though you already know who did them here are the original 2 for consideration in the contest.

                                                                            E

                                                                                  F

So there are all of them. Let the voting commence!

A New Award!

Thank you to Tamara over at Riding on A Broomstick has given Witchy Thrifting this lovely award!

  It was so very nice of her to think of me for this and I appreciate it!
   And it is quickly followed by my first cop out. Ok, it's not so much a cop out as I just can't pick only a few of you. There are so many wonderful blogs I read and follow, and to me you're all super. So consider all of you nominated!
   In other news a lot is going on behind the scenes here at Witchy Thrifting and I'll be make a big(for me) announcement a little later this month. I honestly just can't wait to tell you guys so this whole thing is teasing me a whole lot more than you, lol.
   We should be back to our regularly scheduled thrifting tomorrow. I hope you all are being as bombarded with inspiration as I am!
  

Double Double Boil and Bubble

    I found this really awesome little tripod bowl while I was out and about at the thrift shops and one thing popped into my mind

  can you guess what it was?
      That's right- a cauldron. This little dish reminded me of a little cauldron and I couldn't wait to get started on it.
      The technique I chose for this one was to decoupage some metallic grey tissue paper onto the exterior of the bowl using Modge Podge (crafting gift of the Gods!) to give it a 'cast metal' look. This method was not only very cost effective but also gives me the option to change my mind and use a different technique later if I choose to. Since I didn't use a separate sealer, but instead just applied another layer of Modge Podge to the outside to give it a shinier look so the whole thing can come off after washing it with some water. I really wanted to have the option to change it because there are so many different techniques I could do with this one type of projects that I just know one I'm going to get the itch to do at least one other at some point.

I love how the edges of the paper give it an almost ruff look. This took me about 20 minutes to do (not counting drying time which added about a half hour) and cost me about $3.00 including the  bowl. Since it's a glass dish I can use it as a actual cauldron and put cauldron splashes, incense, or burnable offerings in there.
   I currently have a pretty big and totally awesome project in the works that I'll be telling you all about in the next couple of weeks (I am super excited) and I can't wait to show you how my 'traveling art trunk' suitcase has turned out!

Witchy Prowling Over The Holiday Weekend

   This weekend I did some scouting around some new thrift shops in my area (ok- they've been there forever but they were new to me and that's kinda the point of all this huh?). We had a blast and found some cool stuff.
   Here's some of the loot that I found. Some of it will be altered eventually and some of it will be left alone.
  First up is

     There is a circa 60's jewelry box that I think I'll be using to hold crystals and stones that I find. Also I found a Burberry wallet that HRH is going to absolutely love (I am trying so hard to turn my little fashionista into a thriftinista it isn't even funny- hopefully this find will get me some points).
    
      Then there is my favorite. It is a circa 60's-70's suitcase that I found that's going to be the basis for my own traveling craft trunk ala Aunt Opal and Celia (Thanks again for the inspiration Celia!).  It is in awesome condition. Here is a picture of the inside-

   I can't wait to get started on that one!
   Also while out hunting I came across some awesome little pitchers. I'm assuming they were for syrup, but I absolutely loved them and will find something to use them for, lol.

  I need to find a way to get the hard water stains out of the really round one, but I'm sure I'll come up with something! Oh and I found  a whole bag of those lovely glass beads that you see there, so I think I'll be whipping up a few sets of runes. I think I smell a giveaway coming soon, lol.
   Oh and I forgot to take a picture of it but I grabbed an awesome Oster blender too. With all the weekend /holiday sales going on I got everything for less than $20 and had a lot of fun doing it too!

Swish, Swish, Poof!

   Sorry this is so late but Blogger and Firefox conspired to make my past 2 days miserable, sigh. But I'm back up and running now so whoohoo!
   I was going to do my utensil into wand project in order of the seasons starting with Winter and moving on to spring then summer and so on, but lately fall has really been calling to me. I've been doing a lot of dreaming about fall weather and leaves changing color (not that I actually know what that looks like- but hey a girl can dream can't she?) and really getting excited for Halloween. So Autumn jumped the ship and swam out ahead.
    Now I used a new technique that I had never used before on these and it turned out pretty well I think.
    The slats in the wooden spatulas kept making me think of trees, so I used a wood burning tool to burn the lines and a few small details for the trees in (ever since Gumbo Soul over at Witchy Gumbo posted her wood burned spoons I've been dying to try it). Then I  used some watered down acrylic paints to wash color on for leaves and grass and then added some details in.

    Then I wrapped the handle in some pretty ribbon that reminded me of fall. Next I knotted some red and orange cording and made a chain of knot work that I wrapped around the handle and glued into place. It reminded me of falling leaves. Here's what the whole thing looks like.

     Since I'm doing these in pairs I worked on one of the forks next. Whenever I think of fall the first thing I think of is Halloween. While I was trying diligently to draw a rabbit for spring (I've really been wanting to do an animal for the forks- the prongs just make me think of ears, lol) a little cat kept peeping out at me. So I gave in and let the cat shine through. And what's more Halloween than a black cat?
    I used the same technique of wood burning the basic details in and then acrylic washing the main blocks of color in and then going back with solid acrylics for some of the smaller details.

  Then I used the same gold and pink graded ribbon to wrap the handle but added a cross wrap of thin black ribbon, double wrapping it at the top and adding a charm bead to mimic a collar and tag for my little kitty.

   

so yet again, sorry. This was supposed to go up yesterday morning but the internet was fighting with me. We've since made up and all should be running smoothly from now on !

My First Award!

 Magaly over at Pagan Culture was absolutely sweet enough to give Witchy Thrifting it's very first award!

 Now to me sweet has a couple different meanings. There's sweet as in 'aawwww how sweet', and then there's sweet in the Dude Where's My Car sense (yes I'm that kind of geek, lol), you know sweet. So I'm going to stick with Magaly's 2 groups of 3 rules, but I'm going to pick an "awwwww how sweet' group and a sweet group.
     This first group are a bunch of bloggers that while sweet in their own ways tend to give me the warm fuzzies on a regular basis:
Tamara over at Riding on A Broomstick. She's a really sweet lady and if you guys haven't heard of the plight of Marvin yet then head on over and help us send some peace to the poor little gator before he gets sent to the summerlands.
Gumbo Soul over at Witchy Gumbo  is one of the sweetest ladies I've ever met and so very talented that sometimes I hate her for it. If you like her creations remember to check out her business FB page so you can get some for yourself =).
 Robin Larkspur over at Wiccan Writes is one of the sweetest gardeners around in both senses. She's working on an absolutely magical garden for her daughters wedding that is absolutely beautiful!

Now this second group are a bunch of women that I would totally envision having an argument about tattoos with:
Dark Mother over at Dark Mother Goddess is completely bad @$$ and totally sweet. She kicks butt and doesn't even bother to find out the names...
Leanna from Can We Have A New Witch Ours Melted totally gives a 'f '. She so totally gives one that it's probably capitalized, italicized, and highlighted, lol.
YellowDog Granny of YellowDog Granny Blog makes getting up on Monday mornings almost worth it to me. She's pretty much how I hope to grow up to be.

So there you have it all, I hope you go and check these ladies out and learn how sweet they all are!