Tranformation

   The past few months Transformers have slowly but surely taken over my house and life. All three of my boys (and sometimes my girl too) are absolutely nuts for them. Currently I believe that if forced to choose between saving me or Optimus Prime from some disaster I'm not entirely sure they would choose.
    So when my four year old little man told me that I had made my newest project transform I took it as a pretty big compliment.
     Here is this old suitcase as I posted it a few weeks ago:

it's the brown one in the back

here is a picture of the front

 

     Now here is what it looks like now:

         Now how did I affect the awesome transformation you ask? Well simple. I used some craft paint (Vintage White), some ribbon hot glued around the edges, and some shelf paper. you heard me right, shelf paper (for anyone who has ever seen Johnny Dangerously this quote's for you- 'Rubber Duckies and Bunnies!"). I found the patterned shelf paper at the Dollar Tree and the rest I got from Micheal's on sale and with a 20% off coupon (I absolutely love those!). And here you have it- night and day. Maybe not as good as Optimus Prime, but I sure dig it!
    What have all of the rest of you been up to? (besides you Gumbo Soul- I am still jealous over that embroidery machine!) I have finished my project and just putting the finishing touches on my first submission for my column on PaganPages.net and I'll give you guys a little sneak peak later this week. Don't forget to hop over there and check them out- it's a great community and the subscription is free!

Something WIckedly Cool This Way Comes

Normally I would be posting my latest creation but I need a couple more days to complete it with my crazy life right now (getting ready for school for the kids AND myself, writing a novel, chasing after 2 little midgets, and working on way to many projects at once- gotta learn to pay attention to my Thrifting Journal). Thankfully though I found a craft recently that is just flat out awesome and the kids have been pretty stoked about it too, so we've been doing quite a bit of it.
    It's this really awesome (and awesomely not spendy) Harry Potter Wand how to (<- link) from Your Life Uncommon. This is so cheap and easy to do that once I do the basic filling up of the glue the kids can do the rest pretty much on their own (the older 2 that is- I'm not in any way ready to see my 3 year old holding a glue gun..).
    The only really witchy spin that I have put on this for my little witchlets is that while I am filling the tube with glue (and may I suggest you use a high temp glue gun that works well- you don't want to know how I found out that little tip) I have started putting little(very little) folded up pieces of paper with power words that I had the children focus their energy into to sort of 'dedicate' the wands. I also added glass beads (the ones with a flat side that look like drops of glass from the floral section not the kind with the holes through them though you could use those as well..and now I have a new idea, lol) to the swirls on the outside and had the kids say a chant over the wands once they were done. So now they are gathering up quite the array of magickal wands and they were really, really inexpensive!
    Go ahead and try this one out, I really recommend it. Considering how many really cool crafts I find out there that I like to put my own witchy spin on I think I might just make this a semiregular feature here on the ol' blog but we'll see.
    Happy crafting!

Coming Back

  Hi all.
      Sorry I went offline the past couple weeks, but I really needed to sit back and process what was going on inside my own head. My mother's death was so unexpected I had a whole heap full of feelings drop on me at once. I just kind of shut down for a while. But now I'm back on a more even keel and will be picking up things here where I left off.
     I had wanted to wait to announce this until I had my first submission in (which would have been the 20th of this past month but when my mother died on the 14th I pretty much dropped my project and made arrangements to submit it this next month), but I think some good news on here would be great. So without further ado here's my big announcement-
    I've been asked to do a monthly column for PaganPages.org !!
    The column will be based on this blog and include some Witchy Thrifting projects you haven't seen before. Subscription to the site is free so check it out. I am so honored that they asked me to become part of their family and I figure it will be a whole new experience and a lot of fun!

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!