A cute draft excluder and retro cake stand

Hi All

Sorry for the lack of post yesterday but I was so busy sourcing and making these little cuties! A draught excluder (all bought from a charity shop at a cost obout £2.50) and a retro cake stand (more charity shop - cost of 75p). Bargain!

Oh yeh, I getcha. You wanna make these too doncha? Alright, here's how I did it :)

Draught Excluder

Get your hands on a cute, decent sized toy and a pair of trousers that will have legs long enough to be the width of a door. I used 3-6 mth old trousers and they're very slightly short to be totally honest. Only about an inch or so either side tho so nothing too drastic. You need the toy to be fat enough to be able to wear the trousers.

 

Cut the trousers up the groin area a bit. We need to make them be able to open a bit wider.

Next, approach Teddy with the scissors. Try to ignore the terror in his eyes. Remember, we're making him into a better person. Start chopping. Oh and PLEASE make sure the kids dont see you. Unless you want them to endure years of counselling later in life.

Remove excess lower half stuffing - we'll use that another time!

Now to tackle the hole in his trousers

Make sure trousers are inside out and stitch some scrap material over it. I used leftovers from when I turned poor Mr P's boxer shorts into a clothes peg bag.

Now we have to pop whats left of Teddy's legs into the trousers. Argh, trousers are too wide! Time to pin them, turn inside out and stitch to make them skinner.

Now stitch Teddy's feet onto the trousers. Turn right side out again and make sure your stitch catches both the trousers and the foot so nothing will fall out once we fill it. I did mine around the seams since there was stitching there anyway. I'd recommend double stitching it.

Do the same for the other foot. Nearly there, Teddy!

Next, fill it with your choice. Some people use rice although I wouldn't as I'm scared of encouraging rats, Other people use old towels or stockings. I used pine scented kitty litter which I got from Pets At Home for £2.29 for 5kg. I've got about a third left (enough for my Chicken Door Stop!). I also didn't sew Teddy into his trousers although you probably would want to. There were a few reasons why I didnt do it. We dont have kids so no chance of them trying to lift it to play with it. I wanted to be able to access the cat litter incase it got wet and I needed to empty it and re-new it. And I hate hand stitching! So Teddy got an elastic band around him and covered with a ribbon bow to stop anything falling out if he got kicked over. Along with Mr P getting a thorough warning not to ever pick Teddy up by his head. He must always be picked up by his legs. In all probability tho, I probably will permenantly stitch him together to make him more secure. Acces to his insides can always be gotten at via his scrap material cicle!

 

Enjoy! x

Cake Stand

Dead easy this. Just get two plates, one of which is slightly smaller than the other. Make sure they're clean and dry. Fill two shot glasses with whatever you fancy. Pot pourii, coloured sand, coloured aquarium gravel, anything. Put glass glue round the shot glass rim (I got mine from B&Q - bout £3.98 I think. For glass to glass bonds and dries clear.) Put an upside down plate in the middle and, holding the plate and shot glass carefully, turn quickly right side up. Do this for the other plate too. Then glue on top of each other. Add a few fabric flowers if you like. Et voila! Easy, huh?

Hope you enjoy making these projects!

H x

3 Minute Green Candle Money Spell

Hey Gang

Did a bit more video making today and have now completed a quick 3 minute video of a Green Candle Money Spell. Candle magick is really easy - we do it every year when we make a wish and blow out our birthday candles!

Spells are great...as long as you bear a few "rules" in mind. Always perform your spell from a positive space (mentally). Focus on the good part ie the outcome rather than why you are performing it ie the problem. NEVER do a spell which involves altering the free will of another person (known as Black Magick). This is a major no-no. Grey magick can involve another person but in a non-sinister way without their consent ie secretly doing a spell to help them get a job they want. White magick is where all the good times are ie using natural energies to bring about the best outcome in your own life. And finally, always remember the "Rule Of Three" - whatever you put out, The Universe will return to you threefold. So only use your powers for good please!

Thursdays are the best day for carrying out money spells. This is because Thursday is associated with Jupiter, the planet of Wealth, Success and Luck. Make sure you perform it during the Waxing phase of the moon (so as it increases, so does your wealth!) or on a full moon. The current moon phase and date of next full moon can be found on my home page : Current Moon Phase. The best time to perform this spell would be at 2200hrs as this is the hour associated with Jupitar. Other Jupitar associated hours are 0100hrs and 1500hrs. You could also perform this at noon when the Sun is at it's strongest if you prefer.

A green candle is used for all money, success, prosperity, good luck, fertility, growth and employment spells. Silver or grey candles can also be used in an emergancy if you dont have green ones. But won't work quite as well so it really is best to try to get some green ones. They're not expensive (47p in my shop!). Just as well really as we're needing them for a spell to increase wealth not decrease it!

Firstly, shower to purify yourself and clease away any negativity from the past. Make sure when you're focusing your intent that you use your imagination as vividly as possible. Imagine yourself holding a cheque for the amount of money you need, taking it into the bank and seeing it appear on your bank statement. Really try to imagine the money in your hands. How does  it feel? All crisp, cold, new notes or soft well-handled ones? Can you smell it? Be sure to focus on how you're feeling as if you ALREADY HAVE the money. Focusing on really needing it will only send out the intent that you have no money (so The Universe will grant you this and give you no money) or that you are desperate for it (in which case you will repel money from you).

Once you've carried out the spell, be sure to eat and drink something. This is to ground yourself again. The act of taking a sip of water and a bite of a cracker or biscuit is mundane enough to bring you back down to earth!

Try not to obsess about whether it has worked or not. Sometimes these things take time and a lot of it is belief. Wondering if it has worked sends out the message that you are doubting it and so The Law Of Attraction won't kick in. Make sure you give thanks at the end for it working (believe!) and when you do get your extra cash, a nice gesture is to give some of it back ie to Charity. After all, money is just a form of energy and energy needs to keep moving or it will go stale. Also, this helps re-affirm that you dont "need" money (if you needed it - you wouldn't give it away) and so you should attract more money to yourself. As opposed to hoarding it and giving out a message of poverty and not-enough-to-go-round to The Universe.

Let me know what you think of the vid - all comments gratefully received! And, please let me know if (when!) the spell works for you :D

H x 

Pagan Supplies Video Showing Briar Angels And Faeries Pendants

A super short blog today as only had 2 hours sleep before getting up aat 3am to go to work. So I'm a bit tired! I've also spent all afternoon and evening working on my pagan supplies website moving bits around and playing with the colour scheme. Let me know what you think!

Also made my very first video today. It was a bit rushed but I'm still pretty pleased with it. I hope you like it.

New Member Of The Family!

I have some exciting news today! After weeks of pestering the long-suffering Mr P and continuiously showing him sad piccies, he has finally buckled and agreed that we can temporarily foster a cat! Yay!! I have been given a list of rules I must comply with (which, of course, I shall) with one of them being that we can only offer temporary fostering for up to a month for the cat. So, after checking that cats are ok with the landlords, I was finally able to call the Celia Hammond Animal Trust Rescue Centre in Lewisham and register our help. The nice lady called me back today and said we could definately help them out as they are actually over-flowing with cats as it is kitten season and they also just took in 35 cats and 9 kittens the other day who'd been living in a van with a man and a lady since August 2nd!

So a nice lady will be coming around in the next few days to chat to us about what we need to do, how experienced we are with cats (ie they'll give us a nervous/grumpy one if we have lots of experience...we don't!). So it's all very exciting! I've also asked if I can help out volunteering at the centre during the week so that shall also be discussed at the same time. Can't wait!

I'm a sucker for an animal in need. I'm always feeding poor Mr P's ham for his sandwiches to the local cats who pop into the garden to say hello to me while I'm gardening. It's been almost 18 months since I went to Thailand to volunteer at an elephant sanctuary out there so it's about time I got stuck back into helping animals again.

Cats are great. I love 'em so much that I even have a little figurine of Bast the Egyptian Goddess. They're soft, fluffy and pretty independant too. Mostly they just chill out and they do LOADS of stretching. My massage lady is always telling me to watch cats as they've got the right idea. They stretch all the time. In fact, most of the time when they go to move, they won't, until they've given themselves a good old stretch out first.

Stretching is so good for you. Anyone who practises yoga will tell you that. In fact, there are many yoga moves which seem to be inspired by cats...and I'm not just talking about the Cat Pose!

Flickr/nagillum

Flickr/myyogaonline

Flickr/myyogaonline

Flickr/Amy Groark

discovery.com

Flickr/dsb nola

Flickr/play4smee

Flickr/YoGeek Mami

If you fancy being a bit more cat-like  then you can download this free yoga book which'll help get you started.

How To Get A Good Night's Sleep...And Stay Sober

Why are Monday's always so difficult? You spend all day trying to just get through it before hitting Tuesday - the even worse day. Wednesday are hump days so once you hit noon, it's the slippery slope down to the weekend again. By Thursday the weekend is so close you can almost smell it. And by the time Friday's come back around, you feel like giving it a massive hug like a long lost friend and telling it how much you've missed it.

My Monday's been particularily painful. Mostly due to lack of sleep. I had a (for once) very chilled out weekend which involved me going to bed at a very reasonable hour and getting up fairly early the next day. So how come when I actually NEED to get some sleep, I just can't? I managed around four hours before I woke up from a horrendous nightmare.

My nightmare's are legendary in our house. Poor Mr P is frequently woken up by me twitching, squealing, shouting, snarling, and sometimes even barking like a dog. Not to mention me digging my nails into the palms of my hands until they're bleeding...during which all I'm still asleep.

Last night's was particularily bad (these ones tend to keep re-occuring until I've filled in my Tax Return - random, eh?) which meant I was woken up by myself at 340am and that was me until I had to get up for work at 5am.

So tonight I'm not taking any chances and shall be sleeping with my lump of Amethyst under my pillow. Now as anyone who's ever watched a shopping telly jewellery hour will tell you, Amethyst is a purple stone from the quartz family and is the birthstone of February. You may even know that it comes from the Greek words meaning "Not Drunk" and was believed to keep the owner sober and control unruly behaviour. Which is why a great many wine goblets had amethysts in their design. But one thing you may not know is that it is also said to help with meditation, relaxation and in getting a restful nights sleep.

Amethyst is a good, all round healing stone thanks to its soothing vibrations. As well as helping to relax you to help with a good night's sleep, it can also help with banishing tension headaches by using it to make small circular movements in the centre of the temple, working outwards.

Due to it's purple colour, it is linked to the body's pineal gland which is located in the centre of the forehead in the area also known as the "Third Eye". This makes it an ideal stone to help heighten psychic awareness and intuition.

All crystals need "charging" before their first use. This is to "fill" them with magical energy which you can use to your advantage. Crystals can be charged in a variety of ways. The most common is by using moonlight. Crystals should always be charged during a Waxing Moon - the period between the New and Full Moons when the energies are growing with the increasing moonlight. Other ways of charging are using air, salt, earth or water.

So I'm not taking any chances tonight - I'm off to dig out my Amethyst! :D

H x

And on the 7th day She rested

I have plans. Big plans. Well for today at least. As many of you know I like to keep busy. There's always something going on and I feel like I should always be doing, learning or achieving something, otherwise I feel guilty that I'm wasting precious time. But my plan for today is to do absolutley nothing. That's right. Zilch. Nada. Zip.

Yeah right!

The chances of that are fairly slim. What's more likely to happen is I shall be treating myself to doing something I enjoy. No doubt making another one of these cheeky little fellows

Sock Monkey Family

That's right - Sock Monkey Fever has hit the Rainbows & Butterflies household with these little darlings springing up all over the place. Much to the surprise and (poorly-hidden) delight of Mr P. I finally got a sewing machine waaaay back in March for my birthday but due to house moving and (I have to admit) pure terror, it had yet to even have it's box seal broken. But, I am pleased to announce that it was finally unpacked and after spending the best part of an hour and a half attempting to work out how to insert the bobbin, it was finally ready to rock. Full marks to Mama Rainbows who explained to me over the phone how to do it - no doubt using mother's intuition rather than my cryptic explanations  ("Well there's a wee bit sticking up which is next to a kinda hinge thing and a wee bit at the top which kinda has a little slit which is a bit covered up with a flat bit, if you know what I mean"....she did, thankfully).

Despite only using a sewing machine briefly at school around 15 years ago, there was no way I was going to waste time practising. So naturally I jumped straight in with my first project (obviously still on a high from taming the wild bobbin).

I had a nice yellow wool tank top which I'd worn a few weeks back when I dressed up as a bee (best to not ask why) and, for some reason, I'd shoved it in the washing machine along with all the other clothes on a normal 30 degree wash. Forty-five minutes later out comes tanky...shrunken and turned into felt instead of wool. So as I find it impossible to chuck anything away coz I am always convinced things can be turned into something new, I'd already ear-marked it as a new cushion for our sofa as we have two sofas and only one cushion. So tanky got turned inside out and got stitched right across the arm pits. Then got stitched about 9/10ths of the way across the bottom, turned right way out and stuffed with some of the inside of an extra pillow we had and then hand stitched the last wee bit to fill the gap. All in all it took under five minutes and turned out surprisingly ok...not to mention very soft and comfortable. Not bad for a first attempt!

Tanky. Now renamed Cushy

So now I've been collecting all sort of random things to stitch into new and fabulous goodies. I've already made the above three sock monkeys who have now all gone to new homes, I've turned a pair of Mr P's very ripped boxers into a tiny peg bag (using the fly opening to extract the pegs - genius!) and I have on standby a colourful doggy fleece from a chariy shop which will soon be re-born into a chicken door-stop....just as soon as I've worked out how to sew on a zip.

So maybe today wont be a day of nothing after all :D

A Truly Magickal Day!

Today has been a good day. Despite waking up feeling slightly ropey after a night on the tiles (wearing VERY un-sensible shoes!), Mr P and myself still managed to get ourselves up and together enough to make our first visit to Greenwich Auctions. I've been desperate to go here for ages as it'd been recommended to me by Mr P's Dad's friend a while back. Plus I do love a good rummage - not to mention a good bargain!  After 3 hrs of sitting as still as possible and trying to ignore our suddenly incredibly itchy noses and heads, it was our turn to bid for the only lot we were desperate to win - 2 cast aluminium battleshields made for and used in the 1988 cult classic film "Willow"! The guide price was an incredible £10-£15 so we were praying that we'd not have to reach our maximum bid of £20 per shield. We needn't have worried tho - everyone there was more interested in the vintage wine than in movie memorabilia! So we got them for a measly tenner each. A bargain as we found them later on the internet selling for £120-£149 per shield!

I loved "Willow" when I was growing up. It was one of the movies my folks recorded onto video from the tv and my younger brother and I would watch it over and over again. So to have a little piece of it in my little house is just fantastic and will help remind me to always believe in magic.

Our 2 fabulous "Willow" shields

Last night's amazing dancing shoes - worth every minute of pain!

Better Late Than Never!

Well folks it's finally happened! That's right - at last I've gone all 21st centuary and gotten myself a blog. There have been a few reason why it has taken so long, the main one being a complete lack of time. But after several days of finding spiders crawling across me, I've finally taken the hint from them to enhance my "web" skills.
So here we are. Emergency exits are here, here and here. Buckle up and enjoy the ride :D

H x