OK, maybe not much actual craftiness going on here, more like the arrangement of elements and visual focii and whatnot.

I realized that I forgot to introduce everyone to my crystal ball, so here it is.

I had almost completely forgotten about this little trinket; I had made it last winter, I believe, before I made a set of Christmas-themed pins to raffle off at the local elementary school book fair. I was having fun with the Super Sculpey that day, I suppose.

The Uktena is Georgia's local dragon from Cherokee legend. It is believed to make its lair on Brasstown Bald and keeps a mystical diamond in its forehead. It is said to have either stripes or spots; my version is a golden amphithere with silver horns on its head and rainbow bands around its chest.

Went down to the local Hobby Lobby to check the prices on their leather craft stuff. Found a belt buckle kit, a belt blank, and a small knife pouch that might fit my wands. All I need to find now is a couple of nice pouches, not that I can't make them myself. What's neat is that all this stuff is customizable, so I can cover them with whatever designs I want, once I figure out how that sort of stuff is done (I've never tooled leather before).

They've also got a good price on parchment paper. I've got a 3-ring binder that I plan on turning into a personal grimoire (despite all my previous plans on grimoire creation that flopped). I have multiple dividers for this one so that I can store more topics. It's also a window binder, so I get to design my own cover and spine XD Yay craftiness!

And in other news... I just realized that I could print off a page of secret messages and then cut the paper into strips, then fold the strips up into wishing stars, rather than taking the strips and trying to write the messages on them by hand. Faster, neater, and the writing will come out much more legible. Plus I get to play with fonts and font effects. :D Time for some more glamourbombing!

Pendant is made of super sculpey, decorated with acrylic paints. The cord is black leather and the beads are plastic. Not exactly natural materials, more like a fusion of the natural world and the world of man.

The pattern of the colors in the beads represents the Wheel of the Year: a period of activity (blue and yellow) and a period of rest (green and black) divided by two periods of healing and growth (blue and green).

Blue and purple are simply my two favorite colors, they also happen to represent Sagittarius. The gold paint represents the Sun, ruling planet of gryphons in general.

I prefer the readjustable sliding knots to a clasp or closure, since they keep the circle unbroken, an important thing for magickal jewelry. I've been using them in my necklaces ever since a gypsy did it for me with my first rune necklace, years ago in Key West.

Today I went to check on the altar I redesigned yesterday. Originally I had a large rock ledge overlooking a wide pan of water with some pecan shell boats floating in the water. After the rain I had decided that boats weren't all that practical for a faerie "motel", and replaced them with tiny beds made from pecan shells with small leaves placed inside for covers. I turned the rock over so that instead of one big uneven ledge, there were two flat ledges with enough space to stick at least three beds on a ledge. I added leaf "carpeting" and a sea shell with water for washing. One day before I had checked the water pan, in which I had added exactly five decorated glass gems for each of four different colors, and found an extra red one; this one I placed inside the shell.

Here is how I found it this morning. At least two of the beds appeared to be unused; two were missing their covers, one with the covers taken away. Must have been a rough night for some faerie.

I fixed up the beds and replaced the covers, and went ahead and replaced the carpets since one of them had been soiled on by a bird. I also added some camelia petals and pebbles. I had a full camelia blossom on the top ledge, but decided to replace it with a tiny cairn/henge instead:

I hope they like that. Next time, I want to try adding bedding and pillows.