Witches on a Budget...suggestions please!

[too2sweet]

Quote:

Be a Crafty Teen Witch: Creating Altar Tools for the Young Wiccan on a Budget
© Gwinevere Rain

May 24, 2007

Tips and suggestions for young adult Wiccans on how to find and make inexpensive tools.

The average teen has to juggle school stuff, friendship drama, dating dilemmas and a host of parental issues. So adding yet another complication to an already heaping pile can be interesting. This is why being a teen Wiccan on a budget can be super stressful. The good news is that there are ways to overcome broke-witch-syndrome. There are a few key factors to being crafty: know where and when to shop, make things yourself, and see value in everyday items.

When to Shop

Halloween is becoming a bigger holiday each year so it's no surprise to see stores pack their shelves with spooky merchandise. Some of these items can actually be useful for Wiccans, but the best time to shop is after Halloween when all the merchandise goes on clearance. Specifically, keep an eye out for brooms, baskets, candles and candle holders. These mundane decorations can become altar supplies with a quick blessing or consecration. Black candles are often hard to find, so stock up during post-Halloween sales. Depending where you shop, you can purchase votives and tapers for as little as .10 each.

Make Tools Yourself

Making altar tools yourself is not only economical but also great fun. For an altar pentagram; gather several thin, dry twigs and set them in a row next to each other. Choose five that are equal in length. Then line up the twigs to form a five-point star, and take natural looking string (like hemp used for jewelry making) and weave it around where the twigs line up. This handmade altar pentagram can be hung on the wall above the altar or used on top as a consecration tool.

For a fancy-looking wand at a low cost price, visit your local Lowes or Home Depot store and head down then plumbing section. Locate the pipes area and search for copper. They should have a variety of lengths and thickness to choose from. Test several in your hand to intuitively sense the best feel. Aim for one less than two feet in length. Use jewelry making supplies: glue, beads, wire and drilled gemstones to accent your copper wand.

Change Everday Items

The truly crafty teen witch adapts and knows how to make everyday items magical! A tarnished serving dish found at a garage sale has serious potential. With the help of a parent, spray paint the tarnished dish with silver, black or gold to create a fantastic offering plate. Use handkerchiefs as mojo bags and tie with appropriate colored craft ribbon (about .45 a spool). Learn the magical properties of kitchen herbs like chamomile, anise, rosemary and mint in place of hard-to-find ones like mugwort, vervain or yarrow. Wash out empty, small-sized jelly jars and use them for storage.

The most important tool to being a craft teen witch is your imagination. Other people may spend the big bucks on altar supplies, but ones hand created with love and positive intentions can be equally, if not more powerful. With a special, personalized blessing and the right spark of creativity mundane objects can become magical!

source

To expand a little on this article, check out all post-holiday sales for great deals on all sorts of things that you can turn into magical tools. Yard sales are also another great place to find things that are affordable (just remember to do a ritual cleansing to release and residual energies from a previous owner).

What are some other suggestions that you all have for ways to get the tools/supplies that you need...at a price that we all can afford?  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

Check thrift stores. Sure, the items will be pre-used, but you can find candle-holders and dishes you can use for libations for just a couple of dollars.

The most expensive item would be your athame, generally. Kitchen knifes, being one-bladed, rarely suffice. But you can find cheaper substitutes in things like letter-openers in the shape of small swords or daggers. Some places also sell copies of daggers made from wood. Athames from magic stores can be pretty expensive, but for many people it's a special tool, so you may want to save up for a good one.

Then you have candles. They're inexpensive, but there's a tendency to want to have candles in many different colours, specific to season and holiday. White candles work for any purpose, as do black. However, if you're like me (and you may well be), you won't want to use a focus candle (rather than an illuminator candle) for two largely different holidays. In this case I recommend getting a single candle rather than a few. Re-use whenever you can - just make sure to cleanse, re-charge and re-consecrate... unless you've dedicated it to a deity, in which case you might want to keep it sacred to that deity.

Anyway, my point is: waste not, want not. wink

Don't buy candles or incense sticks from a magic supply store. They have good quality goods, but they're also quite expensive (which is fair, those stores are expensive to run). Buy them from places like Walmart or whatever stores you have in America. (Personally I'd shop at the Warehouse.)

For an altar pentacle, I bought one of those ceramic dishes you put under pot plants. Paint it. It's never perfect, but you made it yourself, so it's special wink

Having said that, I didn't find a proper use for a pentacle for a while. If you don't have a use for a tool, don't worry about getting one. Get one if and when you find you have a use for it.

Carl Neal's book "The Magick Toolbox" (which I highly, highly recommend) contains ideas of how to make various different tools, including more complex ones like the athame. It also reminds one not to make tools like the chalice out of materials or decorations that might prove poisonous. So check your local library for this book, it's on my "essentials" list for people getting into the Craft.  

[Korealia]

too2sweet

Black candles are often hard to find, so stock up during post-Halloween sales. Depending where you shop, you can purchase votives and tapers for as little as .10 each.

rofl I bought all the clearance candles at Wal-Mart after christmas. I spent like 20 bucks and brought home nearly 400 white votives. rofl

Places to look:
Craft and Hobby stores
FLEA MARKETS
THRIFT STORES
Garage sales

I cannot express enough that the COOLEST crap I ever ran across was from thrift stores or garage sales. The people weren't magickal and really had no idea what kind of witchy treasures lurked in their piles of junk.

I found at Goodwill once a small resin cup which had the face of Bacchus on it, clear as day. I bought this treasure for a friend of mine, who regularly hails Dionysis (same difference?). I also found a wooden finial for a ...stairway, I guess? The great thing is, it's completely wood and it's a three-fold Goddess statue. Stands like 18 inches, no kidding (needs to be refinished, but hey, it's used).


The Pentacle:
You can use one of those round wood plaques they sell at Wal-Mart or craft stores for .96 - 5.00 and use paint or a wood-burner to make them. If you need a template, you can generally play around with graphics on your computer to fit the circle's diameter.

If you've got a little more skill and money, you can get some clear contact paper and cut a pentacle design. Place the contact paper on a small circular mirror (also bought at craft stores and sometimes found in sections where candles are sold, as they look pretty on a mirror) and use some glass etching liquid (from like 8-25 bucks, depending on how much you buy at once).

The Athame:
The first one I ever bought was at a dollar store/flea market type shop when I was 15. It was double-edged, six inches long, wooden-handled and had a brass cap at the pommel. It was cheaply made, but sufficed for what I needed. It cost.....a dollar.

Let's review those thrift stores and garage sales - A LETTER OPENER WILL WORK. Meets all the requirements. Metal. Double-sided. And there you are. I've seen some really nice fancy ones at the Renaissance Festivals, pewter with all sorts of frill. But you don't need all that. Now...some people consider the blade fire, some people consider it air. If you're really hard pressed, you could always make one out of wood.

The Wand:

eek

Uh....oookkkkaaayyyyy. Say you can't handle just popping off a tree limb. If you use short wands, they make them out of glass, crystal, pewter, and copper......and those failing, WOOD. My wands are generally hand-made. At the moment, I have one that was given to me made from tallow wood (i think it's oak), horse hair, crystal and copper. I have made staves (Staff), rods, and wands from most natural things imaginable. I perfer wooden wands, and gods know where I picked up the requirement, but somewhere many eons ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I read they were traditionally made in length from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. I hold to this, being that anything shorter makes me feel awkward, and anything longer (a 'rod') might as well be a full blown staff.

The Chalice:

eek

I have had several. Personally, I look for hand-made ones, made of clay or wood. I have a nice silverplate one that was bought at Witch Mart for like 20 bucks which is tarnishing nicely in my dresser drawer. I hardly ever use it. Again, let me advocate garage sales and second-hand stores here.

All else fails, try Ebay.

Candles and incense, as long as it is stick, are never really the problem. Tools generally are the main concern. For things to hold my offerings, for my water, my salt, and other witch-like amentites, most of what I use, I have found through garage sales and thrift stores. ninja I have handmade clay bowls that some random individual made in a pottery class, only to donate it to some charitable organization or sluff it off in a garage sale. One man's trash is another man's treasure. Or better, one man's trash is a witch's treasure. 4laugh And IF you are going to go through the trails of shopping online, shop around. Look up several stores for items you might use, and price compare. There's nothing shameful about being a conservative shopper and honestly, your tools do not have to be crazy-ornate. We're not like some religions that amass blocks of gold only to make candlesticks and offering plates. Get creative!

Now...with that horribly long rant.... sweatdrop

.....Is there anything specific you're looking for? xd  

[Korealia]

uh, to further this thread, I submit BAKER'S CLAY!!! mrgreen

sweatdrop

INGREDIENTS
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup salt
1 1/2 cups water

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Mix the flour, salt and water. Knead dough until smooth. Roll out dough and cut into desired shapes. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 1 hour. Once cool paint with colors, if desired.



This stuff is like cookie-dough, but don't eat it, it's quite salty! This stuff is great for making items that have to be replaced frequently or that you want to be bio-degradable. For example, it is good to use for making working pentacles and runes or talismans that get buried, left out in nature, etc. Nothing really jacks with it too much because it's so salty, but you can add oils (a few drops when done) or crushed herbs in it (before it's baked) to give it power or fragrance it. It's paintable when it's hard, but if you want it colored more 'naturally', i suggest dyes. Very good tool for any witch, not just the witch on a budget!

twisted  

[iRayneMoon]

thank you very much. I needed a place to find real stuff. Not Harry Potter roll playing stuff. lol Soo thank you! mrgreen  

[Columbae]

Literally everything I use has either been salvaged from my grandmother's stuff, picked up at yard sales or thrift stores or hand-made. I even made my own pentacle necklace out of jewelry wire and a basic key ring -- it's not perfect, but it does the job better than any mass produced piece of jewelry I've worn in my life.

Both of my altar cloths - GORGEOUS, billowy, stunning things - were picked up for fifty cents a piece at a local thrift shop. I think they used to be someone's curtains or something. Oh wells. I buy white candles (votives and tea lights) in very cheap bulk at dollar stores or Walgreen's, but I have a hard time finding unscented candles in other colors. :/

I made my altar's pentacle, incense censors and candle holders out of clay. I use original sculpey, but any shape-and-bake clay would work well, I think. You bake, paint over with craft-grade acrylics (much, much cheaper than professional grade,) and seal with a clear glaze to prevent damage. I've made a set of runes out of this material, too, but I don't think they felt "earthy" enough, personally.

I've been wanting to make myself a broom for ages now. Suggestions?  

[too2sweet]

Check out the July issue of the newsletter for "How to Make Your Own Besom". biggrin  

[Columbae]

too2sweet

Check out the July issue of the newsletter for "How to Make Your Own Besom". biggrin

Genius! What a clever girl I am to completely overlook something so useful. *_* Thank you!  

[A Scarecrow]

Its also possible to make your own deck of Tarot cards, though since I've never done it I want go into detail.

Dowsing pendulums are fairly easy to make.
You take a length of string, I'd say about 6 inches, and a small Y shaped twig/stick. Then you wrap 1 inch of the string around the Y end of the twig/stick/whatever and there you have a dowsing pendulum. Not the best, but it does the trick.  

[Tari_Leralonde]

OOOkayyy....well obviously everyones gotten pretty much everything, I don't have much to add....
Try dollar stores (don't know if anyones said that yet). I was in Washington a few weeks ago and I went to a dollar store and I got the best stuff their for incredibly cheap. I got this wonderful box of incense---both stick and cone----that included an incense burner for only a dollar, and also a bunch of great meditation music for only a couple bucks. And I saw a whole bunch of stuff there that could be used as ritual tools, though I didn't buy them just because I didn't need them at the time. Dollar stores are a wonderful thing^^
And if you're still in high school---like me---ceramics or woodworking classes are great to take and make ritual tools in. I made a Goddess statue in my ceramics class last year, and my friend and I went through the very difficult process of making our own cauldron. It's medium-sized, asymmetrical, and not very well done, but it works wonderfully =)  

[StrawberryDaifuku]

I tend to salvage things. I had to use sand, clay, and wire for a school project, so I used the sand to put out these dowels I use to light my candles and to lessen the heat that comes when using charcoal incense. I made God and Goddess figurines out of the clay, and I attached a stone to my wand with the wire. (I think Sweet has seen a picture of my wand...) Discarded pieces of fabric were used to sew dream and protection sachets for Christmas gifts for my friends. My pentacle was salvaged from a craft I made when I was young. I have an offering bowl made from a pinch pot I made in art class in elementary school.

When I was first setting up my altar, I could be found dashing around my room looking through boxes of things that were put away for years. Brightly colored leis from vacation one year were used for decorations for spring holidays like Ostara.

Sales are great. One of my favorite stores unfortunately went out of business, and it had a clearance sale. By the last day of the sale, things were up to 90 percent off! My altar "cloth" (a placemat made from woven sticks and naturally colored strings) cost only .5!

You can also make your own candles from the wax of candles that no longer light, or from their drippings.  

[WitchyBoy]

your things dont have to be flashy or expensive to work.  

[LordNeuf]

Here's actually something I wrote for the magazine that wasn't published.

It was for our maiden issue, but we ran out of room. So keep in mind it's an old article. But you can change Ostara to Litha if it makes you feel better.

As seasons change, pagans have often redecorated and sanctified their home and personal altars to better separate that which is sacred and that which is mundane. This custom goes far back throughout history to pagans on all parts of the globe. As Ostara approaches, the devotion of the deities to the spring should not outshine one's devotion to their own altar.

One good way to start this is by cleaning your altar. Take everything off, remove the dust from it, wipe down the top and put that which is for Yule and Imbolic away from your altar, and store them for next season. Your sarong or altar cloth is what changes the mundane to the sacred. It also shows a pagan's individualism and reflects their personality. If you decide to clean your sarong, it should be the last thing removed from the altar top and the first to be replaced.

After your sarong is replaced consider what would be proper for an Altar for Ostara or Beltaine. Consider acquiring an idol or an icon tablet of the god or goddess, or even better, make one yourself. It mattes not if you use charcoal on white paper, or modeling clay, or a wood burner on a short plank of lumber, nothing shows more devotion to a deity than crafting their image. Personal taste is as important to your altar as is historic traditions. For example, historical tradition dictates that flowers that bloom in the spring, such as daffodils, tulips, hyacinths and irises, should be prominently displayed on a spring altar. However, deciding to put them in a vase, or making a wreath from the stems or bordering the altar with the leaves and budding flowers of the plants, is your personal taste. Scents of spring are also important; consider using a fruit or floral scented candle or incense to bring out spring time.

As you build up your altar, reflect on your own heritage and particular crafts and magicks your practice. Wands, divination tools, herbs, healing crystals, what ever you use in ritual on the altar should be kept on the altar, in its own pouch or container. To make an altar more personal, keep a few items of your family heritage on your altar. But remember to keep in mind you are making a sacred space, and it should not be too cluttered.

After you have finished deciding what is to be on your altar, consider a cleansing ritual to sanctify the altar. Once again take into consideration historical traditions and personal taste. Every pagan seems to have their own archetypal cleansing ritual, be it smug sticks, colored candles and incense, salt water, or one of several other methods, it is important to sanctify your personal altar with your own personality. Afterwards a feeling of pride and joy at the completion of the task is not uncommon, that is merely your gods showing their pride and joy in such a devoted follower.  

[Nattfodd]

Finding materials for any magical practice can be hard, and finding ones that make you proud of your altar can be even harder, so I figured i'd lay down some help in these regards.

Finding new or used, or otherwise mostly-made items, can be done at a variety of places.
Blades can be found for cheap at flea markets (here we have US1, and some others) or anywhere where you can find a knife salesman that buys wholesale. Some of the medium-sized knives are good enough to use -- some will even come with minor egyptian decoration, or possibly other symbols. After purchasing, you can etch in runes or whatnot yourself.

Various censers, dishes, candleholders, can be found readily at flea markets. You can also find other things at flea markets that you can make into materials that you need.

Buckland's complete book of witchcraft gives instructions on how to make some of your tools as well.

Appropriate figurines representing what you want on your table can be difficult to gather, so I recommend taking up the age-old art of WIDDLING, something that was taught to me long ago in boy scouts. A pocket knife and a cheap (or free) piece of wood can be made into whatever you want -- totem poles, statue-esque gods and goddesses, pentagrams, hexagrams, jewelry, candle-holders, anything.

Wax can be used in place of wood, but be careful, because some waxes are more brittle than others, and do not take as well to the knife.

I will say this -- making your own magical materials creates a much stronger bond in your work. Magic (and magick) are personal practices, and having that much more personality behind your craft will allow you to go through your work with more confidence.