Linda Raedisch
This year’s Crafty Crafts are all made either exclusively of paper or with paper as the main component. We’re going to fold, cut, glue, and roll it. Paper has long been my preferred artistic medium. For a time, I was known locally as the “other origami lady” (long story!) but while the crafts in these pages are not origami projects, strictly speaking, it would not hurt to dust off your grade-school paper-folding skills.
As much as I love paper, I hate to measure. If you take care to line up your edges neatly and make sharp creases, you’ll almost never have to measure; the folds will do it for you. Fold a sheet of paper in quarters to find the center point. To turn a rectangular sheet into a square, fold a triangle at one end and cut along the bottom edge. When cutting a pattern though several layers of paper at once, spread your fingers wide so the layers don’t shift. Treat the paper with respect and it will be your friend.
Some of these projects call for specialty papers which can be quite expensive. Keep in mind that I made almost all of the prototypes with plain old white printer paper, and they looked fine. Also, I’ve put asterisks after supplies that are used in more than one craft, so what looks at first like a long shopping list will get shorter as you craft your way around the Wheel of the Year. And then again, you might like to mix it up. Swap orange and black for red and green, or substitute pink for gold, red for blue, etc. Many of these crafts will do double or even triple duty at your Sabbat celebrations. There are no rules (except for tidy folds).
Black and Orange Basketwork Star
Our first craft is based on a type of Christmas star I have seen in Germany and at Scandinavian craft fairs. I have seen them made of wood strips and of red and white paper. There is even a plastic version with a little light inside. Because Samhain is coming, we’re going to make them in black and orange.
I must say I am not pleased with the current trend toward using purple at Halloween, especially those horrible purple bat costumes you can buy for children. Bats are not purple; they come in brown, gray, and, in the case of fruit bats, a rusty orange. (Besides, purple is for Michaelmas—more about that later.) If you make these stars in purple, you can expect me to come knocking on your door to complain. You do, however, have my full blessing to make them in black and green for Walpurgis Night.
Time frittered: Each star takes about 10 minutes, but, of course, you’ll want to make lots of them.
Cost: About $8.00 if you use quilling paper (and if you don’t have any glue in the house), cheaper if you cut your own paper strips.
Supplies
¼" wide quilling paper in black and orange (Quilling paper usually comes in 24" strips which you can cut in half to make 12" strips. If you are using another kind of paper, make sure your strips are at least 10" long.)
White all-purpose glue*
Black or orange thread
For each star, you will need 6 black and 6 orange strips of paper. Begin by weaving your strips together as if you are making the bottom of a square basket. Hold on! Don’t start yet! You are going to weave two separate basket bottoms: one with 4 orange strips interwoven with 2 black, the other with 4 black strips interwoven with 2 orange. Remember that place mat you wove out of construction paper strips in first grade? It’s the same basic technique, except that this is openwork weaving, so you are going to leave about ¼" (or one strip width) between each strip. When the strips are properly positioned, fix them in place with tiny dabs of glue.
Observe one of your finished basket bottoms. Notice how at each corner there is an orange strip adjacent to a black strip. Give each of these strips a half twist then glue their ends together in the shape of a pen nib or candle flame. Do this at the other three corners to make three more candle flames. Repeat the whole process with the other basket bottom.
Now comes the fun part: joining the two basket bottoms together into a hauntingly beautiful Samhain star. See those straight strips sticking out between each candle flame? You thought they had nowhere to go? Wrong! Those strips are the key to assembling your star.
Lay one basket bottom over the other so the center squares are at 45 degree angles to each other, i.e., one positioned like a square, the other like a diamond. Also, the basket bottoms should be convex-side out so they are bulging away from each other. If they are kissing, turn them over!
Once the two halves of your star are positioned correctly, you will be able to easily glue the tip of each candle flame to the strip that’s sticking out of the other half star. Once all the point and strips are glued, trim off the projecting ends and you’re done!
Make lots and lots of them, hang them from threads and put them in the window for the duration of the season.
Tip: For a more intricate star, weave your basket bottoms using ten strips of paper each instead of six. (The star will still have only eight points.)
Wispy Greeting Card
I love to send cards at Halloween—all those pumpkin-colored envelopes flying off across the country and the ocean to distant relatives who might not even be thinking of black cats and witches’ hats until my card arrives. If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you like to send cards at this time of year too. The will-o’-the-wisp is my favorite symbol of the season. What’s that you say? Wispy is not an official Halloween creature? Let’s change that right now! Whether you call it Halloween or Samhain, this is a holiday centered on children, for it’s through them that we pay our respects to the ancestors. Will-o’-the-wisps are children too: they’re the ghosts of babies who died abandoned and unchristened. Are these little Pagans of long ago not deserving of our special attention?
Time frittered: About 15 minutes, more if you get involved with the collage elements.
Cost: About $15.00 if you don’t already have any of the supplies listed below. But $15.00 will set you up to make many cards, not just one.
Supplies
For each card: one 8½" × 11" sheet white drawing paper or other fairly heavy paper*
Hole puncher*
Tape*
Gold acrylic paint*
Broad paint brush*
Collage elements (optional)
Fold your drawing paper in half like a book and cut along the crease. Fold each half in half again to make two cards. Sketch the shape of your will-o’-the wisp on one half. Remember, a will-o’-the-wisp is part ghost and part wavering flame. Make him big enough to fill the space nicely, leaving plenty of room around him to “glow.” Cut him out and use the hole puncher to make his eyes and mouth. This is your template.
Place the template over the plain card and stick it temporarily in place with a small roll of tape. (Here’s a trick I learned at art school: before applying the tape roll, tap it lightly against your clothes. It will pick up some lint and be easier to remove later.)
Now paint over your template in broad strokes of gold paint, making sure to get into the mouth and eye holes. Don’t load the brush with too much paint; you want the brush strokes to show. Peel off the template carefully and there he is, your very own will-o’-the-wisp, looking like he simply materialized in the midst of some random brushstrokes.
You can use your (now gold) template to paint more cards. If it starts to get tired, simply make a new one.
You can quit here or add some collage elements. I like my Wispy with horns, which I might make with tiny, glittered twigs or snippets of millet from an old broom. Why the horns? Because Wispy is a kind of “spook,” a word that, along with the devilish Old Norse puki, springs from an ancient root denoting a horned, mischievous spirit. I also like to give my Wispy a pair of tiny hands cut from black paper. These symbolize the marsh mud, which is his natural environment.
I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is yes: a Wispy card is just as appropriate at Yuletide as it is at Halloween.