Witchy Crafts
60 Enchanted Projects for the Creative Witch
By Lexa Olick
Create powerfully magical crafts, tools, and more with this unique book offering step-by-step instructions for sixty witchy crafts you'll treasure for years to come. Let personal energy flow through your hands and into these fun and imaginative ideas especially designed for witches.
Witchy Crafts is an illustrated two-part manual with Part One covering techniques, preparing your craft projects, and gathering the necessary materials. In Part Two you'll find all sixty craft projects with detailed instructions...
Along with color photos, step-by-step drawings, and correspondence charts, you'll also find numerous helpful tips. Learn how to craft by the seasons, avoid common mistakes, and form a craft group.
Witchy Crafts is an illustrated two-part manual with Part One covering techniques, preparing your craft projects, and gathering the necessary materials. In Part Two you'll find all sixty craft projects with detailed instructions...
Along with color photos, step-by-step drawings, and correspondence charts, you'll also find numerous helpful tips. Learn how to craft by the seasons, avoid common mistakes, and form a craft group.
I sadly did not have the time to create every single one of the sixty projects in Witchy Crafts - I did do 6 of them from different sections to try and get a good idea of Lexa's instructional style and how workable each project was. The following 6 projects are the outcome, for good or bad, hah!
Witchy Crafts has something in it for every magickal crafter! There are crafts for beginners, crafts for experts, crafts for low budget, and crafts for when you want to go all-out on an altar piece or gift. Some of the crafts are huge and might take a week to make while others are tiny and could take less than an hour if you know what you're doing. There are crafts for every type of magickal practitioner as well, in my opinion. None of the crafts in this book have a definite religious brand on them and they can all be tweaked a little to suit your needs and style.
Pentacle Purse
I was so excited to see some crochet projects in this book! I love to crochet and I'm all the time looking for witchy patterns online and in books.
I ended up gifting this purse before I could take a picture of the finished piece, sorry.
Magic Wand Incense Stand
Here was the first issue I came across in the book. I just cannot seem to make a wand stand out of incense cones. I was so excited about this craft too - buying patchouli cones and glue sticks and working away in scented bliss at the craft table...only to have the glue burn me and stick to EVERYTHING and the incense cones fall apart and the stand break away just after my picture was taken. Ack!
I double and triple checked the book and couldn't figure out exactly what I did wrong. It migth have been the glue temperature, it might have been the type of incense cone I used, it might have been Mercury in retrograde or a void moon...who knows. If you attempt this particular project and it works for you, please let me know so I can see where we differed!
Kitchen Witch Wand
Probably my favorite of the projects I created.
The spoon was one of my cheapest craft buys ever - got a pack of 3 bass wood spoons at the dollar store for, you guessed it, a dollar. I used Aventurine and gold for the main color themes because I wanted this want to bring in growth, prosperity, and healing into my kitchen projects. The stone donut I bought at Stars of Alaska and the craft wire from Alaska Bead Company.
I did, of course, have to add my own flair to the wand with replacing raffia/hemp with gold plated copper wire and doing a lil pyrographed sigil on the back. 
Sugar Body Scrub
I tried this out in 2 different recipes to which I added my own ingredients:
Latte: Add a teaspoon or so of used coffee grounds (does cause some coffee residue in bathtub to clean out later) and a couple of drops of patchouli
Latte: Add a teaspoon or so of used coffee grounds (does cause some coffee residue in bathtub to clean out later) and a couple of drops of patchouli
Calm: Add 5-10 drops lavender essential oil and some lavender blossoms (last part might cause lavender residue in the bathtub to clean out later)
These recipes are very different from each other in that the coffee recipe can add a caffeinated kick to your bath while the lavender calms you down and relaxes you. I can't take credit for the first recipe at all (coffee and patchouli smell divine together btw) as I first tried it from a sampler bar at the organic foods store Earth Fare in Tennessee years ago - been in love ever since.
I'm Not Done Yet!
There are 60 projects in this book and I intend to try my hand at all of them eventually. Some of these would make such great Yule gifts for my witchy friends! I currently have on my crafty to-do list the Pentacle Wreath and Coasters, Goddess Cornucopia, all of the tarot projects (of course), the ritual capelet and clasp, and the Altar Fan. Yea, its a long to-do list...
Issues with the Book
Besides not being able to figure out what the hell went wrong with my incense cone wand stand...I did have a couple of other issues with the book.
When Lexa uses clay, such as in the Heirloom Chalice projects, she doesn't explain very clearly that baking the heirloom pieces like toys and buttons could cause them damage like melting and burning - big safety tip there. I know it should be common sense but I've seen enough craft projects in my time to know that people can get really into what they are doing and without gentle safety reminders they tend to forget that sort of thing.
In the chapter Marvelous Mixtures: Recipes to Delight the storage notes are lacking. When dealing with oils, especially base oils like cocoa butter and almond oil, I always consider the fact these might go rancid without proper storage. I was disappointed to find no notes on storing the lotion bars, sugar scrub, or milk bath and as to how long they should be stored for before going bad and no longer can use. This is something readers would have to look up on their own, so the book is not an all-encompassing resource for these crafts.
When Lexa uses clay, such as in the Heirloom Chalice projects, she doesn't explain very clearly that baking the heirloom pieces like toys and buttons could cause them damage like melting and burning - big safety tip there. I know it should be common sense but I've seen enough craft projects in my time to know that people can get really into what they are doing and without gentle safety reminders they tend to forget that sort of thing.
In the chapter Marvelous Mixtures: Recipes to Delight the storage notes are lacking. When dealing with oils, especially base oils like cocoa butter and almond oil, I always consider the fact these might go rancid without proper storage. I was disappointed to find no notes on storing the lotion bars, sugar scrub, or milk bath and as to how long they should be stored for before going bad and no longer can use. This is something readers would have to look up on their own, so the book is not an all-encompassing resource for these crafts.
Happy Little Chapter Extras
I really loved all the little extra chapters added to the beginning and end of the book that sort of hugs the projects together.
The section on creating a craft group is wonderful for those witchy types that want to get together to celebrate and create. Its especially good for those of us who are solitary and hermits...ehem...to remind us to get out there and be around like-minded magickal people sometimes.
The Witch Trials and Errors chapter near the back of the book that covers different difficulties you might run into when creating these craft projects is super helpful. She covers allergic reactions, the need to work with non-porous materials like glass, and keeping your craft tools away from your kitchen tools.
I'm also a big fan of the charts in the Appendix. These are great and super simple references. I do, however, always recommend every practitioner create their own metaphysical correspondence charts at some point.
The section on creating a craft group is wonderful for those witchy types that want to get together to celebrate and create. Its especially good for those of us who are solitary and hermits...ehem...to remind us to get out there and be around like-minded magickal people sometimes.
The Witch Trials and Errors chapter near the back of the book that covers different difficulties you might run into when creating these craft projects is super helpful. She covers allergic reactions, the need to work with non-porous materials like glass, and keeping your craft tools away from your kitchen tools.
I'm also a big fan of the charts in the Appendix. These are great and super simple references. I do, however, always recommend every practitioner create their own metaphysical correspondence charts at some point.
Rating
While I really, really loved the projects and the whole concept of the book, I did have a couple of working issues with it. In the end I give Witchy Crafts 4 Stars
The Author
Lexa Olick has been crafting for over twenty years, creating artwork through knitting, crochet, felting, ceramics, sewing, and more. Her artwork has been featured in the online magazine Dark Romance, Dog Fancy magazine, and the Showtime series The L-Word. Lexa is also a talented writer who as received numerous awards for her screenplays.
Visit her online at WitchyCraftsBlog.com
Visit her online at WitchyCraftsBlog.com
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