Beltane Swap 2010

Beltane and come and gone, but it was very much enjoyed as well as this round of the WWP swap over on Craftster. And since my partner has received her items, it's time for me to share them with all of you.

Everything together.

In her questionnaire, my swap partner stated that she and her husband were trying to have a baby. Well being that is the same place my husband and I are currently at (we've been trying for baby #2 for 4 years now), I went off on the fertility theme like a bat out of hell! First up, the altar cloth. One of my previous trips to the fabric store (it's a wonder hubby ever allows me in there alone sometimes), I found some wonderful swirled batik fabric. Looking at both of the fabrics reminds me of the swirls fire makes and thought the colors were a perfect reminder of that. The cloth construction was also something different that I wanted to try, without having to cut tons of squares for a quilt type cloth.

Altar cloth

As with all my creative projects, I asked hubby what sort of items to create (he may be a computer geek, but he does have some really good artistic ideas from time to time). His idea was a fertility candle. Well once again I went with it. I found this website numerous times in the past and had never thought to bookmark it, but when I stumbled on it again, you can bet I added it to my long list of bookmarks. Twinkle Little Star is where I found the beautiful meditation that I included with the candle (a double score really. Years back I wrote the meditation down for my BOS and forgot to write down where it came from).

Fertility candle

The front of the candle has a dagger and chalice to represent the God and Goddess.

Fertility candle (back)

The back of the candle has some fertility symbols. A sea turtle which is a symbol of protection and fertility. A fertility rune and a fertility goddess. All of the symbols were painted on with a paint pen and left for a few days to dry before touched.

I love Beltane. I love head wreaths. I love making Beltane themed head wreaths. Especially if they have extra long ribbons :)

Head wreath

And last but not least, I think is my most favorite so far. Inspired by the Norse pantheon (which my swap partner and I both love), I painted Freya as the Fertility Goddess.

Freya as the Fertility Goddess

It's painted on a 5"x7" piece of canvas paper. The background was done in water color and the rest of the painting was done in acrylic paints.

There is a better picture of her over on my flickr.

Happy Crafting!

~K.Michele