Hello my darlings and welcome. Today I'm going to use a wood burning tool to make five wooden disks
for my travel altar to represent air earth fire water and spirit. Let's do some magical crafting.
First I'd like to start the video with a quick safety disclaimer that this witchy
craft is not appropriate for children. A wood burning tool gets very hot and I
don't think they're safe for children to use that being said, let's get started.
I'm starting with four one and a half inch round disks of unfinished wood. I
bought a bag of these wood cutouts online I think it would be fun to make a set of wood
burned runes with them as well so look out for another video on that sometime in the future.
I used a white pencil to draw the elemental symbols on each piece of wood. I wish I'd used
a regular pencil rather than this waxy white pencil. You'll see later that I use watercolor
paints on each piece and the white pencil resists the paint but I didn't realize this at the time.
I used a wood burning tool to burn each symbol into the wood. I put the burner
on the highest heat setting and work slowly and carefully with a light touch
With all the symbols completed I used watercolor paints to add the
traditional elemental colors to each piece. The colors will help to guide
me as I set up my altar. Two pairs of the four symbols look the same only reversed.
As the pieces are painted you can see how the white
pencil resists the color as I mentioned earlier.
I like to finish wood items with wax to deepen the color and make them look
a bit richer. To this end I saved the tail ends of my candles to use for this purpose.
I place the four pieces on a piece of tinfoil containing candle wax and then into a warm
oven for 10 to 20 minutes or until the wax is melted and soaked into both sides of each piece.
The oven does not need to be very hot - just enough for the wax to melt. For beeswax that's
about a hundred and fifty degrees Fahrenheit and for paraffin wax about a hundred degrees.
When you remove the pieces from the oven be very careful as they will be hot. I use
a paper towel or cloth to quickly wipe off any excess wax and buff the remaining wax
on each disc. Next I'm going to work on a large piece with a pentacle and
a moon to represent spirit. This piece will usually sit at the center of my altar setup.
If you'd like to download a PDF of this pentacle image please visit magical crafting on Patreon at
the link below the vide. My patrons can download all of the artwork recipes and Book of Shadows
pages provided there as PDFs. I'll be adding new downloads as I do more projects on this channel.
I trace the four inch circle onto the paper and cut out the design then I used a graphite
pencil to roughly sketch across the back of the paper. This creates a method to transfer
the design onto the wood. If you happen to have carbon paper that will also work.
I trace the top of the image while holding the paper firmly
in place. You can also tape the paper to the wood if you like.
When you're done the image will appear very light on the wood
so I went over the design with my pencil filling in any areas I may
have missed and adding a fun detail of moons and stars along the outer circle.
They're not in the original it's a sign but I thought they looked whimsical.
Next using the hottest setting on the wood-burning tool I started to
help line the pattern work slowly and carefully with a light touch.
Once the pattern was completely burned in I went back over with an eraser and eliminated all of the
pencil lines and then went back in and made the design a bit darker with the wood burning tool.
Once the outline was to my liking it was time
to get the watercolor paints back out and add some color.
I try not to put too much water on my brush when painting on wood so that the surface does not get
oversaturated and the color doesn't run out of the design and into the natural grooves of the wood.
Once again I finish the piece with a wax coating to seal the paint and deepen the colors.
These magical tools were created to be used in my travel altar. I will
cleanse and charge them and use them in rituals away from home.
if you'd like to see how I assemble my travel
altar you can check out my travel altar tour video.
Blessings on all of your magical crafting.