I am in the midst of a deep love affair with the moon. Can you tell?

She and I have always been close, but recently we have taken things to the next level. It's serious, you guys. Every time I put pen to paper, a moon seems to find it's way to the page. I have moon magic on the mind.

I think, as a species, we are hard-wired to love the moon. She and the stars were our first calendar after all. Our first discernible method for knowing when to plant seeds or hunt or harvest or get married or baton down the hatches. Ruler of the tides. Our companion in the darkest hours of the night. The thing every-single-human-who-ever-lived-in-all-of-history has in common. Our nightlight. Our sister moon.

Tracking the ebbs and flows of the lunar calendar is a lovely way to stay connected to the rhythms of the natural world during the long dark days of winter. It also helps set clear times each month to start and finish projects, give thanks, check in with ourselves and manifest intentions. If this resonates with you, and you haven't checked her out yet, run (don't walk) over to Chani Nicholas's amazing blog. This woman is a mystic moon mama / lunar guru who has changed the way I connect to the night sky.

I am a big fan of marking occasions, and pretty much any excuse to use gold leaf, so to honor this Saturday's full moon, I pillaged my craft drawer and created these delicate paper moon phase flags. This is one of those projects that is very forgiving and soothing to work on. A creative meditation of sorts. Light a candle, put the kettle on and curl up with the moon for a spell.

Supplies

- Watercolor paper (at least 7 sheets)

- Watercolors

- 2 paintbrushes ( I used one soft round brush and a shader with a hard edge for details..but whatever you have on hand will work.)

- Adhesive size for metal leafing

- Gold leaf sheets (Just a bit. I used less than a sheet on the whole project.)

- Hole punch

- Roughly 6 ft of hemp or ribbon

Instructions

1. Start by tracing something circular very lightly with a pencil to get the shape of your moon on one of your pages of watercolor paper. I used a roll of masking tape as a guide and chose square paper so that I wouldn't have to worry about cutting the flags to an even size.

2. Start filling in the circle with water with a wet brush. Slowly add little blooms of watered down color (I used grey) around the edges of the circle. Let dry. Repeat, allowing the layers to instersect and flow into one another.

3. Now you can start adding some darker splotches of color for depth. Play with using less water and more paint on your brush to create craters. Layering is key. Let dry between layers. Experiment and play. My only advice would be to only add a little paint at a time and know when to stop...it's easy to go too far. I found that I liked mine best when I left a little white space within the moon. What I love about this project is that it is very forgiving. If you make a mistake, just add a little water. Easy peasy. You can also use a dry brush to brighten areas if they start to feel too dark. I haven't used watercolors in ages but I could see how they could be very addictive. So calming.

4. Repeat process with the rest of your moon phases, using a pencil to shape out the area you will be painting for each phase. I only created 7 phases (including 2 new moons) but you could easily add as many phases as you'd like. To create the new moon, I simply splotched* (technical term) my brush around the outside of my masking tape to get this effect.

6. Once all your phases are totally dry, get a clean brush and apply a small amount of the adhesive size to the areas of the moon you want to gold leaf. I found that asymmetrical brush strokes looked the most "moon-like" when the leaf was applied. Let size dry for 10 - 15 minutes or until clear.

7. Apply gold leaf to the clear adhesive size. The leaf should stick only to where the adhesive was painted. I just used my fingers to apply it, taking little scraps from here and there to make interesting crater shapes. Use a soft paintbrush to gently brush away the extra gold leaf. Again, work in layers as a little gold goes a long way.

8. Punch holes in the top 2 corners of your moon phases. I used a jewelry hole punch to get teeny tiny holes, but a regular hole punch would also work.

9. Carefully string your phrases together with twine or ribbon. Be delicate as you work, it would be easy to rip the paper. I used a little bit of candle wax on the end of my hemp to help make threading it through the holes a bit easier. Worked like a charm. Feel free to add beads or tassels or feathers to the end of your flags if you are feeling extra fancy.

When I finished my flags I realized how easy it would be to slip them into a pretty envelope and send to a far away friend. Spread that luna love.

Thanks for stopping by lovelies. Have a lovely cozy lazy wonderful weekend.

xo,

I am a firm believer in the power of setting intentions. There has always been something magical for me about writing/drawing/stating goals that sets the universal wheels in motion and brings big dreams into the physical realm. The new year provides us with the perfect opportunity to meditate on what we want to bring more of into our life, what we want to release, and the concrete steps we can take to manifest our goals.

This year my goals are to finally bring the lovely wild into existence (yay!), meditate for at least 15 minutes every day, and practice photography by shooting every day until I have at least one image I sorta-kinda-almost like. What are your goals for 2016? What do you want to attract to your life?

It's easy to make resolutions, but often difficult to keep them in the forefront of our minds once the newness of the new year has worn off. What better way to gently remind of us these goals throughout the year than with a handmade piece of art hung lovingly in our home? And it's pretty! So there's that.

This simple DIY is the perfect way to spend a lazy afternoon with a cup of tea and can likely be made with whatever bobs and ends are rolling around the back of your craft drawer. If you don't have metal stamping supplies, no worries! You can write your intentions on craft paper, ribbons or wooden beads and attach them that way. Even if noone else can read them, you will know they are there and that's the whole point.

Materials:

*Please note these are merely suggestions. Feel free to improvise and use whatever you have to hand. Embroidery hoops can easily be replaced with wire bent to form a circle, ribbons can be used instead of yarn, etc.

- 2 embroidery hoops of different sizes

- Natural wool yarn (about 1/2 a skein)

- 1.5 ft of wire

Optional:

- Metal stamping alphabet

- Steel block

- Metal blanks

- Hammer

Step 1: Making the moon

Start by removing the inside hoops (the ones without the metal clasps) of both embroidery hoops. These will be the hoops to form your moon. Hold the smaller hoop against the inside of the larger hoop (shown above) and play with it until you find the crescent moon shape you want. The bigger the difference in size between the hoops, the larger your crescent will be. These were the only hoops I had on hand so my crescent is more of a sliver.

Once you have a shape you like, tightly wrap the wire around both hoops to hold them together. You can use a drop of hot glue between the hoops to help it hold if necessary, but the wire seemed to do the trick for me.

Step 2: Cutting lengths of yarn

Decide what length you would like the yarn tassels to be and multiply it by 2. I wanted my tassels to hang about 2 ft down from the moon, so I cut my yarn into roughly 4 ft length so they would be 2 ft when doubled. I wasn't sure how many lengths I would need, so I worked in chunks by cutting about 10 lengths of yarn at a time, attaching them, and then cutting again until it felt finished.

Step 3: Attaching tassels

Attaching the lengths of yarn is super simple. Fold your piece of yarn in half. Pull the halfway point (or loop side) through the inside of the bottom of the moon. Now bring the tail ends up, through the loop and pull tight so that tail ends trail down below. Thats it! Now push this tassel to the right and repeat the process with the rest of your yarn lengths. The best part of this project is that you can keep adjusting the spacing between loops as you go, and keep adding tassels until you reach your desired thickness/density.

Step 4: Adding texture

Once you have completed all your tassels, now we can add some texture. I braided a few strands and tied knots in strands here and there to add depth. Feel free to add beads, feathers, ribbons, whatever calls out to the raven in you.

Step 5: Preparing to stamp

Metal stamping! One of my most cherished gifts this holiday was a metal stamping alphabet from my ever-crafty mother and I have been looking for any excuse to try it out...can you tell?

Start by using masking tape to attach your metal blank to the steel block. Make sure the tape is straight, as you will use this as a guide for your letters. Next, take a marker and evenly mark a dot on the tape for each letter in the phrase you are stamping. If you are feeling really fancy, you can measure these out, but I'm more of a "wing-it" kinda gal and actually like the look of imperfections.

Step 6: Metal stamping

This was my first time stamping so I am by no means an expert, but it was definitely one of those instant gratification crafts! You may want to place your steel block with the taped blank on a book to dampen the noise a bit. Take your first letter stamp and line it up with the first dot you marked on the tape. I gave mine about 5 - 8 good whacks with a stamping hammer and it made a nice impression. Repeat the process with the rest of your letters, using the tape as a guide to keeping them straight and even. If you miss a part of a letter, you can try to slip the stamp back in the impression and give it a few more whacks. I just love the imperfect handmade feel of these!

Step 7: Attaching intentions

My blanks came with holes pre-drilled, but it would be easy enough to drill a small hole if yours did not. I attached my stamped intentions with a little leftover wire wrapped around the bottom of the moon, in between the yarn tassels. I played with pushing the tassels around until they mostly hid the wire.

Step 8: Hang and manifest

That's it! Now hang your lovely New Year Moon Intention hanging somewhere you will see it daily and smile. Here's to good luck and good health in 2016!

Thanks so much for stopping by.

xo,

DIY :: Watercolor Moon Phase Flags