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    #16
    Re: The Budget Pagan

    lol that brings back memories! when i was just starting out i would go into the field next to my house and get the herbs that I needed and i would put them on my altar in my sisters play house. Mom always thought she was "decorating"

    but now i have so many things that i have gotten second hand its not funny. Even my tea lights are second hand lol. the only thing that i have gotten first hand is by bos of course.

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      #17
      Re: The Budget Pagan

      [quote author=thalassa link=topic=561.msg20282#msg20282 date=1291667726]
      I like these...you can nail them into the studs in the wall for an awesome little shrine.
      [/quote]

      OH OH, shrines!!!! Check this out. Pirate old drawers from the discarded dressers and desks in the dumpsters outside of apartment complexes! Take the front handle off, and set it upright, so the front of the drawer is the base! It's wood, it's sturdy, and it's utterly free! ..minus maybe a bit of household cleaner. If I wasn't so opposed to posting pictures of my working altars, I'd show ya. Hm. Maybe I ought do up a generic one to show everyone?
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      Your brain is a part of reality, and, as such, is privy to its darkest secrets.

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        #18
        Re: The Budget Pagan

        A lot of my stuff is stuff I found or stuff that was given to me. I don't have a permanent altar, but my box alter sits in a gorgeous wooden box that my partner has had for years. I use a kitchen knife as an athame, my wand is a stick I found, my disk is an Ancient-Egyptian-style bronze plate that my mum gave me. My mortar and pestle was a gift, too. Only my cup was bought, and that was probably a bad purchase (beautiful, and speaks to me, but hideously overpriced).

        Oe thing I love doing is picking things up when I go for walks. Around my neighbourhood there are all sorts of different trees and plants! Jacaranda, jasmine, lavender, pine. All I have to do is grab bits on my way to or from work! As long as my neighbours don't catch me, that is

        I also try not to waste anything. If I'm cooking with lemon juice (with a lemon taken from the tree at work), I'll use the rind to make lemon oil, which can be used in cleaning as well as in rituals.

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          #19
          Re: The Budget Pagan

          Garage sales are a great place to look. My naos is a stand-up jewelery box from a garage sale that I modified inside to hold my statue.

          I also like to make things because I feel it adds more power and personal significance, not to mention saves a few pennies. I made the clay seal out of soil from various locations mixed with straw. I make my own kyphi, many annointing oils, and natron, so the only money I plunk down are for supplies. I've also started to make my own candles, so that gives me an avenue to test them out in ritual.

          Discount stores as well as grocery stores are places that I agree shouldn't be overlooked. Most of my "vessels" and offering dishes were bought at a discount from various places. One annointing oil I can actually obtain from the pharmacy (castor oil is still commonly used, who knew?) I got a pill box for free from a local health food store that only has six slots, which works since I use three different types of incense throughout the day. There's also the findings of ritual brooms (I've even found the same brooms from catalogs and save almost half the cost compared to the catalog), my incense cup that goes inside my brazier (I use those mini incense holders that doubles for cone and stick use), and more. If you use a lamp you may be able to get away with using olive oil; it was used in ancient times for lamp fuel and also doubles for annointing oil.

          I think we've all beaten around the bush about it, but the multiple uses for one item shouldn't go overlooked. Like I said I found olive oil to have a couple of uses in my practice. The more "purposes" I've found for an item, the better.

          I appreciate how people mentioned places like Goodwill. My lamp came from the Salvation Army. Heck, my bowl for purification came from a charity chili cookout. It was five dollars well spent; who can turn down good food, a reusable bowl, and helping the local community?

          I think it was mentioned earlier, but it deserves mentioning again: waste not, wont not. I reuse bottles, and that provides the bottles for my annointing oils and a few prayer jars. Leftover scraps of cloth from a sewing project becomes ritual cloth to dress my statue. The leftover burnt wick and charcoal pieces too small to relight are mashed up and made into "kohl". Green eyeshadow that looks terrible on me is used for "malachite" (though, tbh, it probably has some copper compound in it to make it green). Just look at it and ask yourself how it can work in your practice.
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          "...leave me curled up in my ball,
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            #20
            Re: The Budget Pagan

            Most of the articles on my altar were obtained from a Goodwill thrift store. I intend to post some pictures at some point. There's a couple pharaoh heads (I need to get them ID'd, but for now they represent the Ancestors, as in both my own bloodline and my spiritual predecessors in Kemet), but my favorite part of the altar is the fountain: less than $10, it's made to look like a little rock garden, and I added cheap red and blue food dye to make the water look like blood (which makes sense if you know anything about Sekhmet). Keeping the fountain full of fresh tap water (it dries out fast) is my basic regular offering.
            Be Excellent to each other - or something will Happen to you.

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              #21
              Re: The Budget Pagan

              Even though I hold the belief that tools aren't necessary to the practice of Witchcraft (although they do make it a whole lot funner! ) I have gathered quite a few tools over the past years.

              Most of my tools came from second-hand stores, where I found plenty of cheap candles, candle holders, incense burners, incense, crystals etc. Mostly everything you would need to obtain to perform even the most elaborate ritual could be found from a couple of visits to some local second-hand stores and even $2 shops!

              As for wands/staffs, try looking in your garden or a local park you'll be surprised at what other things you can find in nature also!

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                #22
                Re: The Budget Pagan

                Dollar stores, thrift stores etc. are great places and is where 85% of the tools I own are from. I got a motar and pestle at the thrift store only for $2.00 Thats pretty cheap considering what there worth. Also dollar stores sell tealight candles, and chime candles only for like 2 dollars. I got a big brass pot that works good for a cauldron only for 3 bucks at the thrift store. Also though your tools can be found out in nature. Next time you go to the beach you can collect shells, (if you find a big deep one that can be your cauldron) and stones. Stones can be used as crystals in my opinion. If you can't afford a, lets say rose quartz crystal, you can go to the beach collect a tumbled stone that speaks to you, and charge it with the properties of rose quartz. That would probally make it 10x more powerful and effective. Wands can be found out side (as we all know) Also your altar can be found outside. This might sound a little cooky but, I went to the beach last summer and I wanted to make an all natural altar. (never happend but I do use it as a altar for something else) and I was looking for two medium sized rocks as a plat form. And one huge rock for the top. I was looking all day, it was quite an adventure. I then found this massive heavy rock that was used for the top. I picked it up and booked it to the car. I got really weird stares, and I think back on it and thought, was I aloud to even do that lol? I also forgot to leave an offering, so make sure you do that too. (this summer I will.) Also for scrying meathods if you dont want to invest on a crystal ball, a bowl of spring water, or even your televison or your phone, (what I call the portal scrying vessel) is a great way to scry if interested. Also for any type of divination cards you can either make your own, by buying bristle board at the dollar store, or even better, they are starting to sell tarot cards at the dollar store. For a pendulum, I made my own when I first started pendlums. The dollar store sells little rocks with loops in then that people use for jewlary. They have like 8 in a pack I think. (some look like crystals) Then what you do is attach that to a chain or a string, voila theres your pendulum(s) Another thing that dollar store sells is, crystal pendants. I have seen rose quartz, quartz crystal etc. on a necklace. These can be used to wear, but also you can cut them off the string, un attach them, and use them as a tumbled stone. They are fairly small but not too small. Also the dollar store sells incense, but also they sell like an esstial oil infuser. You put a candle at the bottle of it, but your oils or scent on top and it smells the room. That could be used for a meditation if you have ashma. Also the baulk barn sells some oils, but used for cooking, but you can get cinnimon, orange oil, clove oil, and leamon oil, which you can use for meditation or for any other use. They also sell huge pouches at the dollar store. They sell mirrors, and statues of some deities that I saw, like the goddess Bast, and one time anubis. They have angle statues, anD I also got a dragon there once too (if your guides are those beings ) They have wooden boxes to put crystals/stones in, or even little prayers you have for a prayer box. The possiblites are endless and you can almost make anything spirtual. Most things are at dollar stores/thrift, and also out in the great natural world. Good luck to you all on your journey and hope some of this was useful.!!! Blessed be

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                  #23
                  Re: The Budget Pagan

                  Another good one is to go to flower shops for the flower petals you need. If you go in and ask for the flowers that are too wilted to sell to customers you can typically get them for free or for cheap and they aren't usually all that wilted.

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                    #24
                    Re: The Budget Pagan

                    sorry to hear this .

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                      #25
                      Re: The Budget Pagan

                      The best place is to find things in nature for free! I also highly recommend thrift stores and yard sales. The dollar store is a good place for some things.

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                        #26
                        Re: The Budget Pagan

                        Originally posted by Tylluan Penry View Post
                        Mr Penry always keeps interesting pieces of wood from whenever he prunes the hedges and trees in our garden. He makes these into lovely wands, staffs and incense holders. One his wands was actually bought by a witchcraft museum in Switzerland!
                        Where in Switzerland? I've never heard of such a thing...

                        Also, IKEA!
                        ThorSon's milkshake brings all the PF girls to the yard - Volcaniclastic

                        RIP

                        I have never been across the way
                        Seen the desert and the birds
                        You cut your hair short
                        Like a shush to an insult
                        The world had been yelling
                        Since the day you were born
                        Revolting with anger
                        While it smiled like it was cute
                        That everything was shit.

                        - J. Wylder

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                          #27
                          Re: The Budget Pagan

                          This has been my favourite thread so far! Yay, collecting beautiful things to charge and use at a later date! I do this on every single vacation, and have for as long as I can remember. River rocks, flowers, feathers, drift wood, etc. Very cool to know that others agree with me: magic and it's "accessories" don't have to be purchased from azuregreen.net or your closest new age shop.

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                            #28
                            Re: The Budget Pagan

                            Seriously, this thread is absolutely awesome. I know that there's a lot of household goods, things that you can usually find already in your house or out in your yard that can be really useful for certain pagany tasks. I make my own lotions and lip balms and stuff from things I have at home, but I also learned a process to make my own oils in much the same way, and ink as well. If you have a Book of Shadows and prefer to use ink in it, I'd have to find the recipe I used, but it turned out nice and dark (I believe coffee was involved, if I remember right--I'll see if I can find it) and it didn't take all that long to make.

                            The oils are a bit more time consuming, but not that bad.
                            It's a really, really cool thing, to be able to show people that you can be yourself, and you should be proud of yourself, and you should own who you are and what you're about, and never make apologies for it.
                            -Adam Lambert


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                              #29
                              Re: The Budget Pagan

                              I love this thread so much I was inspired to see what I could do for a cheap easy portable altar so here's my results (it's a link because I apparently "exceeded my upload quota"?):


                              Yes, the altar board is a cheese cutting board, equipped with its own Athame it was hand crafted my the P.A Dutch Amish, and was two dollars at the local habitat for humanity store yesterday, the metal duck burner, and the candle, and holder we're each fifty cents a piece. The only thing not shown is an Abalone shell, which I bought a while ago I use for smudging.

                              This small effective Altar cost me 3$, heck yeah.

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                                #30
                                Re: The Budget Pagan

                                That is totally awesome! And for only $3? That seems like a pretty good deal as far as I'm concerned! I usually end up spending a bit more than that, but wow. Now I'm inspired to see what I can do. I don't think I can beat $3, though... Wow.
                                It's a really, really cool thing, to be able to show people that you can be yourself, and you should be proud of yourself, and you should own who you are and what you're about, and never make apologies for it.
                                -Adam Lambert


                                Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Free Weight Loss Tools

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