Domythic DIY Compilation

How to transfer a photo to wood. I can imagine doing this on a more curvy wood-block and enhancing it with paint. The result could be quite Domythic.


Making miniature photo frames for extremely-cheap. I could definitely see little classical mythic artworks in here, added to an organic faerie cottage or somesuch.


This one's not an especially easy looking craft, but the results are lovely. Making a faux metal filigree frame from toilet paper tubes.


Faux stained glass tutorial.

Dollar Store Apothecary Jars

Tonight's Domythic DIY is one I shared in the Facebook group a while back, but perhaps some of you missed it. It's a method for making Apothecary jars using items from the dollar store for next to no cost!

Here are the instructions.

Here's a blog from someone who found a way to make them even cheaper by using a less expensive wooden finial painted metallic.

Even less expensive, here's a version that can be done for $2 with two items from the dollar store:

Inexpensive Moroccan Lantern DIY

Tonight's Domythic DIY is another one I found a while ago and have been wanting to try, but haven't had the chance to yet. But what a fun idea it is for an outdoor party.

Spaghetti sauce jar Moroccan lanterns



A couple of beautiful painted jars from Etsy seller LitDecor.

Embossing Velvet

Tonight's craft is embossing velvet. While sorting through some old Martha Stewart Christmas magazines to discard at the library, I came across an article detailing how to emboss velvet leaves to use for making Christmas wreaths and runners. Of course velvet leaves have about a trillion year-long uses in a Domythic home too.


But beyond creating leaves, you can emboss velvet and use it for pillow covers, curtains, blankets...any and all fabrics needed around the home.

A botanical rubber stamp set available on Etsy would work great for this. The seller has other stamps that would work great too.


Another great article detailing how to emboss velvet is here.

Shadow Box from the Dollar Store

Whenever I ask for feedback about Domythic Bliss, one thing that is often brought up is the desire for more advice on how to decorate in a Domythic way that's affordable. I also have a lot of people ask for more D.I.Y. posts. There's an added challenge to these two requests, and I've mentioned it a time or two already...Domythic style is all about creativity and individuality. Therefore, it's difficult to do a post on affordable decor when much of what you can find that fits the bill will be obtained through garage sales and antique stores (and are one-of-a-kind). And of course it's challenging to do D.I.Y. posts when the most Domythic of the D.I.Y. projects are ones that are quite open to individual expression and putting your own mark on a project. (A perfect example of this is Windling Trees...we have a whole forest of trees forming from blog readers and artistic minds who are painting trees on their walls, but each one has its own character and style)

But I'll try!

So I wanted to start a series on Domythic Crafts. Most of these crafts may not seem very Domythic at first glance, but the important thing is to keep your mind open when looking at crafting sites and projects. Today's craft is one I first saw in the book called The Big-Ass Book of Crafts 2. Almost all of the crafts were very colorful, quirky, and modern-art-esque, but this particular craft idea struck me as extremely versatile and potentially useful.

How to Create a Shadow Box from Dollar Store Frames

This craft works well for a Domythic home because there are so many potentials for narrative items to put into a shadow box! Create a multi-level diorama from pictures cut from a fairy tale book. Or follow Bryony Whistlecraft's brilliant lead and create an "Evidence of Faerie" display utilizing local magical items you find. Gather your materials and put them in this shadow box made exceedingly affordable.

Domythic Craft - Faerie Book Tree in a Dome

Time for a little Domythic D.I.Y.!

I have a glass dome in the center of my mantle. I bought it a month or so ago from a local antique vendor I love, Dresden Junk-shun. The dome is 7" tall at the center, and I believe I paid either $3 or $5 for it.


It was only after I got the dome home that I realized the base of the glass fit the lid from a jar candle I had already burned down and disposed of. The candle lid would make a perfect base for the glass.

For a while, I had the dome centered on my mantle, with a red heart candle I own inside to celebrate Valentine's Day. But since Valentine's season is now over, I wanted to change things up a little. I had it stuck in my head that I wanted to do something inside that was Domythic and involved a miniature tree.

I stopped by Dresden Junk-shun again today and happened upon a small brass taper candlestick that only stood about 3" tall or so. It was a definite purchase at $1.


From the craft store, I purchased some modeling clay. I actually needed this for another project, so I don't even count it as an expense toward this one.


After searching the craft store high and low for an appropriate dried or faux floral item that could be broken up or divided to resemble a tree, I came up empty handed. I thought perhaps I could use some wire to make an armature and cover it in the clay. When I walked out, I decided to take a meander beside the store, and found a pine tree there with several smaller saplings underneath it, bare branched and quite lovely. I took a few tiny branches from the tree, being sure to leave an offering (please make sure you do this for anything you take from nature...today, I didn't have a stone or feather with me, so I buried a penny from my pocket), and went on home.

Well, wouldn't you know, when I reached my back yard, I glanced over at my flower bed and saw a dried Sedum plant with foliage that was just what I was looking for.

I broke off a branch of the plant. Taking a little bit of the clay (about the size of a flat quarter or so) I pressed it into the bottom of the brass candlestick, and used it to support the twig of Sedum. To make up for the size difference in the top of the candlestick, I stuffed moss into the top.

The base of the dome, once a candle lid, I painted with black and gold paint mixed together. Once that dried, I did a layer of gold nail polish (thanks Bryony for the tip!) around the edge, making it look like worn and aged brass or gold, instead of the original shiny silver of the lid. I added moss to the base of the dome as well.


Now for the fun part. While at the craft store, I perused their selection of doll house accessories, hoping they might have something whimsical or fantastical. I was delighted to find a package of miniscule books, with pages and everything. A package of a dozen or so was $2.99. Perfect. I carefully placed some of the books in among the "branches" of my tree, and laid some at the feet of the "urn."


In one open book, I wrote the words at the beginning of Yeats' "Stolen Child" in teeny tiny handwriting. (It's a good thing I write very very small normally anyway)


Finally, I leafed through my spare crafting copy of Brian Froud and Alan Lee's Faeries (I've used this for crafts before...the paperback edition was falling apart when I picked it up at a yard sale for a quarter) and found a selection of text I wanted to use. I burned the edges of the paper carefully (my goodness, that paper burned quickly!) to add a feeling of age.


To get the paper to stay upright in the back of the dome, I put two glue dots from a package I had (I do love glue dots...they come on a roll, and they have been useful in many a craft) on the paper, and carefully pressed it to the dome.

And there you have it...my Faerie Book Tree.



Here it is in its final location at the center of my mantlepiece.


And finally a shot of the tiny book with my pinky finger for size reference.

The final cost of this craft was negligible: $3 for the doll books, $1 for the brass candlestick, and $5 (I'll go high end since I can't recall) for the dome. Less than $10 total! Oh, and incidentally, the branches I broke off from the tree beside the craft store still got used...I put them in an awesome antique bottle I also found today from Dresden Junk-Shun. The purple bottle has an embossed tree and "Straubmuller's Elixer: Tree of Life: Since 1880" on the front, and "Nectar: The Golden Life of Health & Vitality" on the back. Perfect.



This was an incredibly enjoyable craft to create for the house. I was tickled to see it come together, and it's the especially fun sort of craft where you can use bits and pieces of my idea along with what you might have on hand to create your own version. If there's no Sedum available, go for a walk and find another winter plant or tree that could possibly yield a miniature "tree" of its own. If you can't find dollhouse books, hang baubles from the branches of your tree, or cover it in glitter and beads. Bottom line: make it your own, and have fun!!

Our First Post on Budget Decorating

Decorating on a strict budget can be so very frustrating. This is especially true when your imagination runs wild with all sorts of ideas for what you could do to spruce up your home and make it more mythic, romantic and adventurous. The imagination is willing, but the pocketbook is weak. The internet is full of all sorts of amazing examples of breathtakingly beautiful one-of-a-kind artisan pieces created for just the sort of home you may want to create: Wrought iron beds elaborately welded and crafted to look like trees arching together. Life-size statues of Titania with small faeries dancing in her hair. It's easy to look at these things, and wistfully sigh, if only.

I know these things. Oh trust me, I do. I myself have an extremely strict budget on all home purchases as well. And I can tell you that as a budget decorator, there is one cardinal and very important rule to remember (and I'm looking at myself in the mirror as I say this): Be. Patient.

There are about a million plans I have for our house (first time home owners, moved here a year ago) that have not yet been realized. And a big part of the reason why for several of these projects is that I haven't yet found something I need to make them happen. We would love matching corner cabinets for the dining room. We would love a long, short bookcase for the upstairs hallway. We would love a window seat for our bay window. I could go on, but I won't bore you ;) The point is...if money was no object, we could go out and get all of these items tomorrow. We could even order one-of-a-kind whimsical show-stopper artisan versions of them on the internet. But money is very much an object, so the spaces we reserve for them remain empty, and I have to keep reminding myself to be patient...be patient...be patient.

There is a sort of gift given to those of us who have to wait for an affordable price on an item we've been searching for. The gift arrives when we finally discover that perfect beautiful antique cupboard tucked into the back of a flea market stall, or half-covered with a sheet at a garage sale, finally found and at a great price. It's in those moments that our patience pays off, and we realize it was so very worth it.

Let me give you a personal example. When we moved in to our house, I decided I wanted our bedroom to be enchanted forest-themed. We painted trees on our walls (a post on that is forthcoming) and I wistfully dreamed of being able to get a beautiful bed like the aforementioned wrought iron one that has been seen on many a blog:


The bed is beautiful. It is truly a work of art, deserving of its $15,000 price tag. But of course a bed that cost more than both my husband and my cars combined would not be feasible for our house budget. I scoured the internet for a more affordable tree bed alternative, and found absolutely nothing in our price range.

But I continued to do a daily search on Craigslist (I have a list of about 20 daily searches I do on the local Craigslist in our city) for "queen bed", looking to find something that really seemed just right for us. We didn't have a bed frame at all, so over time, my search got less and less picky, and there were several times I almost purchased something I found.

Then, just a few days before my birthday in June, I typed in my typical search to Craigslist, and my heart leapt into my throat. My hands started shaking and I couldn't type an email to the seller fast enough. The perfect bed was on the screen in front of me...a tree bed, magical and enchanting, but simplified enough for our cozy small cottage home.


And instead of $15,000, we paid $170.

Patience is sometimes rewarded in a big way, and every time I look at the bare corners of my house, waiting for the piece of furniture we hope to put there, I remind myself of the tree bed I wanted, and finally found.