Weekly Challenge Entry - Wonderful Wands
I decided to try and make another wand. I made my first one for the Sacred Trees and Wood Challenge. I got as far as whittling, sanding, and staining the branch by the end of the challenge. I finished it a few weeks afterward. I don’t think I’ve ever used it. I know at some point I had polymer clay additions but they cracked off pretty easily and away into hiding the wand went.
I feel silly, to be honest, using large tools, so I decided to try a smaller one and see how that fit with my practice. I decided to use a skewer as a base and then roamed my craft supplies to see what I could find. The silver metallic polymer clay was an easy choice. Then I looked for stones that had a “lunar” quality. And yes, @BryWisteria you did guess right that I was making a wand specifically with Artemis in mind 
I found some small cat’s eye cabochons in silver and purple and complimented them with flashy moonstone faceted beads. The cabs, I knew how to mount in the clay using a bezel of clay, but the beads… I wasn’t sure since they were tiny. I test-placed a few of them and was just going to try to make a moon design, when the next thing I knew, I was creating spirals around the wand using moonstone. I think I got lucky with the right thickness of the clay in that the beads were embedded without doing anything extra to hold them in place. I even put a moonstone in the tip!
This is where I was at the end of the day yesterday.
I knew I wanted to add a light black wash to bring out the details and top it with a dragonfly purple sparkle glaze. You know how they say “The enemy of good is perfect”?
I decided to add one more layer of a satin glaze but something went wrong and it cracked and was semi-opaque. 
I did my best to use water and soft cloth to polish and remove as much as I could to try to salvage the wand.
Then hesitantly I added one layer of the purple sparkle glaze and called it good right then and there. It’s not perfect, but none of my handmade items are. I love the weight of it and it has an interesting but not uncomfortable feel with the faceted stones embedded in it.
The top glaze adds such a delicate shifting purple-blue sparkle to it that perfectly fits the blue flashes in the moonstone.
And just to give you a comparison of before and after a light color wash and glazing
(Before adding additional color
)(After
)
Now to cleanse, charge, consecrate, and dedicate my new wand! 
As always, I’m happiest when I creating or making 
