Taken from the Flower Magic Branch Class.
December is not the month to grow sunflowers so for my choice of flower on this lesson I used the seeds. I purchased 3 types of sunflower seed - black, white and striped. I also got some sunflower seed hearts. The surplus seeds were scattered outside on the Winter Solstice as an offering and to provide some sustenance for the local wildlife. You never know, along our long drive there may be some random sunflowers blooming in the Summer.
I wanted to make a poppet this time but one that was quite a change from my usual. With protection as a correspondence, I decided a home guardian was a good idea. I also wanted something that would make me smile whenever I saw it (her). The mythology of Apollo and Clytie, the water nymph who was turned into a sunflower to follow Apollo's chariot across the sky each day was the source of inspiration and the name I selected for the poppet guardian. I layered the seeds in colour stripes in a small glass jar. This was to be the body of the poppet. I carved a small rubber ball to form a head and mouth before covering this in brown felt. I cut shapes from felt to make leaves and petals and covered pipecleaners in more felt. I wound brown string around the "legs" and green embroidery floss around the "arms" to make them look a little more like roots and stems. The "arms" had leaf hands and you can see from the photographs how the rest were used. Pins are sometimes used to activate a poppet and in this instance I made use of this by painting the heads of two dressmaking pins black and sticking them into the face to make eyes. A liberal use of acrylic paint pens added depth and shading to give more detail. A lot of glue was also used. The process took several days and for each session I added my intent to the working and drew energy from the Winter sun. Spending time with this project really allowed me to connect with it and strengthen that intent.
Clytie is now residing in my kitchen (incidentally painted a sunflower yellow) and watches over all the goings-on. The kitchen serves as the heart of my home so I feel this is the right place for her. When the season is right, I'll add a little vase of sunflower blooms to the kitchen altar to tie everything together.