Summer of Crafts: The Wooden Staff (1)

So, here's the first post about a series of crafting projects I'm currently doing. First off, my staff.
As you know, I have bought a heavy glow-in-the-dark staff at Keltfest ealier theis year, and have since then fell in love with staff-juggling. However when it comes to events like Keltfest, or -more of current concern- Castlefest, the neon-yellow lining of the juggling staff kind of clash with the mandatory mideaval/pagan/celtic costumes I'll be wearing at these kinds of events.



So, I decided to make a new staff myself! I was going to make one myself, and would be from wood,and encrypted with pyrography, and... and.... and.... Anyway, after dreaming came actually doing it when I a begged an old wooden broomstick of my mom's. I had previously walked through the forest some and decided that the chances of finding a natural stick of at least enough lenght wich was straight enough were really tiny.

Then, there were several ways of making it into a staff.
It needed
a) Decorations
b) Markings to indicate the center, and quarts of the staff
c) weights.

The weights were the most difficult. After some research I found out that the neon-staff I bought was weighted with old inner-tires from bycicles. Although tempted to break apart my bicycle, I waited a week to go to my old hometown and went to the bicycle-repairshop. I asked them for old, useless (leaking) inner tires, and strangely enough, they were not surprised by this request, instead, they were surprised I needed only two (they had about seven or eight to offer me.)

By the way, the black cloth is a secret preview to my second project....

Anyhow, after a *very difficult, mystical and secret process*, I attached the parts together. It then needed decorations and a handle. I could use several methods for it, but eventualy I decided on doing it all through woodburning. Mostly because I simply felt like it ^^

I did several markings. At the ends I wrote to poems in Runic, both by Omnia. (So technically, they're lyrics, but hey, lyrics are poems to!) I'll leave it to those who are able to read runes to figure out what lyrics I used precisely.







So, after this picture whore-fest (pardon the language), I must announce that these pictures are allready out-of-date: After consideration I decided that the weights needed to be attached more firmly and that I didn't like the woodburned handle-markings (they were done a little scewed), so I added emergency measures.
Oh, and I began working on staff #2, this one for Earthlycolours. It's not finished yet, though ;) (updated pics shown below)